1	leonardo decaprio ( what's eating gilbert grape ) and claire danes ( tv's my so called life ) star in director baz luhrmann's modernized version of william shakespeare's classic , romeo & juliet . surrounded by a superb supporting cast , in-cluding paul sorvino ( goodfellas ) , brian dennehy ( tommy boy ) , pete poslethwaite ( the usual sus-pects ) and john leguizamo ( executive decision ) , decaprio and danes shine throughout the film . the story starts off at a gas station , where the " montague boys " meet the " capulet boys " and square off with one another . symbolizing the swords of shakespeare's day were their weapons , like the " rapier-9mm " or the " longsword- shotgun . " instead of killing each other right away , they shoot around , just like in sword fights of old . another great thing about the film was the performance of harold perrineau as romeo's best friend . mercutio , who in shakespeare's novel was quite a stud , was portrayed as an afri-can-american cross-dresser whose violent na-ture , was a definite plus . miriam margoyles , a virtually unknown actress was astounding as juliet's nurse , even though she was never given a name . she was the only one who could keep juliet out of her fantasy world . verona was the home of the rival families in shakespeare's version , only slightly changed in luhrmann's . now known as verona beach , the capulet's ( led by sorvino ) and montague's ( led by dennehy ) are now rival corporate dynasties . and their small family skirmishes were now huge gang wars . one slight problem with the film was the difficulty to comprehend the dialogue , since it was spoken in old english . sub-titles could have helped in the beginning of the movie , but toward the end , it became easier to understand . this excellent movie poses another prob-lem : what genre is it ? romeo & juliet contains so much drama , yet enough comedy and action to be placed in either of those categories . with the same award-winning formula that was used by quentin tarantino in reservoir dogs and pulp fiction , romeo & juliet is a sure fire modern masterpiece . ,
0	a big house . a big director , jan de bont of speed and twister fame . a big star , catherine zeta-jones , hot of the heels of entrapment ( 6 . 5/10 ) and zorro . a big remake of the haunting . and big special effects . so what do they all amount to ? unfortunately for us , a big bore ! plot : a hotshot doctor brings three insomniacs to an old , spooky mansion for controlled testing . unbeknownst to the patients , the good doctor is actually conducting his own cover project that has to do with the psychology of fear . critique : this movie just didn't scare me one bit . sure , it creeped and spooked me out a little here and there , but on the whole , it took waaaaay too long to get going , provided very little meat in the plot , went way past its own bedtime , and basically relied on grunts , the muttering of children's voices and over-the-top special effects , to scare us . well , this film didn't do much for me . and they might as well have called it the " haunting of lily taylor " , since she's basically the only character who had any real depth , background or reason to be in the house in the first place . don't get me wrong , catherine zeta was sweet window dressing ( despite my continued perception of her faint mustache-see entrapment ) , and owen wilson was good as the standard " comic relief " , but come on people , if you're going to have us sit through two hours in a theater with these folks , how 'bout giving them a little more than one-liners as dimension . neeson was also wasted as the smart , british guy . it's all too sad , cause certainly the " idea " seemed like a good one ( see the shining ( 9/10 ) for a close to perfect example of a creepy gone awry ) , but the story was thin , the conclusion was laughable ( be gone . . . poof ! ) and the special effects ? well , they sure were nice to look at , but not for a moment did one of them scare , or even for a split-second , have me believe that they were anything more than hollywood special gadgetry . see it for zeta-jones , or if you like special effects and scary movies that take forever to get going , and provide very little payback , otherwise skip it and check out the original or the ultimate movie about spooky homes from the netherworld , the shining . little known facts about this film and its stars : goofy actor owen wilson co-scripted indie favorites rushmore ( 8/10 ) and bottle rocket with director wes anderson . his brother luke wilson is also an actor , who once dated drew barrymore for a year or so . brother andrew is also an actor . singer lisa loeb is listed in the credits as having portrayed the character of olivia morice , but i personally did not notice her . she is well known for her number one single " stay ( i missed you ) " and goofy glasses . the creaks and moans heard throughout the house were prerecorded and played during filming in order to get a more natural expression of fear out of the actors . catherine zeta-jones is currently dating flabby ass actor michael " sex is my life " douglas . she stands 5'8 " . in 1998 , actor michael rapaport pleaded guilty to the aggravated harassment of lily taylor . he was ordered to stay away from her and undergo counseling for one year . actor bruce dern , who plays the throwaway role of the gatekeeper in this film , was once nominated for an oscar for best supporting actor for his role in coming home . director jan de bont was born in holland , and began his lengthy career as a cinematographer on films as die hard , hunt for red october and basic instinct , directed by another dutchman , paul verhoeven . actor todd field also played a small but pivotal role in stanley kubrick's last film , eyes wide shut . he was nick nightingale , the pianist . this film was originally titled the haunting of hill house .
1	by phil curtolo mel gibson ( braveheart ) gave a gripping performance as the father of a young kidnapped boy in ron howard's ransom . gibson plays tom mullen , a wealthy business tycoon whose past actions are coming back to haunt him as a deranged psychopath , played by gary sinise ( forrest gump ) , and his band of low-life thugs kidnap his only son for $2 million . tom and his wife , kate , played by rene russo ( tin cup ) were instructed not to inform the police , but they contacted the fbi . minutes later , an elite team of agents led by delroy lindo ( broken arrow ) are in tom's house and wiring every phone . the plot sounds average , just like most other kidnap movies that you've already seen , and it was nothing more than that . that is until about half-way through the movie . suddenly , tom goes to the fox 5 news room and makes a live broadcast saying , " this is your ransom . but this is as close as you will ever get to it . instead , i am offering this money as a reward on your head , dead or alive . " at this point , the plot thickened , and the unusually slow start of the film turned into a suspense-filled action film with great stunts . the last half of the film is very well done . another thing that carries this film are the superb performances by gibson and sinise , as they collide in a game of wits over their cellular phones for most of the movie . owen gleiberman of entertainment weekly commented on the subject : " it makes you wonder what kidnappers did before cell phones . " before this movie , sinise played mostly " good guys , " first in of mice & men , then in forrest gump , and most recently , in apollo 13 . but he was surprisingly devilish and cold in his portrayal of a cop-gone-bad . gibson , of course , was just being gibson , in an oscar-worthy performance . although most of the scenes were quite predictable , ransom is a very entertaining and suspenseful film . ,
0	a hotshot lawyer gets an obviously guilty child molester acquitted , and shortly after during the victory celebration gets offered an opportunity to show his prowess in new york city . the lawyer , kevin lomax ( keanu reeves ) is not offered a job yet , he is asked to simply pick a jury . he accepts . the jury he selects work out well and before long he is offered a job with the firm . making his decision easy is the fact that not only is he offered big money , but a gorgeous apartment . he convinces his wife , mary ann ( charlize theron ) to make the move to new york . the first case given to him is a big test ; a " winless " case concerning a man who sacrifices animals in his basement . the charge was health code violations and kevin once again shows his skill and earns an acquittal . his new boss and partner in the firm , john milton ( al pacino ) is quite impressed and takes kevin under his wing , explaining many of his philosophies on law , women and sex , and angles the promise of a blissful , wealthy life . kevin's next case is a dream case , given to him by milton himself ( much to the chagrin to his colleagues ) , defending a triple murder suspect who has had a history of problems with the law . although kevin's career is taking off , his home life is not doing very well . mary ann is starting to have numerous problems . she is experiencing severe depression over kevin's long hours , and before long is having horrible dreams and hallucinations of people turning into ghouls , their faces becoming horribly disfigured . kevin does not help matters by dismissing his wife . he does not spend more time with her as he explains to milton that he needs to spend as much time on the case as possible to get it over with , then focus all of his attention on his wife . not helping matters is the fact that kevin is having ideas about a possible affair with a sexy lawyer ( connie nielson ) also working with the firm . mary ann falls deeper into her madness as kevin spends more time away from home . kevin eventually looses control of his life and has to institutionalize his wife , and gets disturbing news from his mother ( judith ivey ) about the mystery concerning the identity of his father . he also starts to lose control of his case . kevin learns that all of his problems have been caused by the work of one man . that man is his boss , mr . milton , a truly evil character who just may be the devil himself . kevin must somehow confront milton and thwart whatever diabolical plan he has in store . but how do you defeat the devil ? why is it that most courtroom scenes in the movies are absurd ? do filmmakers really believe that " normal " courtroom drama doesn't fit the bill and they have to juice them up ? the courtroom scenes in this movie would never happen in a real courtroom , which wouldn't have been too bad if it weren't keanu reeves trying to pull it off . i give reeves credit for trying hard , but throughout the movie i never saw the kevin lomax character , just an actor trying very hard to play kevin lomax and coming up short . charlize theron defines the term " over-the-top " in her performance as mary ann lomax , a disappointment in contrast to her good performance in " 2 days in the valley " . the only good performance in the movie is by al pacino , but i kept asking myself what the heck he was doing in this mess ? maybe he felt it would be interesting playing the devil , and you can tell he is having fun doing so , but his skill as an actor cannot save the poor performances and lackluster script that surround him . it's pretty standard stuff , including the fact that the hotshot lawyer appears to be the only competent person on the planet who can do anything right in the courtroom . please read no further if you do not want the ending spoiled , but i have to get something off of my chest . in 1986 i remember watching a movie called " wisdom " with emilio estevez and demi moore , and the ending of that film did the worst possible thing that a movie could do . what i like to call " guess what , it was all a dream " scenario . in " wisdom " the two lead characters are killed at the end , only to have one of the characters " wake up " from an apparent and say " gosh , i'm glad that didn't really happen ! " . i considered it inexcusable the way the audience was toyed with . well , the same thing happens in " the devils advocate " , and although arguments could be made surrounding whether it was actually a dream ( perhaps milton went back in time to try a different route for his plan , since it failed and he is the devil ) , but the point is that the last 90% of the film didn't happen . i know it's a stretch , after all it is a movie and nothing really happened , but i just get annoyed to get toyed with like that . of course , the dream ending could almost be forgiven if the story that precedes it was at least an interesting one . as i recall , " wisdom " was a decent film . " the devil's advocate " is not . the devils advocate directed by taylor hackford john milton . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . al pacino kevin lomax . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . keanu reeves mary ann lomax . . . . . . . . . . . charlize theron mrs . lomax . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . judith ivey eddie barzoon . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . jeffrey jones christabella . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . connie nielson written by randy turgeon , march 18 , 1998 .
0	i love movies . i really do . every time i watch great movies like goodfellas ( 1990 ) or raiders of the lost ark ( 1981 ) , a tear comes to my eye due to the awesome talent , skill and entertainment that is on display . even lower grade films such as the naked gun 33 1/3 ( 1994 ) or ghostbusters ii ( 1988 ) while not exactly brilliantly well made , are certainly not a waste of celluloid and present entertainment value . then there's my favourite martian , the exact opposite of what a movie should be : a hurried , poorly written and acted movie with one goal , to make money . disney , ever since the lion king ( 1994 ) have lost their magic touch , but this dross just shows how far disney have sunk . christopher lloyd plays a martian who crash lands in front of t . v reporter's tim o'hara car ( daniels ) , and soon tim finds the martian in his home , trying to recover and fix his spaceship . along with his 'zoot' spacesuit , voiced by wayne knight , must fix his spaceship before it explodes , and also try to stop his identity being revealed to the public , firstly by o'hara , but later by rival t . v presenter brace channing ( hurley ) , by calling himself tim's 'uncle martin . ' 'laughter' is supposed to arise from the 'comical' events , but never does . many bad films have good intentions , but my favourite martian doesn't appear to try to provide any entertainment . filled to the brim with wham bang special effects , my favourite martian offers little more than some nice eye candy . christopher lloyd mugs his way through the entire movie , i've never seen a man pull a face for 93 minutes until now . jeff daniels plays 'staple nice guy' and his role is useless . his performance is incredibly lazy , although his paperthin character doesn't deserve more than the performance he gives . darryl hannah looks as pretty as ever , but her role is somewhat , erm , limited . hurley mistakes 'acting' for 'shouting and looking like a twit' and wins the david wilcock award for 'most irritating , godawful performance in a moving picture . ' way to go liz ! for the supporting cast , disney manage to assemble every character actor out there , during the film i was going 'he was the guy in . . . ah . . er . . . ' before finally giving up and switching off . another major setback is the staple 'comedy sidekick . ' unfortunately , the writers ( sherri stoner and deanna oliver , if anyone cares ) forget that a comedy sidekick needs to be 'funny . ' instead , they deliver zoot , the martians deeply unfunny sidekick . although meant to be a manic character no doubt , every line that comes out of his 'neck' is a dud . a real dud . citizen kane delivers more laughs a minute than his hell spawn piece of polyester . even the kids in the audience were insulted by this character : not one child even bothered to smirk . it's a nice special effect , though . another problems with this comedy are the gags themselves . or rather , the lack of them . my favourite martian reaches a new level of toilet humour : it goes past the bowl , down the pipe and into the sewer . now , toilet humour can be funny , as dumb and dumber ( 1994 ) humorously showed . but here , characters farting , belching and almost getting crapped on ( literally ) is not 'amusing . ' it's insulting . there's one good gag right before the credits , but it appears the guy who wrote that gag tragically died and his unfunny twin continued . either that , or they were hoping that easy to please six year olds wouldn't mind the fact that his movie is beaten by men at work in the funny stakes . yes , men at work . yowza ! the fact that a lot of money was pumped into this film , and that they actually got people to agree to be in this film just depresses me even more . there are thousands of brilliant films out there that can't get distribution , yet trash like this gets released nation-wide with ease . thankfully , as soon as it makes it's money , it will never be seen again , and my favourite martian will end up where the two lead characters do near the end of the movie : down the toilet .
