there are certain rules in hollywood involving the portrayal of romantic relationships on the big screen . certain combinations of leads naturally go together  handsome men and beautiful women being the predominant pairing . lately , a trend has emerged involving cute young adult males and lovable teenage females ( usually with shows on fox or the wb ) and , once in a while , moviegoers are treated to the unlikely affairs of rickety old men and chicks half their age . stars are always fit , have great teeth , skin and hair , and are usually white . films that stray from these templates of success are generally resounding box office failures . why ? because people won't line up for number 18 with hunan foot , the touching story of a chinese guy with a really large head who falls in love with a 70-year-old lady leper . they will also reject mommy , i'm taller than daddy , starring a middle-aged single mom with a huge raised birthmark on her face and her lucky find  a midget with one eyebrow and a cowlick . howard stern has made a career out of shining a spotlight on those aforementioned oddities . until now , if you wanted to hear a drunk dwarf , paranoid stutterers or alien lesbians , howard was the only place to go . hollywood could only ignore his phenomenal ratings for so long . so , along comes the other sister ( * 1/2 ) , a film that bills itself as `a romantic comedy for the emotionally challenged . ' translation  a love story about two retards . they meet . they fall in love . the have a fight . they get back together . they get married . and they drive off with their car dragging a `just lobotomized ! ' sign . okay , i made that last part up , but it would have been more original than anything in sister's tiresome script . the film opens with carla ( juliette lewis , natural born killers ) having just graduated from the roselake , a school for mentally-challenged children . carla flies home to san francisco , where her father ( tom skerritt ) and overbearing mother ( diane keaton ) seem intent on keeping her at home under a watchful eye . they live in a giant house with a live-in maid and a gate , so one has to wonder why they didn't just lock her in the attic . like the kennedys . but carla has other plans . she wants to enroll in a public vocational school . her parents say no but eventually give in . she wants her own apartment . her parents say no but eventually give in . she wants a boyfriend . her parents say no buthey ! are you tired of reading this yet ? try sitting through 130 minutes of it . lewis is remarkably unremarkable as carla . but , then again , carla isn't too far off of the roles that she usually plays . her love interest daniel ( giovanni ribisi , saving private ryan ) is much better , but also not much different from his recurring role of phoebe's brother on friends . actually , the only difference is fake teeth . keaton's mother is purposefully and pleasantly annoying while skerritt is just plan scary sans facial hair . sister was written and directed by garry marshall , who hit the big time with 70s television shows like mork and mindy and laverne & shirley . his resume as of late boasts the blockbusters dear god and exit to eden . this is the first script he has written since 1984's the flamingo kid , proving that writing must not be like riding a bike . but , hey  if you watch with your eyes closed , it sounds just like howard . 2 : 10  r for adult situations and mild languageplanet sick-boy : <a href= " http : //home . eznet . net/~jpopick " >http : //home . eznet . net/~jpopick</a> 
