Ron Howard has The Dilemma out today and you might recognise his usual films as a bit more serious than his latest fare. Howard is the director of such Oscar powerhouses as: Apollo 13 which got nine Oscar nominations, A Beautiful Mind which gained eight nominations and won four of those including Best Picture and Best Director, Cinderella Man which got three nominations at the Oscars and finally Frost/Nixon which received five nominations. He's also the director of the Da Vinci Code and Angels and Demons adaptations. Howard is no stranger to comedy however, his first few films as a director were comedies. However, he first started out life as a child actor, most notably on The Andy Griffith Show, a popular show that aired during the '60s and on Happy Days between 1974 and 1984 as the character Richie Cunningham alongside The Fonz himself Henry Winkler. Ron Howard's first film as director in 1977 also starred himself in the lead role. The film follows a rich girl who steals her father's Rolls Royce and heads off to Las Vegas to get married with her boyfriend. However, in tow are her angry parents, a jealous suitor and a bunch of reward seekers determined to stop her. His second film was also a comedy, called Night Shift. It starred his Happy Days co-star Henry Winkler alongside Michael Keaton as two men working in a morgue, who decide to help out their prostitute neighbour by using their morgue as the headquarters for her. It was with his third film that he started his Oscar recognition. The film got an Oscar nomination for its script. He made the film Splash, starring Tom Hanks, in a very early role as a man who is saved by a mermaid (Daryl Hannah) as a boy, then can't forget her and falls in love with her. Between then and now, Ron Howard hasn't seen much of the comedy genre until now. His film The Dilemma stars Vince Vaughn and Kevin James, both of whom are hardly the men of the hour in the world of comedy at the moment. Critics have said that, although boasting a good cast, it just doesn't know what to do with the film, bouncing between slapstick and dark comedy as Vince Vaughn sees Kevin James's wife out with another man. It runs in the family, his daughter Bryce Dallas Howard has popped up in some of his movies as a child and most notably she has appeared as Kate Connor in Terminator Salvation and as Gwen Stacy in Spiderman 3. Oscar winner he is, Ron Howard will still continue to provide good entertainment, but his comedy may have been lost along the way by the sounds of The Dilemma. FemaleFirst - James Butlin
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