1	ingredients : down-on-his-luck evangelist , church synopsis : sonny dewey ( robert duvall ) is a tireless texas pentecostal preacher who unexpectedly catches his wife ( farrah fawcett ) in bed with another guy . in a regrettable crime of passion he takes a baseball bat to the guy's head , and suddenly finds himself a fugitive for murder , and estranged from his wife and two kids . to atone for his sins , sonny flees to a rural bayou town in louisiana and baptizes himself as a new creature - - the apostle e . f . as the apostle e . f . sonny's main mission is to revive an abandoned church community and preach the gospel at the local radio station . soon he sets about resurrecting the one way road to heaven holiness temple . but sonny knows his time is short ; one day the police will find him . opinion : this movie is a thought-provoking look at an evangelist in real life terms . i believe that robert duvall ( who is the producer , director , writer , and main star of the apostle ) deserves an oscar for his performance as sonny the religious crusader - - a performance which is so complex and realistic it ranks as one of the finest acting performances on film . duvall's portrayal of a true believer is authentic , superb , and inspired ; it offers the audience a completely honest look at southern religion , as well as a portrait of a fallible , complicated man driven by his beliefs . incidentally , in real life duvall was just as 'driven' in getting the project underway . since no major hollywood studio wanted to risk financing a complex movie about an evangelist , the apostle as a project lay dormant for almost 13 years before duvall was able to get it done , paying for its production with his own money ( about five million dollars ) . in terms of hard-hitting realism and character portrayal the apostle would rank as one of the best movies of this decade , and i emphatically recommend the apostle for connoisseurs of stage and fine acting on film . similarly , those with a steep background in pentecostal christianity would find the apostle a thought-provoking experience . on the other hand , the apostle's main strength - - duvall's preaching - - is also what limits the apostle's target audience . in terms of plot and pure entertainment value , the apostle is definitely not for everyone . teenagers , action fans , comedy fans , and people who find church completely boring should stay far away from this movie , since three quarters of the film is watching sonny preach at church . in other words , the apostle is a four star performance , but with a very limited audience .
1	curdled is a deliciously dark and witty black comedy , but its humour won't appeal to everyone . to be specific , let me give you an example . do you know in pulp fiction where jules and vincent go on brain detail after marvin and his head accidentally get separated ? if you thought that was completely tasteless and unfunny , don't see curdled . on the other hand , if you found that sequence to be pretty funny , you have the sense of humour that curdled is aimed at . our film's heroine , gabriela , played by angela jones , is a woman obssessively curious about murder and serial killers ; she even keeps a scrapbook of news articles . luckily for her , miami is being plagued by a serial killer rampage - her scrapbook is getting pretty big . the killer's nickname in the press is the blue blood killer , because he preys on older rich socialite women , and he's played by william baldwin ( this is not a spoiler ) . one particularly striking m . o . on the blue blood killer is his propensity to decapitate his victims . gabriela is watching television one day when she spots an advertisement for a firm whose line of work is perfectly attuned to her interests . she immediately quits her job , and signs on with pfcs , which stands for post-forensic cleaning service . no points for guessing what they do . her workmates are confused by gabriela's fascination with murder ; to them , it's just a day job . there's a hilarious locker room scene where they debate whether decapitated heads can talk , and what they would say . gabriela's partner , elena , played by mel gorham , is particularly perturbed by gabriela's wide-eyed fascination , and becomes really upset when gabriela volunteers them to clean up the blue blood killer's latest scene - they're the messiest , you see . unbeknownst to them , the last victim left something on the scene which would id the blue blood killer , so he's also heading over there . . the comparison to pulp fiction earlier on was not accidental - quentin tarantino executive-produced this film , which began life as a short film he saw at a film festival . apparently tarantino was so impressed that he helped braddock convert this into a feature-length film . there are other parallels - the star of curdled is angela jones ( the top billing goes to william baldwin , but really , jones is the central character ) , who's probably best known for her role as esmerelda villalobos , the death-obssessed taxi driver in pulp fiction . that role was written specifically for jones based upon her similar character in the aforementioned short film , curdled jr . jones is great in curdled - she's wonderfully funny and maintains an amusing wide-eyed naive curiousity about murder without compromising her character's innocence or likeability . she can express so much with one lift of her eyebrow . it's a great performance . reb braddock's direction is extremely sharp and clever , toeing the line between black humour and bad taste . the best scene in the film is an outrageously funny sequence involves jones and dancing - any more than that would be a spoiler . the opening credit sequence is also inventive and amusing . of course , it's impossible to really take this stuff seriously , but then again you're not really supposed to - braddock knows the audience is in on the joke , and makes it a fun little romp as a result . the one drawback of curdled is that it was based on a short film , and it feels like it ; the material is just stretched too thin in order to fulfill a feature length running time , and some parts just seem to drag . while its running time is already a short 94 minutes , it could really stand to lose twenty minutes or so to give it better pacing . curdled seems destined to be a nice cult film for miramax . it'll be interesting to see if it will appeal to mainstream audiences as well .
1	in some regards , making a movie is like trying to stretch a rubber band as far as you can without breaking it . try too hard , and it snaps ; but too much reservation means someone else will come along and pull it farther . in simon birch , director mark steven johnson shows us just how to master the technique : he takes advantage of caution and poise , but also risks his movie with a few bold steps . in the end , he's not only holding an unbroken band , but he makes the audience appreciate the lengths he went to direct such a fine feature . there's no doubt about it : the film that johnson has crafted is rich . he chooses for his setting the quaint town of gravestown , maine - leaves turn bright orange in the fall , the grass is a lush green , pure white snow falls in the winter , and the sky goes on forever . the characters continue that turn : our two leads are simon birch ( ian michael smith ) and joe wenteworth ( joseph mazzello ) . simon is the smallest baby ever born within the records of the local hospital , and by age twelve he's only two feet tall . joe is the bastard son of rebecca ( ashley judd ) , and by age twelve he's ready to know who is father is . naturally , the two outcasts become good friends and share many adventures together , from disrupting sunday school to doing community service to playing little league baseball . in a wonderfully executed performance by ian michael smith , simon birch is convinced that he's god's instrument , and there must be a reason he's so small . joe doesn't quite buy it , but he sticks by simon ; the two tough it out through the worst of times and are each other's only true friends . early on , the two meet up with ben goodrich ( oliver platt ) , rebecca's new boyfriend , and although the bond isn't immediate , ben and the two boys develop a liking for each other . both platt and judd give solid performances that lend their characters a deep likeability . the audience cares about them as much as they do about joe and simon , a testament to the acting jobs of both . finally , jim carrey gives a cameo as the adult joe in the present day , and his few minutes here are relatively more impressive than his entire performance in the truman show . mark steven johnson's sense of drama and writing is fantastic . the script is loosely based on john irving's novel , a prayer for owen meany , but it's so far off the source material that irving actually requested the credits be changed from 'based on' to 'suggested by . ' along those same lines , it's almost unfitting to compare the two ; johnson uses tension , humor , atmosphere , and suspense to create an original drama of forrest gumpian proportions . by no means has he developed a project of similar popularity - gump made over 300 million dollars while birch ought to pass out of sight in a few weeks - but the winning idea remains the same . simon birch is a different look at a different life , and one that will most likely be studied in film school classes in decades to come . in the present , however , it's an enjoyable little picture that everyone ought to take a look at .
0	disney's " air bud " tells a boy-and-his-dog story with a twist -- the pooch is quite an accomplished basketball player . granted , for a family comedy , it's not a very funny or successful idea to begin with , but it doesn't seem to matter -- " air bud " is surprisingly solemn . save for occasional moments of forced slapstick , the movie wags its tale with a straight face -- not a very enjoyable approach . if " air bud " had realized its own absurdity , then it possibly could have been better . here , we're actually asked to cheer a moment when the dog marches out to save the big game , clad in two pairs of sneakers and even a jersey . its number ? k9 . yeah , whatever . the movie opens as golden retriever buddy ( as himself ) escapes from his current owner , abusive clown-for-hire norm snively ( michael jeter ) . he ends up in fernwell , washington , where mopey new-kid-on-the-block josh ( kevin zegers ) is trying to cope with the move and the recent death of his father . buddy , kevin . kevin , buddy . once the dog proves his on-court prowess , kevin's self-esteem rockets . they both win places in the school's basketball team , with the animal as their mascot . but before they can make it to the finals , snively surfaces to reclaim buddy . everything plays out just as one would think : heavy on predictability , light on an actual story . the movie follows a calculated chain of events -- kevin's gloom fades , snively gets his comeuppance and buddy contracts rabies and must be executed old yeller-style . okay , that last one's a lie , but at least it would have been a quicker send-off than " air bud " 's courtroom climax -- no joke ! there's even a faux-cute musical montage where a reluctant buddy gets cleaned-up to " splish splash . " paint cans are spilled and newspapers are buried , all in the name of formula . the end credits note that " no special visual effects were used in the basketball sequences of this motion picture . " that very well may be true , and although to see a dog sink shots is quite a sight , a movie cannot exist on feat alone . but " air bud " doesn't seem to be interested in anything else . a friend of mine insists he saw buddy a while back on a segment of david letterman's " stupid pet tricks . " i can't think of a more appropriate connection -- this movie is a stupid pet trick .
0	synopsis : sullen julie james , still haunted by nightmares of the killer ben willis from i know what you did last summer , perks up when her new best friend karla wilson wins a trip for four to the bahamas . arriving at the start of the hurricane season , julie and karla run around in very tight clothing and realize they've walked into a trap set by the rainslickered slasher with a huge hook for a hand . comments : i may be showing some pop culture illiteracy here , but i have never seen an episode of the fox tv series " party of five . " i am only vaguely aware of the show's premise , and my knowledge of it comes from brief commercials i half-paid attention to while watching the tube . " party of five , " i do know however , seems to be the starting ground for actresses in the teen horror genre . neve campbell , scream queen of the 90s and star of scream , scream 2 , and the craft , is a regular of the show . so too is jennifer love hewitt . lo and behold , following in the footsteps of campbell , hewitt now has a horror franchise of her own : the i know what you did last summer line . though the original film , released last year , was watchable enough , this insipid sequel had me looking at the theater's glowing red exit sign longingly throughout . jennifer love hewitt is a very good-looking young leading lady ; however , unlike neve campbell , hewitt struggles with acting . she just isn't convincing in this film ( and she wasn't in the original either ) . this puts many young males , including myself , in a paradoxical quandary : she's very attractive , but the annoying , spoiled , valley girl-type character she tries to play here is annoying to the extreme and ruins many of the scenes which emphasize , exploitatively , her figure . add to the mix the equally pleasant yet irritating brandy , another rising teen tv star , and you get one frustrated male audience . i've spent so much time on hewitt and brandy for a reason . i still know what you did last summer , though cashing in on the success of the original , ultimately serves as a vehicle for these two young actresses . nothing else here is original or interesting . this movie , in fact , makes other recent so-so horror films like urban legend and john carpenter's vampires seem like stunning works of high art . i still know relies heavily on tired slasher film cliches : an isolated location , a storm , parentless teenagers , false alarm nightmares , lots of blue-lighted darkness scenes , a garbed slasher who walks around in the background without the characters seeing him , knives and other sharp instruments lying around everywhere , etc . you get the picture . the entire audience knows all the secondary characters introduced in the film are going to receive the business end of the killer's hook . they may as well have huge targets painted on them . like scream and its numerous knockoffs , these secondary characters are supposed to serve as comic relief . unfortunately , i still know's characters aren't all that funny . in particular , one character , a chain-weed-smoking guy , is obnoxiously annoying and certainly doesn't die soon enough . the death scenes , by the way , are relatively violent for a theatrically released horror film . several of them are uncomfortable to watch , and they reminded me of the sickening gore scenes in hellraiser : bloodline , a truly sadistic movie . this , too , did not help the supposed humor i still know was shooting for . and what is the deal with the slasher himself ? i know that the slasher film is not a particularly intelligent genre , but ben willis has got to go down as one of the most silly slashers in mainstream horror . come on , the guy looks like the gorton's fisherman , and his gruff voice makes him sound like a disney pirate . though his lightning-lit appearances ellicited much-needed laughter in the theater , his appearance borders on the absurd in the horror film , and that's * really * saying something . so , all that's left to talk about here is jennifer love hewitt and brandy . both prance about in tightfitting , revealing outfits or in various states of undress , yet neither of them ever actually do a nude scene . hewitt , however , does do a post-shower scene in which her thin bathrobe is quite . . . titillating . this scene alone made this one-star turkey earn two stars under my rating system . otherwise , hewitt and brandy both grate on the nerves . early in the film , for instance , brandy wins the trip to the bahamas . she and hewitt jump around and scream and screech for what seems like forever . i needed extra-strength tylenol after that part . oh , and the film's conclusion , talk about repetitive ! people who saw i know what you did last summer will predict i still know's ending at least 5 minutes before it happens . boring ! i saw this movie with my brother at the local downtown movie theater . admission is only one dollar on wednesdays , and we often go see bad movies on these days just to ridicule them . it's usually a fun thing to do along with the rest of the audience , who don't seem to mind participating in a mass " mystery science theater 3000 " -type viewing . i still know what you did last summer , however , produced several lengthy uncomfortable silences from the audience , underscoring how bad it * really * is . if it weren't for the main actresses' revealing wardrobes , i'd have had a very , very hard time sitting through this lame sequel . i can't imagine trying to watch it on video ( horror films seem 10 times better in a theater because they rely heavily on audience participation ) and wouldn't recommend it to people , unless they're horror film fanatics or huge fans of hewitt and brandy . i read on a website somewhere that another sequel is already in the works . what a depressing thought . hewitt apparently needs to spend more time on tv figuring out how to act . rated r , this film contains lots of violence , several gory scenes , and a couple nubile , horny teenagers--though the sex act itself is always thwarted . i'd say this is unsuitable for kids , but teens wouldn't have a problem sitting through it , especially since they obviously compose the film's target audience .
