I like reviewing films I like. Trashing formula films is too easy and not as much fun. I was almost forced into that mode this week since the only recent film I had seen was Bring It On, the Kirsten Dunst vehicle about cheerleading squads that has as much substance as a cheerleader's pom-pom. And then, last night, I was saved by the Tao of Steve.This is the film that won several awards at the Sundance Film Festival including a best actor award for leading man Donal League. You may not have heard of him, but you've probably seen him in films like Runaway Bride, Jerry Maguire, and this summer's The Patriot. The Tao of Steve is League's thirty-ninth film since 1990, but almost all of his appearances have been bit parts. Here League is center stage as Dex, an overwieght, unmotivated womanizer who is fond of quoting Thomas Aquinas, Heidegger, Kierkegaard, Lao-Tse, Buddha, and pretty much anyone else that comes to mind.The title refers to Dex's belief that people like Steve McQueen, Steve McGarrett, and Steve Austin are the cool guys of the universe who have figured out how to make women want them. James Bond is a Steve, but Gomer Pyle is a Stu according to Dex, and Stus are the opposite of Steves. Dex's philosophy seems to be working since he moves from one sexual conquest to another--and then he meets a woman named Syd. The heart of this film is best explained when Dex tries to explain the motives of Don Giovanni - "Don Giovanni slept with 1,000 women because he was afraid he couldn't be loved by one."From the opening scenes it would be easy to write this off as just another trite film about a womanizing party animal, but this is really a morality play about human relationships and personal integrity. Dex never quotes Martin Buber, but he should. Buber is the author of I and Thou, and in that work Buber contrasts I-It relationships where we treat each other as objects with I-Thou relationships where humans meet and relate to each other as soul touching soul. Commenting on gender roles and the war between the sexes, Betty Friedan once said "beneath our masks we are very much alone." This is the heart of Dex's dilemma.This is the directorial debut of Jenniphr Goodman (her spelling not mine), and Jenniphr also receives first-time writing credits with Duncan North and Greer Goodman (the director's sister who also makes her screen debut in a charming performance as Syd). The chemistry between Dex and Syd reminded me of John Belushi and Blair Brown in Continental Divide. The plot is not particularly innovative, but the charm of this film is not the destination, but the journey itself. Good writing and charming performances make for a fun film that is worth a look

Some have complained that this film doesn't say anything serious about Taoism; others have complained about its dialogue being watered-down from what could have been a super-verbose "Dinner w/ Andre." Sorry - this from a film student who abhors "my dinner w/ andre" - thank God this film ended up as eminently watchable as it was. I avoided seeing it for a long time because I feared exactly the opposite. Firstly, the central observation this film makes about human nature is so spot-on -- namely, that every relationship is comprised of someone chasing and someone being chased -- that almost no direction it could have taken from there would have undermined the essential honesty of it. But framing, as it did, a story of boy meets girl, forgets he slept with her in college, strikes out, becomes desperate, finally gets her back by going against every rule in the book, the story becomes a smart, no-nonsense telling of a quintessential human drama that resonates realistically on so many levels. People have said it's a chick movie; it's not. It's a movie for guys who fear intimacy, its essential message being that a relationship of real value can never be condensed from the vaporous nuance of gamesmanship, slyness, intellect or skill. But at the same time, it demonstrates very realistically how all the above can combine to get the average guy laid far more than he deserves. So not only is it valuable on both these levels, it leaves you nodding your head so many times, mumbling, "that's so f*ing true," that by the end you're pretty much ready to write your own Tao of Steve -- a better one -- and isn't that kind of inspiration the loftiest goal of any good and truthful work of art?

The script was top-notch as well as the acting, especially Donal Logue.The Tao of Steve is a code that Dex(Logue) and his friends live by for attracting the opposite sex. One must be desire-less, be excellent and be gone. Dex lives by this creed faithfully until he is reintroduced to a college fling he can't seem to remember, Syd(well acted by a sensitive Greer Goodman). Syd proves to be too advanced intellectually to be swayed by the power of The Tao, so Dex must reevaluate his life in order to attract her.Dex is an average lazy, rather obese man that avoids the stresses of life, through smoking weed and practicing apathy. To be honest, I don't know if Dex deserves a second chance with Syd, but I liked the character regardless and rooted for him.A well done comedy that will tickle your funny bone.

THE TAO OF STEVE (2000) ***1/2 Donal Logue, Greer Goodman, Kimo Wills, Ayelet Kanelson, David Aaron Baker, Nina Jaroslaw, John Hines, Selby Craig, Craig D. Lafayette. (Dir: Jennipher Goodman) Donal Logue. The name may not ring any bells but you've seen him before in countless tv shows (including `The X-Files' as an arrogant fellow agent of Scully's and Mulder's) and films (one of Tom Cruise's fellow agents in `Jerry Maguire' and in this summer's blockbuster `The Patriot' as a racist who sees the error of his ways on the battlefield), but his biggest claim to fame seems to be as the greasy, bespectacled chatterbox philosophizing taxi hack, Jimmy The Cabdriver, in a series of promos for MTV in the '90s. Well all that's about to change in this> starmaking role in a devilishly funny and accurate look at the relationship war between men and women. Logue, who pulls a De Niro by gaining nearly a hundred pounds, stars as Dex, a self-deprecating part-time kindergarten teacher who attends his ten year college reunion in the dusty oasis of Santa Fe, New Mexico where he is told by stunned classmates at his jarringly gone-to-pot visage that he was like Elvis. `Yeah, well now I'm Fat Elvis,' he says with a hip shake and a smirk. It is here the journey begins into Dex's eventual chipping away at the wall of sardonic intelligence he's built since attending the university. Dex has a certain acquired charm that he attributes to his own quasi-philosophy, the film's title, referring to the ultimate in guy coolness as being a Steve (as in McGarrett - the Jack Lord character of `Hawaii Five-O', Austin, `The Six Million Dollar Man' and McQueen, the coolest actor of all time, or any suave icon down the pike: James Bond, James Dean, et al.) - and the opposite being Stu - and the certain guidelines in wooing the opposite sex wrapping up with his ultimate kwon, `We persue that which retreats from us.'At the reunion he bumps into Syd (Goodman, the stunningly attractive sister of the filmmaker), a fellow alumni who turns out to be one of Dex's apparent number of sexual conquests in which he later learns he cannot recall her at all. She is equally self-effacing, smart and opinionated and naturally proves to be the ultimate love of the loveless (`I love my dog') Dex. Here the plot sets into motion the inevitable formula of two people so right for each other yet both guarded, Syd for her share of heartbreaks and Dex for his chronic lying and seductive charisma like some sort of catnip for women including the wife of one of his pals, who he's engaged in a hot affair.Logue makes Dex sympathetic, funny, pathetic, infuriating, likable and ultimately an original character the likes haven't been seen since John Cusack's hey dey in the Eighties and the characters of the 90's indie comedy, `Kicking and Screaming' about arrested development and lifelong search for the perfect love. Dex is an enigma and the joke is that Dex realizes how unsavory he has become which also is the underlying angst he knows all to well: someone with so much potential only wasted by his own hand. Goodman and her sister both excel in portraying women who are smarter than men think and provide the true anchor in a freely funny comedy that also examines one's own frailites and insecurites on a truly appealing level. Co-written by the sisters and Duncan North, the real-life model of Dex, the dialogue rings true in a brilliant string of set ups for Dex to pontificate before he deflates himself in recourse.One of the best films (and comedies) of this year (or any). And remember that name: Donal Logue.