0	for a movie with such deep religious and spiritual undertones , it is surprising to find the messenger : the story of joan of arc such an ungodly mess . in the early to mid 1400's , there was little in the way of spiritual light to be found shining from the heart of a man or woman . the church was a dismally dark and oppressive place . france was involved in " the hundred years war " against england . there was no strong political leadership in the country . morale was low , there being little hope for the future . it was within this setting that a young french girl began hearing " voices " and seeing " visions . " convinced that these were messages from god , she brazenly demanded to see the dauphin in order to deliver the message directly to him . the message : if he would give her an army to command , she would deliver to him the crown . he does . . . and she does . then , once seated on the throne , he abandons her to her english captors . director luc besson ( the fifth element ) may have co-wrote the script but he never appeared to have a proper handle on the material . the inconsistencies of the cast , the confusing blur of the violent battle scenes , the inappropriate musical score , and the lack of a vibrant life force at the center of the film adds up to a largely disappointing end product which is oftentimes unintentionally laughable . his biggest miscue was to cast his wife , milla jovovich ( the fifth element ) in the title role . ms . jovovich , looks spectacular as joan , clad in battle armor , astride a similarly protected horse . if looks were enough to fully convey a character , she would have been brilliant . since it isn't , she tried ( and failed ) to act the part . her joan is unbalanced , " inspiring " the troops merely by screaming stridently and waving her banner or sword over her head like a woman possessed . john malkovich ( being john malkovich ) fares a bit better as the dauphin , who joan would see on the throne as charles vii . an easily manipulated man , his weakness of character foreshadows the betrayal of joan which would lead to her death . faye dunaway ( the thomas crown affair ) gives a strong performance in minimal screen time as the dauphin's mother-in-law and chief advisor . the army under joan's command are comprised of comical figures , more stooges than soldiers . the one exception would be tcheky karyo ( la femme nikita ) as dunois , the man who was leading the attack prior to joan's arrival . trying to plan a systematic campaign , he sees his leadership authority negated by joan's insistence on following her " visions . " dustin hoffman ( sphere ) has a small inhuman role as joan's conscience which begins speaking to her while awaiting trial . dressed like cloaked monk , he leads her to doubt herself and her " revelations . " as well she should . scriptures do speak of revelation . god , via his gift of holy spirit , is able to communicate to men . three of the nine manifestations of holy spirit listed in 1 corinthians 12 deal with receiving revelation . they are : word of knowledge , word of wisdom , and discerning of spirits . even the scriptures themselves are a result of god giving revelation to his " holy men . . . who spake as they were moved by holy spirit ( i . e . by revelation . ) " but the scriptures also caution us : " beloved , believe not every spirit , but try the spirits whether they are of god : because many false prophets are gone out into the world . " 1 john 4 : 1 [kjv] joan's end , ( being burned at the stake at the age of 19 ) , the frenzy ( mob rule ) and blood lust her inspiration wrought , and the death , pain , or suffering which followed her campaign all point to a devilish influence rather than a godly one . while her conviction and intense believing remains an admirable quality , she was , as others have been before and since , misled by the spiritual master of deception . as a messenger , she was quite effective . she was just confused as to whose message she was carrying .
1	the event of events is upon us . people have waited twenty-two years for the prequel to star wars and die-hard fans have been camping out at theaters for months to get tickets to see it . i don't think that america will ever actually recover from what this hurricane of a film has caused . it is not a bit of an exaggeration to say that this is the most highly anticipated movie in history . anyone who tells you " it's just a movie " is either lying or clueless . it is clearly obvious that after the waiting and the hype actually seeing the movie will be anticlimactic . the second coming of the lord could not live up to the kind of buzz ( which is far too weak a word ) that star wars epsode i : the phantom menace so effortlessly generated . but that does not mean that the film itself is bad . in fact , it is terrific . i strongly suspect that many of the people who were dissappointed by it have simply surrendered to the media machine and the inevitable backlash . it is set some decades before the events of the original 1977 star wars took place . the film focuses on the fledgling republic of planets and the conflict that is raging : the trade federation , angry at some tax raise that was recently put in place has invaded the small , peaceful planet of naboo . the republic sent two jedi knights ( people that can actively communicate with what is affectionately known as " the force " ) , qui-gon jinn ( liam neeson ) and obi-wan kenobi ( ewan mcgregor ) to negotiate . unable to stop the tide of events that was about to occur , the jedi and the queen of naboo ( natalie portman ) escape naboo and head for coruscant to try and get the republic senate to intervene . on the way they get sidetracked to a planet called tatooine , where they meet the movie's real focal point , young anakin skywalker ( jake lloyd ) . he is an innocent slave boy , but " the force is strong with him " so qui- gon is determined to take him with them to the jedi counsel and get him trained as a jedi . as any self-respecting star wars fan should know , anakin will grow up to be darth vader and give birth to luke skywalker . >from the beginning it is evident that this is not an actor's movie . around 70% of the characters , if not more , are computer generated in one form or another , and though the effects are seamless , the movie lacks soul . i think that although the computer has played an incredibly instrumental part in moviemaking this decade , cinema should still be a human art and the phantom menace nearly defies this . this is the lightest installment in the star wars saga thus far , with plenty of broad comic relief to go around , much of it courtesy of an irritating knew character named jar-jar binks . he's essentially a computer-animated sidekick who says things like " exqueeze me ? " and " mesa go now , okeday ? " , and although it is often amusing it is also inherently annoying . the visual effects are astounding ( although director george lucas often chickens out by cutting away from them ) and the movie is a thrilling triumph . if it lacks in plot and in acting it makes up for it through imagination and excitement . the climactic lightsaber battle ( oh , come on , as if you didn't already know ) , among other things , is outrageously entertaining and defines the term " popcorn movie " . what made me surrender and give this movie * * * 1/2 stars was the score by john williams . even though it does seem like the man scores every single movie that comes out these days , his work here is nothing short of brilliant . his use of opera during the climax really does add a punch and his ingenious way of utilizing the imperial march as a sort of prophecy is chilling . the phantom menace is probably most effective as pop nostalgia . when you see " a long time ago , in a galaxy far , far away " , when the familiar music plays , when the words " star wars " appear on screen , you'll feel a tingle even if you didn't see the movie when it first came out in '77 . it feels oddly exciting to be introduced to young anakin , a boy whose innocence , we know , will be taken away and who will soon cross over to the dark side . it is the perfect example of dramatic irony to see the jedi masters aspire to get him trained in the jedi arts ; we know that it will do more harm than good , but they do not . we not only feel more involved in the story , but we feel like we're seeing the beginning of a saga that we have cherished for years . the phantom menace , although lacking in human aspects of the story , is a very worthy installment in the star wars . it works as an action flick , visually eye-popping and often paralyzingly exciting ; it also works as an elicitor of memories , a piece of exquisite nostalgia . ? 1999 eugene novikov&#137 ;
1	the ultimate match up between good and evil , " the untouchables " is an excellent movie because it looks deeper into an already examined rivalry . based on the 1959 television show of the same title , " the untouchables " may be an exaggeration of the real life events that took place , but it fits together perfectly with some beautifully filmed action sequences , some excellent acting , a memorable score , and a clever script . the film takes place in chicago during the prohibition era where mobsters led by the ruthless al capone run an underground market of liquor to the demanding public . elliot ness and a small force of men known as the untouchables attempt the impossible by trying to stop capone and trying to maintain peace and order . however , as ness soon learns , in order to stabilize peace , you have to bend a few laws . the fact that capone is evil is very apparent from the first few scenes . the film begins with capone , played perfectly by deniro , declaring that he is not a violent man and he is a firm believer in following all laws . the film then quickly transfers to the next scene in which one of capone's men bombs a restaurant that contains many innocent people including a little girl . from this point we know capone is evil , not only because he kills without hesitation , but also because he is a lying bastard . right from the first five minutes of the film , de palma has created a hatred towards capone and he shows that this man must be brought down at all costs . this developed hatred is before the film's hero , ness , is even introduced . i found this approach to be very clever because in a small duration of time there is a great amount of admiration for ness and an equal amount of hatred for capone . the film only gets better from this point . with the formation of the untouchables , there is a group of men wearing long , dark overcoats and hats . they walk in unison and they only look forward . as they walk down the streets they are observed and feared by citizens . holding shot guns and pistols in their hands to stop criminals , this image of vigilantes must have influenced future films . one that comes to mind is " the matrix " when neo , morpheus , trinity , and the rest of the gang first come into the virtual world . wearing more futuristic outfits of the same 1930's style , the similarities between these two are countless . " the untouchables " has some of the hippest , bravest heroes in any action film . the four members were the only ones willing to go against capone's army . each member of this special group also had their own characteristics that separated them from others . elliot ness , played with perfect ingenuity by kevin costner , is a character that surely grows during the course of the film . he begins as a man who is determined to follow all laws no matter how unfair they may be . however , as the film develops so does ness . his beliefs involving the law are shattered when he realizes that those he trusted are actually members of the other side . he also begins to lose his stability when his adversaries begin to murder his friends . his anger becomes so thunderous that he can no longer hold it in . sean connery , who won an academy award for best supporting actor in his role , plays malone , an aging cop who decides to make one final run as a member of the untouchables . malone acts as a mentor to ness . he teaches him " the chicago way " to do things ; when they attack with a knife , you attack with a gun . connery plays his character with the exact amount of wit and experience needed . andy garcia does a wonderful job as george stone , a young man who is just becoming a police officer . as ness grows , he begins to teach stone some valuable lessons that malone once taught him . charles martin smith is also fantastic as the final member who attempts to use an income tax offense against capone . smith is perfect for his role as he adds some valuable comic relief to the film . the action scenes are also some of the most beautifully choreographed i have ever seen . also very similar to " the matrix , " they are exciting and intense . >from a western-like battle to the famous confrontation at the train station steps , the scenes are well thought out and well executed . the score during these scenes ingeniously adds to the excitement . its pounding drum beats act as a rhythm for the actors . the combination of image and music is very impressive and also very effective . although the real life untouchables may have been excessively glorified , this film is pure entertainment and contains a unique blend of great acting , great directing , and great action . some scenes ( capone and the baseball bat , the train station ) have stuck in my mind for years and seeing them again will only make them more vivid .
1	along his carreer , mel gibson has collected several successes , not only from an economic point of view but also from an artistic point of view . for all that , i think no one could guess the skills and abilities now disclosed in braveheart . the australian actor decided to produce and direct a film about sir william wallace , a popular scotch hero of the 13th century , where he would also perform the principal role . accepting so huge challenge , mel gibson run the risk of stain all his work of years , with a suppoosed failure , just to see recognized , by everyone , all his potentialities and , that way , to consolidate his position in hollywood . it was , definitely , an enormous risk but i'm sure mel knew exactly well what he was going to face . braveheart is , in fact , a magnificent and magisterial film . for three hours we are completely absorbed by the narrative's rhyitm which never gives place to a single moment of monotony or uninterest . the william wallace's story is the story of so many others brave liberty's defenders who fought and gave the life for that essential value , along the centuries . seeing himself and his people victims of injustices and violent repression , william wallace dares to face the powerful edward i , king of england , in a war by the autonomy of scotland . as the victories succeed the number of fighters with wallace goes growing up . his courage and inteligence are admired by everyone , including the princess isabelle of wales , wife of edward's son . however , william wallace was also surrounded by enemies and some of them were closer than he thought . braveheart may not be an historically corrected movie but the nature of its message make us think about the importance that we give to liberty , nowadays . mel gibson directs with a lot of brilliancy a brilliant cast . patrick mcgoohan has a very nice performance as edward i , the king longshank . the scene when he waits for the death and loses his voice is really good . sophie marceau , as princess isabelle , has along the movie no more than fifteen minutes of performance but mel gibson gave to those minutes such a very special treatment that princess isabelle soon becomes one of the major characters in braveheart . i also liked the performances of angus macfadyen , as robert the bruce , and , of course , mel gibson , as william wallace . however , i think this time the mel gibson's work as director was much better than his work as actor . the excellent music composed by james horner is another thing that helps braveheart to be the success that it really is . when we join that music to the beautiful scotch landscapes , view by the camera of john toll , then we realize all the beauty of this film . braveheart is , in my opinion , one of the best movies of 1995 ! i've heard some people saying that mel gibson is gonna be a new david lean . for now , let's see if braveheart equalizes the 6 oscars of lawrence of arabia . it won't be easy ! it's gonna be one more challenge for mel gibson .
0	plot : set in the future , a courier has uploaded some data into a " hard drive " that resides in his head , and must now escape the bad guys who are after that very important information . since he overloaded his " hard drive " , he's also racing against the clock before the information seeps into his brain and kills him . critique : incoherent , boring , one-act drivel with no suspense , horribly unbelievable futuristic environment , bad dialogue , career-defining bad acting by keanu reeves and a hilarious ending . it's too bad because the premise of the film was interesting , but unfortunately for my friends and i , this movie turned out to be just as bad as everyone had warned us . it's one of those films that makes you start laughing half-way through , when you realize that most of the actors in it suck , the location shots are filmed in dark " junkyard " type areas which they would like to have us believe to be futuristic ( whatever . . . ) , and all the sets look like . . . . well , sets . there is also absolutely no arc to this story . it basically starts off with keanu uploading info into his brain , and then a bunch of folks chasing him from place to place until a laughable ending puts a stop to the former uneventful proceedings . gibson should stick to writing novels and " x-files " episodes , since his segue into the paranormal tv series was much more entertaining than any of this garbage . some other hilarities of this film include dolph lundgren as some futuristic jesus character whose supposed to kick ass , henry rollins as a pumped-up cyber-doctor or something , and ice-t as some kind of a hobo dude with paint all over his face ( don't ask ) . the ending is the funniest with some robot dolphin and a stupid ghost-lady from inside the computer doing some stuff that no one really cares about by that point . i'm ashamed to say this film was shot in my hometown of montreal , canada , but sadly enough for us all , it was . some of the cyber-travelling special effects were okay ( hence , the 2/10 ) , but overall , it's one of those bad movies that's just funny to watch and cringe at . thankfully for keanu , he redeemed his sci-fi career with 1999's the matrix ( 7 . 5/10 ) . it's too bad that he has yet to redeem his lack of acting talent . little known facts about this film and its stars : as of 1999 , director robert longo never directed another full-feature film . hmmm . . . now isn't that odd ? : ) writer william gibson immigrated from the us to canada in 1968 , after being rejected for the draft . he lived in toronto at first , but since 1972 , has made vancouver his home . his 1984 novel " neuromancer " and its sequels 1986's " count zero " and 1988's " mona lisa overdrive " are generally considered to be the definitive works of the " cyberpunk " science-fiction sub-genre . this film garnered keanu reeves a nomination in the " worst actor " category in the 1996 razzie awards .
0	isn't it the ultimate sign of a movie's cinematic ineptitude when you can't think of much to say about it other than " it sucks " ? one of the first official year 2000 releases , supernova is such a movie . i can't seem to get past one-word adjectives with this one , although " boring , " " stupid " and " absurd " doesn't amount to much of a review . a shame . i would have been able to save myself the chore of desperately trying to elaborate . but c'est la vie . here goes nothing . i'll keep it short . i suppose the first bad omen for supernova came when director walter hill ( 48 hours ) removed his name from the movie , requesting that it be replaced with the pseudonym thomas lee . the film's fate was sealed in many minds when struggling studio mgm declined to screen it for the press , an event usually signifying a studio's lack of confidence in a particular movie . hill's and mgm's actions were prudent . when the captain of medical space vessel nightingale dies in a tragic hyperjump accident , a reformed drug addict who is also the first officer , for some reason ( james spader ) is forced to take command . the ship picks up a distress call from a nearby planet and , on arrival , picks up one survivor from an apparent accident in an abandoned mining colony . one of the crew members ( angela bassett ) knows this passenger , who is played by peter facinelli , and has some bad feelings about it -- and we all know what that means . this intergalactic hitchhiker is carrying some mysterious cargo -- a jellylike substance the purpose of which is unknown , though it seems to bring some form of pleasure to whoever touches it . another one of the crew members experiences this first hand ; after spending a few minutes partially inside this glob of goo , he does some impressive handstand pushups . evidently , touching this enigmatic egg-shaped thingie makes you younger and stronger . how ? why ? the movie never bothers to explain . soon enough though , spader and bassett are running around the ship like mad , being chased by the all-of-a-sudden-superhuman facinelli . to be honest , i don't even remember exactly why . i just remember that i didn't care . supernova's plot suggested some more or less interesting ideas , such as the ball of goo being an intergalactic time bomb , but they are all dropped before they have a chance to develop into anything truly intriguing . in fact , everything is dropped just so the actors can have some fun running around what looks like an elaborate set . well , the effects are good , though there's hardly a studio movie with bad special effects these days so i'm not sure whether that's so remarkable an accomplishment . the performances are hardly worth talking about . i'm not even sure i can call what's here " performances , " though angela bassett sure is good at giving people the finger . james spader is not a bad actor , but he proves to be one of the blandest action stars i've seen in a while , mostly because he isn't given a character with a personality . the action scenes are just as bland , since they're pretty much just rehashes of action elements that weren't particularly entertaining the first time around . and since the action scenes are everything to this movie , it's pretty much dead in the water . and for the life of me , i can't figure out why it's called supernova .
0	" love to kill " starts off aimlessly and gets progressively less coherent as time passes . at the outset , the movie appears to be about tony danza , who's an illegal distributor of guns , trying to establish a relationship with an unsuspecting woman . danza sets up a double date with her , her sister , and a collegue of his . everything seems to be going well , until the sister accidentally dies by falling down a set of stairs . much confusion and mahem ensues , as the death is covered up and other associates of danza's begin to emerge , all after one thing or another . sound confusing ? it is . i think what the filmmakers were trying to do is take the standard crime movie and throw in a little humour and levity . in some respects , it works . but the majority of the film is a convoluted and confusing mess . characters keep popping up with no explanation , demanding money for deals that occur off-screen . the only aspect of the movie that actually works is the budding relationship between danza and the dead woman's sister . but so little time is devoted to this part of the story , we never really become too familiar with these characters , and because of this , we don't really care what happens to them . well , i didn't , at least . one thing i will give the movie is that it's a complete departure for tony danza . here's a guy , because of his many sitcom roles , who's ingrained in the consciousness as a nice guy who always does the right thing . here , he plays a man who's just looking out for himself , and if that means he needs to kill in order to save his own skin , so be it . i was very impressed by his performance , and within minutes of the start of the film , i had forgotten all about his good-guy persona . michael madsen is also good as an associate of danza's who spends half the movie buddying up to him and the other half trying to kill him . like i said , it's not exactly a linear storyline . " love to kill " should be praised for trying to do something different with the well worn crime genre , but it's just too bad that the story doesn't really add up to much . the stars deserved better , and so did the audience .
0	it happens every year -- the days get longer , the weather gets warmer and the studios start releasing their big-budget blockbusters . this year's crop already seems inferior to that of past summers , even 1997's lackluster trio of batman & robin , the fifth element and the lost world . the marketing blitz in 1998 has been centered on godzilla ( " heeere , lee-zerd , lee-zerd . . . " ) , which doesn't make me optimistic about future summers . godzilla is , of course , based on a series of cult movies ( translation : really bad movies only a few people can tolerate ) from japan that turn up really late at night on ted turner-owned cable stations . that this big-budget remake won't rise above its roots is fairly obvious . the credits show us the origin of godzilla . in five words : nuclear explosion creates giant lizard . sounds like an enquirer headline , doesn't it ? the mushroom cloud is followed by the inevitable " discovery " sequence . this time , a japanese guy is eating noodles with chopsticks while watching sumo wrestling ( if that ain't a stereotype . . . ) when he discovers the telltale radar blip . people die . cut to our protagonist , played by matthew broderick . he makes his first appearance wearing headphones , warbling along to " singin' in the rain . " it's a none-too-subtle sign that he wishes he were in a classier movie . no dice , bueller . from the beginning , poor matthew has to do embarassing things like fondle giant earthworms and stand in godzilla's enormous footprint . every disaster movie has to have a know-it-all scientist , and this time broderick is it . as the world's leading expert on radiated earthworms ( and wouldn't you love to have that printed on your business card ? ) , broderick is invaluable to the government . he immediately dispels vicki lewis' theory that godzilla is a dinosaur because , hey , you can't take seriously the intellectual arguments of " newsradio " cast members . broderick instead hits the nail on the head , announcing godzilla is a radiated lizard . " the radiation isn't an anamoly , " he announces , and lightning strikes . " i believe this is a mutated abberation , " he continues , and lightning strikes again . it's vocabulary lightning , you see , activated by words of four syllables or more . meanwhile , we're introduced to our new york cast , headed by an ambitious broadcast journalist ( maria patillo ) , broderick's former love . gee , what are the odds their paths will cross again at a dramatically important time ? poor patillo has been trying to get ahead in the news business for years but has been held down by heartless anchorman harry shearer . italian cameraman hank azaria tells her she's not ruthless enough : " nice doesn't get you anywhere in this town . it's dog eat dog . " actually , it's lizard eat city , as godzilla emerges from the atlantic to begin a rampage on the big apple's core . the filmmakers provide us with a one-note drunk fisherman who hooks godzilla . " i think i've got a bite , " he announces as a gigantic tidal wave begins rushing toward him . you can guess what happens next . similar reactions spring forth as the monster prowls the city . hearing the rumble of approaching footsteps , one new yorker remarks , " please don't tell me that's another parade . " please don't tell me that's the best line you could come up with . mayor ebert is not pleased . played by the principal from " head of the class , " he continually makes the wrong decision when given an option , and bickers with his assistant gene . i guess the filmmakers knew they'd be getting two thumbs down from the critics and didn't even bother to kiss ass . the problem is , if you're going to attack siskel and ebert , you should at least make it funny . dialogue like , " didn't we agree that we weren't going to have any sweets until after the election ? " followed by , " back off , gene , " just doesn't work for me . other lame running jokes include everyone mispronouncing the broderick character's last name and frenchman jean reno's inability to find a good cup of coffee in new york . there's even more fun to be had as godzilla progresses . as the beast heads back into hiding , broderick suggests the military lure it out with food . cue twelve dump trucks , all dropping fish into a new york intersection . ( broderick : that's a lot of fish . ) that ambush fails , but broderick soon figures out why godzilla came to new york by buying $50 worth of home pregnancy tests and running lizard blood through them . yep , godzilla's with children , which makes you wonder just what kind of creature would be horny enough to have sex with godzilla . that's until broderick explains that godzilla reproduces asexually , like linda tripp . godzilla comes to us from the makers of independence day , so it has a lot of dumb action scenes , destructive special effects and shallow subplots . look no further than patillo's betrayal of broderick ( patillo : what have i done , animal ? what have i become ? ) and the climactic " godzilla's nest " sequence in madison square garden . the main difference is , independence day was about the experience . it had a real global , patriotic element to it , and some genuinely fun characters . godzilla has lots of rain and lightning , reptilian action ripped off from jurassic park and endless product placement from the likes of kodak , blockbuster , juicy fruit , swatch , sprint and bumble bee tuna . yes , bumble bee actually paid to be known as the official tuna of godzilla . that fact alone is twice as interesting as anything in the movie .
1	i love this movie , and i've just seen for the umptenth time . unfortunately , it is also completly unknown and very few have seen it . it's my mission in life to spread the word : see this movie ! fred , george , doug and howie are reaching middleage . three of them have a wife , kids and a house in the suburb with a mortgage to pay . only fred is still a bachelor . together they take the local train every morning to work in town . on one of their organized thursday evenings at a bar , fred tells them of his boss and the arrangements he has made to keep a mistress . he has gotten an apartment in downtown where he can meet her but has told his wife that he needs the apartment to spend the night after staff meetings every thursday night . since they always split everything four ways , they decide that they should get an apartment with a young woman as well , kathy . however , kathy isn't completly honest to them . in fact , she is a sociology student writing a thesis about the sex life of the suburban male . with these four species she believes that she will make a very good paper . ok , have one thing clear though . the romantic rendezvous' between kathy and each of the men are completly innocent . the script stays above the waist - or to be precise , above the neck . noboyd claims that kathy is their mistress , the four guys call her their 'companion' . the censorship board here in sweden considered it to be suitable only for people above 15 years , but that only shows how long ago 1962 was . small children could watch this without being corrupted . kim novak is as lovely as always in this movie , even if she seems to be a bit too old for a student . james garner is the playboy just like in many other movies . i liked howard morris the best as howard the accountant who has to diet to support his wife . tony randall is funny as always . 1962 was more than 35 years ago . how many accountants , copywriters or investment bankers can today afford to live in a house in the suburb with a lot of kids and a wife who does not work ? this is the white middle class , i can't remember that i saw any blacks on the commuter train they use . these are the people who can count on their kids to live an even better life than themselves . perhaps this should also be a subject for a thesis in movie sociology ?
0	" flubber " is the second best example of how to take all the life out of a film remake an adaptation , and hysterically enough both were distributed by disney . it's the kind of film that may be slightly entertaining to tiny kids , but anyone else will feel left out as it's boring , slow , and incredibly lifeless . what could be a film with cinematic magic is instead dead in the water , and it's a shame because it could have been a great film . hypothetically , i mean . " flubber , " as you probably know , is a remake of the disney classic i never saw , " the absent minded professor , " where a , well , absent minded professor played by fred mcmurray created an erratic substance known as " flubber , " you know , flying rubber ? the new one keeps the basic plot , but appears to have added a lot else , like more absent-mindedness on the part of the proffessor , some more villains , and several " show-stopping " moments , like a big rumba with the flubber , and some more elaborate setups , none which really make it any better , but instead make it worse . the basic plot revolves around a college professor , philip brainerd ( robin williams ) , who creates lots and lots of inventions , but is sadly absent minded . in fact , he's forgotten his wedding to the college's president , sara jean reynolds ( indie actress marcia gay harden ) , two times before he forgets it again at the beginning . doesn't this warrant some kind of mental treatment ? anyway , on his wedding day ( the third one ) , he invents the flubber , which not only bounces off of everything like a super ball on speed , but can also change shape like the aliens in water form in " the abyss . " philip believes that this invention , once fully realized , will save his college , which is in threat of being shut down by a millionaire tycoon/villain , chester hoenicker ( raymond j . barry ) , which is ironically enough the same college his brat son ( will wheaton - thought he was dead ) goes to . through a plot twist , hoenicker's goons , named smith and wesson ( ha ha - what a great sense of humor this film has ) who are played by clancy brown and ted levine ( both who needed the pay check ) , discover it the hard way , and try to steal for hoenicker , who wants it just 'cause he's evil enough . a sub-plot involves philip's attempts to win back sara , who's angry at him ( and with good reason ) , but who is being seduced by who is basically philip's belloq , wilson croft ( christopher mcdonald , playing the hysterically suave-yet-unsuave asswhole once again ) . and in another subplot , philip's day-timer robot , weebo ( voiced by the one-and-only jodi benson ) , falls in love with him . yuckity-yuck . what's most pathetic about this film is how dull it is . you don't need to be a cynical college student to be able to see right through this film , which is another in a long line of cheap attempts at making a quick buck by disney , who have essentially become the puff daddy of the film industry , half-assedly re-mixing classics ( or non-classics ) for distribution to the general public , who sadly eats it all up . earlier in '97 , they released " jungle 2 jungle , " an adaptation of a really awful french film , " un indien dans la ville , " which , yeah , improved over the original , but not by much . disney's in about as bad shape as warner brothers right now , only creatively . in the rush to ship out a film for distribution , disney has forgotten to give this film a little thing called " magic . " such scenes as dancing flubber , a flying car , a basketball team that pretty much sucks flying all around thanks to some carefully placed flubber , and an elaborate ending all fail to amaze , delight , or even cause people to laugh . i sat there the entire film stone faced , chuckling perhaps twice , and shaking my head at all the bad jokes . who could really laugh at a scene where philip enters the wrong classroom and starts teaching chemistry ? didn't think so . it doesn't help that our protagonist is essentially unfunny or even really respectable . philip is not a lovable absent minded professory , just a really dumb man being played by robin williams . williams is a brilliant comic actor . . . okay , a brilliant actor in general , but here he's given very little to do but occasionally get hyper over something , and other times act sad . those times , he's not bad . but what are we supposed to think of a man who's forgotten his wedding thrice ? maybe it was funny and/or respectable in the 60s . . . i like disney , and i usually enjoy their films , not only animated but live action , and their recent films ( save for " hercules , " which was good , but not great ) have been worse than lackluster , they've been pathetic . " jungle 2 jungle " is probably the worst film i saw last year . " flubber " 's probably second . what do they need to do ? perhaps create something new . get writers who can write something that's universally entertaining . films like " the parent trap " and " mary poppins " are films that are live action ( or in the latter case a mix of both ) , but even i can still watch them because they're not only written to be magical to children , but to be fun to adults . what's more torturous that taking a child to a film that insults you and annoys you at every turn ? and my god , couldn't they have done something else with edie mcclurg ?
0	kids today , they don't just want to see heartthrob and master thespian freddie prinze jr . loving on the ladies . no , they want to see him doing something that takes a little more in the acting department : namely , playing baseball . through a series of drippy voiceovers , we are informed that there's no better proving ground for major league baseball than the cape cod summer baseball leagues , where college also-rans and hopeful dropouts go to play in the hopes of attracting big league attention . our man freddie has landed a spot as a pitcher on the prestigious chatham a's , where he is hoping for his big break . it's only after he is given ample time to show off his abs and scamper about in a woman's thong ( don't ask ) that we learn what the real story of summer catch will be : that prinze is a poor townie named ryan dunne , struggling to make a name for himself ; that neither his father ( fred ward ) nor brother ( jason gedrick ) pulled themselves out of their blue collar jobs and resent anyone who tries ; and that the local beauty tenley -- tenley ! ( jessica biel ) -- is so far out of his league that he probably shouldn't even bother . . . but of course he makes a play for her . summer catch also makes an abortive stab at another half a dozen subplots -- the jealousy of fellow townie and brazen slut dee dee ( brittany murphy ) , the alienation felt by ryan's non-baseball playing best friend ( gabriel mann ) , or the fat chick fetish of fellow player miles ( marc blucas ) . worst of these is a ludicrous bit involving that '70s show's wilmer valderrama and beverly d'angelo , both of whom appear in the film simply to provide a nutty mrs . robinson-like substory and to remind you of how much better done that was in bull durham . in fact , virtually all of summer catch feels like it's been done better somewhere else . for starters , the film has a major question of identity . it's definitely not a sports movie , and it fails pretty miserably at being a romance . the worst part is the amateurish script ( co-written by an arli$$ writing alumnus and a guy that starred in leprechaun 3 ) , chock-full of phony emotion . by the end , it all becomes a platform for each character to deliver a soliloquy to ryan that he must take to heart . dad is on hand to give fatherly yet drunken advice . coach ( brian dennehy , just loving the fact that he's got some work on the big screen ) is on hand to give the curmudgeonly counterpoint . ryan's catcher ( matthew lillard , playing himself again ) is on hand to tell ryan to " play catch " with him and make fun of the fat fetish guy . ryan's stoner best friend is on hand to give the go-get-'em-tiger-we're-behind-you talk . and the girlfriend is on hand to give heartwarming-nuzzly-follow-your-dreams counsel . before long , you start to wonder : is freddy prinze jr . is capable of having a thought of his own ? don't answer that . the only real joy in the film is found in biel's character , and not just because of the skimpy outfits , which are also usually wet . she's the only one in the movie that is able to do much with her role , taking the rebelling-against-daddy character to at least a passing grade . when she's on screen , the time flies by . when she's not , you realize that for some ungodly reason this movie is almost two hours long . for a pg-13 teen romance ( despite near-constant sexual innuendo ) , one has to ask warner brothers : what were you thinking ? ? ? for her part , biel has fallen so far from her 7th heaven roots that she has almost become denise richards . hollywood is either about to eat her alive . . . or vice versa . either way , good luck , jessica . as for freddie , if he keeps pumping teen romances out at the rate of two a year , prinze's next " summer catch " is liable to be a venereal disease .
0	it's not a bad thing to update old stories . it's done all the time in the oral tradition . the difficulty with this film is not that the tale has changed , it's that it's dry . the new cinderella , danielle ( drew barrymore ) is not sitting around waiting for her prince to come . she's a woman of the late twentieth century albeit situated in sixteenth century france . when her father dies , she stays on in his house even though she is mistreated by her wicked stepmother rodmilla ( anjelica huston ) . she works by day , but reads sir thomas more by firelight at night . although the story is updated , you know the plot . danielle meets prince henry ( dougray scott ) , goes to a ball disguised , is later found out and they live happily ever after . the movie is often like watching a filmed play . theater in real life is engrossing . theater on the screen is usually lifeless . there doesn't seem to be much going on . the camera can be a star of films . here it's a co-conspirator . danielle's convictions are compromised . a socialist and a feminist , she pretends to be royalty to get her man . a kind woman , her last act in the movie is one of revenge . the most enjoyable characters are the most cartoonish . the fairy godmother stand-in , leonardo da vinci ( patrick godfrey ) is fun to watch as the eccentric old man who advises danielle . huston is enjoyable in her over-the-top wickedness . in all fairness , my companion loved the film . maybe it's one of those " chick flicks " that men don't like . it is certainly a date film . nearly the entire audience was couples . oh well , maybe it's good for something .
1	one of the funniest carry on movies and the third with a medical setting . the main story is about dr . james nookey ( jim dale ) who is disliked by his superiors , frederick carver , head of the hospital ( kenneth williams ) , and dr . ernest stoppidge ( charles hawtrey ) who seems to dislike everyone . they attempt to cause him as much trouble in the hospital as possible and all the blame is laid on nookey . carver learns of a possible job opportunity from wealthy ellen moore ( joan sims ) on a distant tropical island and gets nookey trannsferred there . when nookey arrives at this island , he meets gladstone screwer ( sid james ) who has lived on the island just about all his life . screwer is in possession of a wonderful slimming drug made from natural ingredients . dr . nookey returns with the drug to england and sets up a new slimming business with ellen moore's financial backing . however , nookey and moore face opposition from screwer who goes to england to cash in on the drug , and carver and stoppidge who want to know the ingredients to create a rival drug . the performances are all very commendable . sid james has a slightly ambiguous character to play this time and he excels in his role . kenneth williams , as usual , plays the unpopular and cunning head of the hospital . joan sims is entertaining as the wealthy benefactor and jim dale should really head the cast with his excellent portrayal of bumbling nookey . charles hawtrey plays an 'out-of-character' role as dr . stoppidge , the nasty and evil practitioner who wants to knock nookey off his perch . some critics have said that this combination of hawtrey and stoppidge does not work well , but i think that it at least gives hawtrey a new part to play instead of the usual dimwit characters . as a matter of fact , hawtrey is suitably cunning in the part . other regulars in the movie include hattie jacques as the matron yet again ( but this part is probably her most boring 'matron' ) and barbara windsor as nookey's love interest and unofficial 'women's lib' campaigner , goldie locks . both jacques and windsor play their parts well . patsy rowlands appears briefly as miss fosdick , and there are very small cameos from wilfrid brambell ( from 'steptoe and son' fame ) and peter butterworth . the jokes are mostly very funny , the story is quite appealing , and the regulars seem interested in what they're doing . although it is another medical carry on movie and some of the jokes are borrowed from previous movies , it still comes out on top ( it is the best medical carry on ) because of the above factors . a must-see carry on movie .
1	gothic murder-mystery yarns are not a new conceit . in fact , they've been around in books and on film for many , many years . without the proper handling , they come off as old-fashioned , bland , and outdated . " the gift , " directed by sam raimi , is a tried-and-true effort that surprises very little , and includes everything from a wide array of suspects and red herrings , to mansions in the deep south with moss trees out front , to the eventual discovery of a waterlogged corpse found in a nearby pond . it's fairly obvious who the killer is ; in fact , i predicted who it would be before the movie began and was correct in my preliminary suspicions . the film ultimately shouldn't work , but it does , thanks to a sparkling cast that fills each character with so many memorable nuances , the most fun to be had is in simply watching the people interact with each other . annie wilson ( cate blanchett ) is a recently widowed mother of three sons who makes her living giving psychic readings to the residents of her backwater southern hometown . some of her mainstay clients include valerie barksdale ( hilary swank ) , who is severely abused by her husband donnie ( keanu reeves ) , and buddy cole ( giovanni ribisi ) , an unstable mechanic who is confused by the nightmares he's been having about a mysterious blue diamond that is somehow linked to his father . for annie , she does not give the readings merely for money , but uses it as a way of seeking solace in finding the good in everyone's future . her late grandmother ( rosemary harris ) told her as a child that it was a gift she was given , and she should always remember that . when annie's eldest son is involved in a fight at school , she meets the nice-guy school principal , wayne collins ( greg kinnear ) , whom she finds herself attracted to . but wayne is engaged to the wealthy jessica king ( katie holmes ) , whom annie immediately gets a negative vibe about . at a party with her best friend linda ( kim dickens ) , annie stumbles upon jessica in a compromising position with lawyer david duncan ( gary cole ) . soon after , jessica has disappeared , leaving everyone in a frenzy over what could have possibly happened to her , and annie starts to have nightmares and apparitions linking jessica with the vicious redneck donnie barksdale , and the pond behind his home . " the gift " may be cliched on a sheer storytelling level , but the performances and tight direction from raimi ( who has redeemed himself for his embarrassing last film , 1999's " for love of the game " ) lift the picture up several notches . slowly enveloping the viewer into the many intriguing characters and their individual plights , the disappearance of jessica at the 30-minute mark divulges the movie's true intentions and transforms the proceedings into a taut , at times frightening , horror-mystery . at the center of the film is the exceptional cate blanchett ( 1999's " the talented mr . ripley " ) , who turns annie wilson from what could have been little more than a run-of-the-mill protagonist into a very exact , down-to-earth , realistic person with valid troubles and a caring attitude towards those around her . blanchett takes the unextraordinary material and runs with it , giving the entire film a truly classy aura that it otherwise might not have had . we follow her at every turn because she is so mesmerizing , both as a character and an actress . blanchett isn't the only bright performer , as she is ably supported by one of the best casts of the year . in her first role following her oscar win for 1999's " boys don't cry , " hilary swank is excellent as the confused valerie , who seeks guidance from annie , but is too scared to take her biggest advice of all : to leave the grossly abusive donnie . as donnie , keanu reeves ( 2000's " the watcher " ) makes an utterly convincing backwoods meanie , so much so that it is difficult to believe he is an actor at all . for the often-criticized reeves , whose acting abilities have never been the best , this is the biggest compliment he could possibly get , and it is also one of the better performances he has given . giovanni ribisi ( 2000's " the boiler room " ) is heartbreaking as a mentally slow young man who sees annie as his only friend , and wants her to do nothing but help him understand why he is being plagued by bad dreams about his dad . in the small , but pivotal role of the sleazy jessica king , katie holmes ( 2000's " wonder boys " ) has turned in yet another stunning supporting turn . her promiscuous role of jessica is one she has never played before , and she is radiant in her few scenes . finally , kim dickens ( 2000's " hollow man " ) makes her usual strong impression as annie's spicy best friend , linda . the other notable aspect of " the gift " is its moody atmosphere that lays such a thickly foreboding air over every scene it's almost suffocating . thanks to cleverly construed editing by arthur coburn and bob murawski , and the successful use of different eerie sounds effects and a very good music score by christopher young , the movie not only achieves a scary undercurrent , but one that is filled with dread . helped along by a strong screenplay by billy bob thornton and tom epperson , which makes the most of its setting and delightful cast , " the gift " is that rarest of thrillers that actually thrills , and offers up a fair share of chills , too . it may not be groundbreakingly original , but it sure is an entertaining ride for the duration of its running time .
0	in this re-make of the 1954 japanese monster film , godzilla is transformed into a " jurassic park " copy who swims from the south pacific to new york for no real reason and trashes the town . although some of the destruction is entertaining for a while , it gets old fast . the film often makes no sense ( a several-hundred foot tall beast hides in subway tunnels ) , sports second-rate effects ( the baby godzillas seem to be one computer effect multiplied on the screen ) , lame jokes ( mayor ebert and his assistant gene are never funny ) , horrendous acting ( even matthew broderick is dull ) and an unbelievable love story ( why would anyone want to get back together with maria pitillo's character ? ) . there are other elements of the film that fall flat , but going on would just be a waste of good words . only for die-hard creature feature fans , this might be fun if you could check your brain at the door . i couldn't . ( michael redman has written this column for 23 years and has seldom had a more disorienting cinematic experience than seeing both " fear and loathing " and " godzilla " in the same evening . )
0	best remembered for his understated performance as dr . hannibal lecter in michael mann's forensics thriller , manhunter , scottish character actor brian cox brings something special to every movie he works on . usually playing a bit role in some studio schlock ( he dies halfway through the long kiss goodnight ) , he's only occasionally given something meaty and substantial to do . if you want to see some brilliant acting , check out his work as a dogged police inspector opposite frances mcdormand in ken loach's hidden agenda . cox plays the role of big john harrigan in the disturbing new indie flick l . i . e . , which lot 47 picked up at sundance when other distributors were scared to budge . big john feels the love that dares not speak its name , but he expresses it through seeking out adolescents and bringing them back to his pad . what bothered some audience members was the presentation of big john in an oddly empathetic light . he's an even-tempered , funny , robust old man who actually listens to the kids' problems ( as opposed to their parents and friends , both caught up in the high-wire act of their own confused lives . ) he'll have sex-for-pay with them only after an elaborate courtship , charming them with temptations from the grown-up world . l . i . e . stands for long island expressway , which slices through the strip malls and middle-class homes of suburbia . filmmaker michael cuesta uses it as a ( pretty transparent ) metaphor of dangerous escape for his 15-year old protagonist , howie ( paul franklin dano ) . in his opening voice-over , howie reveals a morbid preoccupation with death on the road , citing the l . i . e . highway deaths of filmmaker alan j . pakula , songwriter harry chapin , and his own mother on exit 52 . he's both fascinated and disturbed by the l . i . e . , and those feelings are projected onto big john ( who follows howie around in his bright red car , but never makes a move to force the boy to do something he doesn't want to do . this makes him much more complex than the usual child molesters seen in movies -- he's a beast , but ashamed of it . ) l . i . e . would have worked best as a half-hour short film about howie's ill-advised foray into big john's haven . there is unnecessary padding with howie's miserable dad ( bruce altman ) in the hot seat for a white-collar crime , degenerate youngsters who get their kicks from robbing middle-class houses , and some homoerotic shenanigans with wise-ass gary terrio ( billy kay ) , a handsome artful dodger . rather than add to the themes of suburban ennui ( not that we needed another movie on that subject ) , these awkward subplots pad out the running time to adequate feature length . concurrently , the relationship between howie and big john is evenly paced and exceptionally well acted . cox , sporting a baseball cap and a faded marine tattoo , is all bluff and bluster . dano is quiet and at first glance seems so withdrawn as to be transparent . we're so used to child actors whose dramatic choices are broad and obvious ( calling haley joel ! ) , it's surprising to see one who actually listens throughout any given scene . the restraint is admirable . but l . i . e . 's screenplay doesn't always give them the best material . when howie reads big john a walt whitman poem , the moment feels a bit too precious . director michael cuesta lingers on an ecstatic reaction shot of big john , who may as well be hearing glenn gould performing bach's goldberg variations . it's too much . there are also some obvious dramatic contrivances involving big john's other boy toy ( walter masterson ) , jealous over the newbie . this plot thread predictably leads to violence . not content to be a haunting , observational portrait of teen alienation in a royally screwed up world ( like terry zwigoff's superb ghost world ) , cuesta lacks the confidence in his own work to end on an ambivalent note . it's typical of unimaginative cinema to wrap things up with a bullet , sparing the writers from actually having to come up with a complex , philosophical note . in this regard , l . i . e . ( and countless other indie films ) share something in common with blockbuster action films : problems are solved when the obstacle is removed . how often does real life work this way ? to extend the question : if a movie is striving for realism , do dramatic contrivances destroy the illusion ?
1	wow ! what a movie . it's everything a movie can be : funny , dramatic , interesting , weird , funny , weird and strikingly original . yep that pretty much describes this movie . it starts out like a regular movie and ends up being one of the weirdest , funniest most original movies i have ever seen . it boggles the mind and some have to wonder why we cannot get movies like this more often . besides being one of the best films of the year , being john malkovich may as well be one of the best movies ever . period . then again there are so many good movies , that one cannot pick an all time favorite . john cusack plays a puppeteer craig schwartz a man out of a job , in search of a job . his wife lotte schwartz who is played by a completely un-noticeable cameron diaz who looks like something off the streets is an animal lover and has about every kind of animal you could think of . craig finds a job as a file at the 7 ? floor of a business building . . . you have to pry open the elevator doors open before it reaches floor eight , the 7 ? floor is just a floor between 7 and 8 . he is hired by his 105 year old boss ( orsen bean ) to be a filer . in his office , he discovers a little door , to which was boarded up and hidden . to his curiosity he opens it and starts to crawl toward it , he then gets sucked to the end and ends up in john malkovich's mind . fifteen minutes later he is shot out onto the side of the new jersey turnpike . he returns to tell his co-worker maxine ( catherine keener ) that he has found a portal that will lead him into john malkovich's mind , she doesn't believe him but after she sees it it changes her mind . lotte also finds out about the portal and discovers that being someone else is good after all . john malkovich of course has no idea what is going on , and by the end of this bizarre film there are so many twists and turns , that we don't know what really happened . john cusack is outstanding and utterly believeable in a role only he himself could play . he fits the role perfectly and to me was brilliantly cast . cameron diaz is outstanding and utterly one of the world's most prettiest women , is made up here unnoticeable and very unattractive . she however gives a very comic performance and this could easily be her best role to date . catherine keener is very funny and sexy as maxine and of course the best thing of the movie is the magic himself john malkovich who is very brilliant and this movie plays big time homage ? to the master himself . the whole group combined gives us a wonderfully funny movie that is also smart and clever . spike jonze ( three kings ) makes his fabulous directing debut , and did a fantastic job of directing this new classic film . he lets the viewer go on the trip as well as let the viewer know they are watching a movie . by the time the ending rolled around my head was spinning from disbelief of how good this film was . the screenplay written by charlie kaufman was hilarious and often thought-provoking . the film also had a soft side to it and even though the ending is very surprising it is also a little sad and heart-warming . the whole movie was fantastic and had me rolling in the isles . from cameron diaz's appearence to john malkovich's explorations i laughed very hard , and it may as well be as funny as as good as it gets ( the funniest ! ) . there isn't a slow point in the movie , or an overused idea . there are no cliches except for the fact that this is the most original , inventie , witty , and smart movie i've seen in a long time . i found myself amazed by everything : the direction , acting , writing and the whole idea of the movie . by the end i had to wonder why hollywood doesn't want to make movies like this anymore . or why they don't . all filmmakers watch this movie and get some ideas of movies to come out . this was a surprise hit as was american beauty . 'being john malkovich' is in the top 5 movies of the year , and in the top 10 best films ever made . it has something that no other movies playing now has . in fact it may as well be the best movie out right now . i highly recommend 'being john malkovich' and have no doubts you will be disappointed .
1	are you tired of all the hot new releases being gone by the time you get to the video store ? wafflemovies . com is dedicated to finding those hidden gems that lie on the shelves . everyweek , wafflemovies . com reviews independent film and big studio pictures that deserve a second chance on video . here is a sample review : welcome to sarajevo in light of america's recent intervention in kosovo , welcome to sarajevo is a reminder of the horror america and the world ignored for years . set in sarajevo 1992 and based on actual events , this picture examines the human and societal casualties of war . the picture opens with a family escorting their young bride to her wedding . as they make their way down the street , a sniper shoots the mother of the bride . yet another reminder that daily life in war torn sarajevo can never escape the horror of war . in this scene , we meet joe flynn ( woody harrelson ) , an american reporter who stops reporting to help a priest carry the mortally wounded mother into a church . joe is cocky , but also good at heart as he continues to carry out kind deeds for people he doesn't even know . his fellow reporter is the british michael henderson ( stephen dillane ) . michael is quickly growing tired of the horror that surrounds him and the world's lack of interest . henderson is haunted by the memory of an altar boy who witnesses the mother's death as well as a young girl who he finds orphaned in a hospital after a mortar attack on citizens waiting in line for bread . he decides to take action when a united nations' delegation descends upon the area to declare yugoslavia the fourteenth most dangerous place on earth . henderson begins a series profiling an orphanage located on the front lines . he finds children of all ages living in fear and taking care of each other with the help of one adult . during his visits , he befriends a pre-teen girl , emira ( emira nuseric ) who serves as surrogate mother to baby roadrunner . he promises to get emira out of harm's way if he gets the chance . after the un delegation leaves the country without rescuing any of the children , henderson loses hope . however , his reporting has grabbed the attention of nina ( marisa tomei ) and her children's aid group that helps to find homes for the yugoslavian orphans . unfortunately , only babies are wanted for adoption , so henderson pledges to take emira to england . the group of children , nina and henderson depart the front lines on a dangerous escape for italy . can they complete this dangerous trek through the war torn countryside and avoid hostile troops gathering up muslims for concentration camps ? the movie was beautifully and sensitively made . director michael winterbottom and screenwriter frank cottrell boyce vividly express the societal destruction that has occurred . they show the destroyed lives , families that have been split up , and the desolation that everyone attempts to cope with . this is best exemplified by the group of yugoslavians henderson , his producer and flynn have befriended . the group of twenty-somethings reside in a bombed out bar without life's simplest pleasures and amenities . one of them is an accomplished musician who spends his days playing the piano and promising to play a concert when sarajevo is declared the most dangerous place on earth . like the rest of those deeply effected by the war , this small group tries to survive instead of trying to live . winterbottom brilliantly intersplices scenes with actual news footage to give the film the feel of a documentary and keeps the viewer aware that many of these horrors are being carried out thousands of miles away as you sit safely in your living room . the picture is also bolstered by beautiful cinematography that captures the devastation of this city that hosted the 1984 olympics . winterbottom and boyce also produce a realistic portrayal of the reporters covering the atrocities . this portrayal is much more flattering to reporters than earlier wafflemovies . com selection mad city . we watch them struggle to cover the horror , while trying to remain professionally detached . however , they are human and question the reason behind it all , why no one cares , and how they can get out . stephen dillane is wonderful as henderson . he portrays the character as an everyman caught in the middle of extraordinary events . dillane avoids making the character overly heroic and preachy . henderson realizes that he cannot save the world , but he can help a few . it is a wonderful opportunity for dillane after he had to suffer through the denis leary-sandra bullock disaster two if by sea . woody harrelson continues to prove that he is one of the finest , most versatile actors of his generation . harrelson plays the cocky celebrity reporter with a heart of gold by allowing the character's caring nature and vulnerability shine through . harrelson is equally adept at taking on roles as zany leading men ( cheers , white men can't jump ) as well as excellent supporting roles such as this one . this ability will serve him well and give him a long , successful career . america's involvement in this struggle comes seven years after the events of the movie take place . for those who do not have a full understanding of the history of the conflict , the entire movie , most importantly the opening scenes , provide a history lesson . war is a foreign concept to most of us in america . battles are fought thousands of miles away among people we have no attachment to . televised images of the gulf war are all the experience most of us have with war . this picture brings it right into your living room and makes you think outside of our own small world , something we don't do enough of in 90's america .
1	linda fiorentino disappeared off the radar after a deservedly heralded turn in the cable pic the last seduction , and her being cast as dogma's lead is nothing short of inexplicable . she's still in fine form as bethany , an abortion clinic worker who's lost her faith . one night , a visitor from heaven makes a fiery entrance in bethany's bedroom . he is metatron ( alan rickman ) , the voice of god , and he needs her help : she must stop two fallen angels from entering a new jersey church-the fate of the universe depends on it . god would do it him/herself , but he/she is . . . missing , having taken up human form somewhere on earth never to be heard from again . bethany is joined on her road trip to the garden state by the " prophets " jay ( jason mewes ) and silent bob ( kevin smith , doing double-duty ) , the slacker minstrels who have appeared in all of smith's films thus far . at some point , rock drops naked out of the sky as rufus , the undocumented ( and very black ) " thirteenth apostle " , and offers his assistance , as does divine stripper serendipity ( salma hayek ) . it's a wild ride . they're in pursuit of loki and bartleby ( damon and affleck , respectively-this is probably the sharpest either has ever been ) , who were banished from heaven to wisconsin and have discovered a dogmatic loophole that will enable their return . loki decides to wreak havoc along the way with the knowledge that his sins will be absolved at the pearly gates . at one point , he terrorizes a boardroom full of suits with an angry combination of words and bullets . it's a nasty , guiltily enjoyable little scene that asks , " how corrupt are you ? " . wings of desire this ain't . since debuting with clerks , smith has grown as a director , particularly in terms of working with actors . ( chris rock is this film's only weak link-between jokes , he's wooden . ) his no-frills visual style hasn't changed much over the years , though ( dogma's widescreen compositions at least have blockbuster affectations ) , nor has his writing-his characters still sit around delivering one caustic , hilarious speech after another . dogma chips away at big religious issues-namely , the hypocrisy that accompanies any organized system of beliefs-eloquently and articulately , but a few of the monologues sound too much like blatant exposition . as well , the verbal introduction of each new person seems to take forever . any movie with this much weighty talk would have a hard time maintaining momentum ( hurlyburly , anyone ? ) , and eventually dogma's pacing goes slack . a long diatribe from bartleby late in the game , in which he laments the destiny of celestial beings , comes at a point when we've heard enough . because his change of heart ( bartleby is initially the good cop to loki's bad ) drives the climax , said rant is given a great deal of screen time . sure , affleck deserved a big moment ( damon steals their scenes together prior ) , but it ultimately makes the film and us feel bloated . like tarantino , smith was a video-age sponge who became a sample-mad indie filmmaker . dogma pays welcome homage to an eclectic batch of movies , including indiana jones and the last crusade , with silent bob doing his best harrison ford , and weird science-a shit demon attacks our heroes ! smith also has a kitchen sink brand of humour : his dexterous maneuvering between the satirical ( a cardinal played by george carlin attempts to mount a publicity campaign with the slogan " catholicism wow ! " ) and the scatalogical ensures that no lover of comedy will leave dogma feeling malnourished . i bust ( ed ? ) a gut on several occasions . proceedings also get off on the right foot with the opening with the funniest disclaimer ever . it's a disclaimer unlikely to put protestors at ease , for to read it , one actually has to see dogma . the prerelease ballyhoo is in the tradition of the last temptation of christ's , martin scorsese's 1988 adaptation of nikos kazantzakis' controversial novel , in that it is not directly linked to the picture's content but to rumours and heresy . there's a famous anecdote about fletch director michael ritchie inviting picketers of the last temptation of christ into a screening on his dime , just so they could know for certain what they were rallying against . ( not one of them had watched it . ) every single person refused . smith and scorsese have a lot in common , and so do the two films in question , because both smith's bethany and scorsese's jesus are hollow shells without their faith . in fact , dogma's denouement ( which follows a thrilling showdown that's worth the wait ) is a catholic love-in , a veritable recruitment poster . ( i felt sentimental about a religion i don't belong to . now that's powerful filmmaking . ) smith is nothing if not sincere about his own devotion to god , and that spirituality shines through . it's enough to make me forgive dogma for its editorial sins . my religion is movies . when the catholic league beats on dogma for imaginary crimes against a doctrine , in a roundabout way they're attacking what i live for : freedom of expression through celluloid . i therefore feel that , although i'm no bible-thumper , i'm at least as qualified to criticize dogma as william donohue and his followers .
0	the previews for the movie are pretty good . they show a little plot , all the characters , and the emotional highlights , all spliced together to give a general impression of the script . unfortunately , the full movie adds nothing but 115 minutes . the residents of mystery love hockey . mystery and hockey go together like texas and high school football . the townsfolk love hockey so much that they even acquit a player who's guilty of shooting another man ( yes , that's one of the movie's jokes . ) every saturday , the best players pair off for a game , and the whole town comes to watch . the town's prodigal son charlie ( hank azaria ) wrote an article on the weekly game for sports illustrated . mystery's national fame has the town abuzz . a week later , charlie actually shows up in person , and he brings with him an offer from the nhl . the new york rangers will come to mystery to play the locals . the mysterians see this as both good and bad . on the one hand , they'd love to have the fame and the money of such an exhibition . on the other hand , they don't want to turn up as the butt of leno and letterman jokes . the movie follows a handful of lives that are affected by the proposition . biebe ( russell crowe ) has just been retired from the team and is asked to coach the boys , including his new replacement . he's already resentful , and to top it off charlie has been making eyes at his wife . crowe is not given a lot of room to act in this film , so he's just kind of stuck with constantly brooding . charlie , meanwhile , is resentful of having born in a town where hockey is the only measure of a man's worth . his " gift " of the feature story , and of the new york rangers , was his way of compensating for not being a better skater . he hoped it would earn him some respect and merit , but the townspeople find reasons to continue disliking him . burt reynolds could have been interesting as walter , the judge whose courtroom was befouled by a moronic jury of hockey fans . walter actually has some experience with collegiate hockey , but he actively tries to put it behind him . he wants his son to take the game more seriously , but he wants his community to just get over it . reynolds could have been good , but sloppy writing and/or editing keep walter in the corner , and so reynolds never really gets to pull his performance all together . one character actually was interesting . biebe's wife ( mary mccormack ) , like the judge , understood that there was more to life than hockey . but unlike him she has come to accept the skewed view of the community . she chose the town and her husband with her eyes wide open . her unique insight is verbalized once , and it lasts only a scene before it is gone , but her performance carries the hint of some deeper wisdom . mysterty , alaska follows a handful of other characters , but none are well developed or worth mentioning . the biggest problem with this movie is that there is no real heart to the story , no underlying thing that the movie is really about . instead , roach and screenwriters david e . kelley and sean o'byrne try to cram the entire human condition into this sports comedy . they try to make you laugh and cry , to feel outrage and pride . they present the framing and cadence for jokes , but there's nothing truly funny . they show appropriately staged scenes of sadness , but they give you nothing to be really sad about . as columnist molly ivins would say , it's all hat , no cattle . the perfect opportunity arises for roach to say what this movie is really about . there is a funeral scene , played with appropriate gravity and somber music . it is a chance for the characters to reflect on their lives and decide what's truly important . russell crowe steps forward to speak , about to spell out the movie's metaphor for us . he says that what really matters in life is " community . . . . " then adds " and hockey . " i guess these mysterians really are as shallow as they appear . only mildly bad , mystery , alaska probably deserves 2 stars . i even laughed out loud , genuine laughs in places . but i docked it an extra half star when mike myers , a friend of roach , turned up in a role that didn't suit him . myers is a comic character actor . he puts on masks , becomes an outrageous caricature , and is funny . he's great as austin powers , dr . evil , or any of his scottish characters . nobody else in mysterty , alaska is a comic caricature . all the other people have the feel of dramatic characters in semi-serious roles . for roach to bring in myers for a few cheap laughs shows incredible contempt toward the rest of his cast , toward his audience , and indeed toward the film itself . it's an acknowledgment by the director that the film is not worth taking seriously .
1	it is hard to imagine that a movie which includes abortion and incest as prominent plot devices could be so sensitive , so delicate , so insightful and yes , even so enjoyable . somehow , the cider house rules manages to keep an even keel in the face of the harsh subject matter and allows a substantial amount of heart to shine through . set in the 1940's , the film tells the story of a unique young man named homer wells ( tobey maguire , ride with the devil ) . an orphan , twice rejected as an infant by possible adoptive parents , he grows up in the care and under the tutelage of dr . wilbur larch ( michael caine , little voice ) , father figure to the orphans of st . cloud , obstetrician or abortionist to the unhappily pregnant women who come there seeking his help . figuring that as long as homer was going to stay at the orphanage , he might as well be of use , dr . larch begins teaching him all he knows about obstetrics . soon homer is delivering babies like a professional . he refuses to perform abortions , instead wondering why the couples just didn't behave more responsibly . larch , too old and experienced to have such youthful ideals , marvels that homer " continues to have such high expectations of people . " such is the result of an insulated upbringing . though skilled in certain medical procedures , homer remains woefully naive and ignorant about most everything else . he finally figures that in order to find his place in the world , he must go out into it . befriending a young couple who had come to see dr . larch , he hitches a ride with them and parlays that into landing a job as an apple picker with a group of black migrant workers at the orchard where they lived . thus , homer begins his worldly instruction , with new friend candy kendall ( charlize theron , the astronaut's wife ) a willing tutor . tobey maguire is well cast yet again as an inherently good man who is seeking answers to life's questions . . . many of which he was unaware needed to be asked . he demonstrates a quiet strength and thoughtful curiosity that is both warm and appealing . michael caine is , in a word , brilliant as the caring caretaker of these orphans , many of whom he helped to bring into the world . calling them " princes of maine , kings of new england " in his ritualistic goodnight , mr . caine manages to communicate the love and commitment larch has towards these children without becoming maudlin or saccharine . delroy lindo ( a life less ordinary ) has many powerful moments as mr . rose , the strong and charismatic leader of the apple pickers whom homer joins . director lasse hallstrom ( what's eating gilbert grape ? ) and screenwriter/novelist john irving ( the world according to garp ) , who adapted his own work for this movie deserve much of the credit for the balanced approach to the sensitive subject matter . regardless of one's personal stand on the divisive matter of abortion , it is hard to imagine anyone becoming offended by the evenhanded treatment used by these filmmakers . the title is a reference to a list of rules posted in the quarters of the illiterate apple pickers . figuring the rules didn't apply to them since they didn't have a hand in writing them , they decide to ignore the list and make up their own rules as they go along . dr . larch , in his own way , acts similarly . there is a danger in that line of reasoning . god has also given us a set of rules . unlike the list posted in the cider house , god's rules , if followed , promise us benefits beyond our imagination . and yet , many continue to ignore his " rules " preferring to make up their own as they go through life . " trust in the lord with all thine heart ; and lean not unto thine own understanding . " proverbs 3 : 5 [kjv] just as a builder follows a designer's blueprint or a conductor follows a composer's score , why shouldn't we follow the rules of life given to us by life's architect for our own blessing ?
0	for " original sin , " the road to the screen has been rocky . initially slated for release last november , the film was bumped twice , finally landing in the dog days of summer 2001 . advance screenings of the film were denied to all but a few critics , generally a sign that the studio realizes it has a dud on its hands . so is " original sin " really all that bad ? yes it is , but the melodrama does offer some rewards . the location settings are gorgeous and there is a healthy sprinkling of t&a ( with angelina jolie providing the " t " and antonio banderas the " a " ) . more importantly , the movie is entertainingly bad . veteran readers know that , as a rule , i don't encourage people to patronize lousy films . most of the time , there are plenty of quality offerings on the marketplace that are more deserving of our money and besides , the " let's go laugh at the failings of others " mindset reflects an elitism that makes me uncomfortable . but things are different this summer . quality films , to put it mildly , have been few and far between , so as far as i'm concerned , it's fair to find our kicks where we may . " original sin " will never join such treasures as " valley of the dolls , " " road house " and " showgirls " in the bad movie hall of fame , but it'll do until something worse comes along . the film , adapted by director michael cristofer from the cornell woolrich novel , " waltz into darkness " ( which was also the source for the 1969 francois truffaut film , " mississippi mermaid " ) , opens in a turn-of-the-century prison , as jolie's character , slated for a dawn execution , tells her lurid tale to a priest who appears desperately horny . the freshman writing class tone is quickly established when she says things like , " this is not a love story , it is a story about love . " wary of local gold-diggers , cuban coffee dealer luis antonio vargas ( banderas ) makes arrangements to secure a mail order bride from america , listing himself as a mere clerk to dissuade foreign gold-diggers . a practical man , luis chooses a frumpy looking lady , hoping she will be a loyal mate able to provide him with children . imagine his surprise when his fianc ? e , julia russell ( jolie ) , turns out to be infinitely more attractive than the woman in the photo . julia explains that she sent a different woman's image because she didn't want to be selected solely for her pretty face . luis then confesses his deception , leading julie to state , with great significance , " we have something in common , we are both not to trusted . " after their wedding , luis and julia retire for a glorious night of carefully choreographed lovemaking , with their bodies positioned to display her breasts and his bottom as erotically as possible . jolie and banderas are attractive people and watching them naked is fun , although the filmmakers' insistence on using one of banderas' legs to cover jolie's crotch makes it look like he's trying to climb her . luis , the stupidest man who ever lived , immediately instructs the bank to make his personal and business accounts available to julia , despite the fact that she seems nothing like the woman with whom he corresponded . his blissful ignorance continues as the warning signs mount up . luis must force julia to write to her sister emily , who is frantic over her lack of communication . shortly after julia complains about the chirping of a pet bird , it is found on the floor of its cage with a broken neck . finally , when she cleans out his accounts and disappears , luis begins to suspect that something might be wrong . incidentally , if you're afraid i'm giving too much away , rest assured that all of this happens in the first 30 minutes of the movie , leaving plenty of time for numerous dopey plot twists , a great deal of operatic acting and more footage of her tits and his ass . along the way , private detective walter downs ( played by thomas jane , who was terrific as mickey mantle in the hbo movie " 61 * " ) turns up , hired by the frumpy woman's sister to find out what happened to the real julia . luis is also eager for the detective to track down the con artist , having decided that if he can't have her , he will kill her . oh , the pathos of it all . the cast appears to recognize the trashiness of the story , adjusting their performances accordingly . banderas is suitably impassioned , while jolie alternates between vamping and pouting ( and with those lips , she can really pout ) . as for thomas jane , he starts off acting suspicious and cagey , then accelerates to a snidely whiplash level of nastiness . his most startling moment comes when , to prove his power to humiliate , he forces luis against a wall , verbally taunts him while rubbing his cheeks against those of luis and then finishes establishing his dominance with a full-on kiss . if anyone ever questions the difference between sex and rape , show them this chilling scene . and if anyone ever questions the difference between real drama and a laughable potboiler , show them " original sin . "
1	field of dreams almost defies description . although it's about baseball , it's not a baseball movie . although the film is extremely spiritual , it's not about religion . and although field of dreams is melodramatic , it's not a tearjerker . to really understand what field of dreams is all about , you have to see it . in the film , kevin costner plays ray kinsella , a baseball fan , '60s berkeley graduate , and iowa farmer . one day as he is standing in the middle of his expansive corn fields , ray hears a voice ; it tells him : " if you build it , he will come . " then ray has a vision and somehow concludes that if he builds a baseball field in the middle of his corn , shoeless joe jackson will arise from the dead to play ball once again . and even though it depletes his family's savings and his neighbors think he's crazy , ray clears away the corn and builds a baseball field , complete with bleachers and flood lights . " if you build it , he will come . " and lo and behold , shoeless joe does come--bringing with him several of his dead teammates . and then ray hears the voice again ; it tells him to " ease his pain . " ray thinks this means that he must travel to boston to meet terence mann , an influential and radical novelist from the '60s who has since stopped writing and dropped out of society . with great aplomb , james earl jones plays the disillusioned author who joins forces with ray and embarks with him on a magical and spiritual journey . the cast in field of dreams is excellent , especially kevin costner in the lead role . costner gives a quiet , subtle , and moving performance as a man who before building the baseball field had done nothing crazy or spontaneous in his entire life . costner gives ray just the right mix of enthusiasm and idealism to make us believe in his mystic visions and swallow this wondrous fairy tale . amy madigan gives a fine supporting performance as ray's feisty and loving wife , who against her better judgement supports her husband's crazy ideas . in her most impressive scene , madigan vehemently argues against book burning at a p . t . a . meeting , displaying the sincere passion of a '60s berkeley radical . ray liotta is appropriately eerie and awe-inspiring as the ghost of shoeless joe , the legendary batter who was suspended from baseball for his involvement in the 1919 chicago " black sox " scandal . and finally , burt lancaster is memorable in a small , but important , role as a small town doctor whose professional baseball career was limited to only one inning . field of dreams is a touching fairy tale full of life , wonder , mystery , spirit , and humor . it , for the most part , succeeds in capturing our emotions and suspending our disbelief . ray kinsella's spiritual quest in pursuit of his dreams proves to be moving and miraculous . but while field of dreams generally avoids excessive melodrama , it unfortunately does at times go overboard , and by the end it gets down-right sappy . in general , however , field of dreams is an emotionally satisfying fantasy--one i can recommend to everyone but unromantic cynics .
0	capsule : the weakest and least engaging of the alien movies , dragged down by an uninvolving story and no real tension . alien 3 ( the " 3 " should be in superscript ) is a sad and wan entry in what was shaping up as one of the best sf sagas ever put on screen . it continues the story of ripley , the space-trucker-turned-impromptu-survivalist , but seems remarkably uninterested in her . in fact , the movie seems lucky to be interested in anything at all , it's so elegaic and limp . a little of this would have been nice for atmosphere , but the movie telegraphs its own tragedy from the beginning . at the end of the last film ( aliens ) , ripley and two survivors were on their way home . unfortunately , an alien pod had been deposited in their ship , and wound up triggering off their ejection in an escape pod . the pod crashes on firorina 161 , a prison planet designed to house the incurably criminally violent . ripley lives through the crash ; the others do not . the prison is a grim place , even as prisons go -- it's been built around the remnants of an abandoned steelworks , which provides no end of techno-gothic backdrops for the actors to be backlit against . lice are endemic , and so ripley's head is shaved ( another surreal touch ) . at first it looks like she just has to hold out as an unwelcome guest until a company rescue ship can arrive , but it doesn't stay that way . one of the other eggs on board the wrecked escape pod hatches , and soon a newly-gestated alien is running amuck . worse , it looks like ripley herself has been impregnated . what's weird is how little tension this generates , except near the end , when the pressure is being troweled on through every cheap cinematic form of cheating imaginable : loud music , shaky camerawork , etc . sigourney weaver has become comfortable with the role , and she does well with it , but this time the role has been underwritten and left slack . the supporting actors are also not given a lot to do : the doctor ( charles dance ) and another , rather religious inmate ( charles s . dutton , very good ) , hiave presence , but they're not asked to do anything with it . in light of the impending sequel , which apparently plays fast and loose with the ending of this movie , i will not talk about the ending -- except to say that they found a remarkably good ending for such a drab movie . it's strange that some of the desperate and improvisational thinking that they found to wind up this story couldn't have driven the rest of it .
1	that thing you do ! ( r ) tom hanks's screenwriting and directorial debut , that thing you do ! , has all the qualities you would associate with the most beloved screen actor of the moment : fun , lively , and oh-so-nice . it is the latter quality , however , that becomes a hindrance , for this '60s nostalgia trifle is so nice and sweet that it teeters on becoming bland milquetoast . that thing focuses on the wonders , a teen rock band from erie , pennsylvania that is suddenly thrust into the national spotlight in 1964 when they score a major dance hit called , of course , " that thing you do ! " the group's members are , naturally a diverse group : there's brooding lead singer and songwriter jimmy ( johnathon schaech ) ; girl-crazy lenny ( steve zahn ) , the lead guitarist ; a goofy , geeky type known only as the bass player ( ethan embry ) ; and the film's center , guy ( tom everett scott ) , the drummer who has aspirations in jazz . along for the wonders' ride to success is jimmy's perpetually neglected galpal , faye ( liv tyler ) . hanks proves to be a capable writer-director , deftly recreating the innocent spirit of 1964 , which hanks calls " the last innocent year . " the spirit is not only reflected in the period clothes and settings but also in the music , which , like the other recent period music film , grace of my heart , was expressly written for the film ; hanks himself had a hand in writing four of the tunes--but not the infectious title cut by adam schlesinger , which is guaranteed to stay in your head long after the end credits have rolled ( it's still playing in my mind as i write this ) . it should come as no surprise that hanks the director works well with the actors , eliciting charming , likable work from the entire cast , most notably hanks lookalike scott and tyler , who is remarkable in delivering the film's biggest and best dramatic moment . the work of the young ensemble is so natural that they truly convince as teens of the early '60s ; they do not appear to be '90s grungers playacting " retro . " yet for all the light , frothy charms of that thing you do ! , it's nearly nice to a fault . while this unbridled innocence in film is a refreshing change from all the sinful cinema around these days , there is not enough conflict to keep things consistently interesting . everyone is so happy , basking in the glow of overnight success , marvelling at it all--except toward the end , but even then the tone quickly reverts to sweetness , ending on an appropriately feel-good note . there isn't much of an edge throughout that thing--the only thing that is remotely edgy is hanks's turn as the wonders' manager--and thus becomes in danger of being so nice it's bland . but a little niceness goes a long way these days , and there's no denying the entertainment value of that thing you do ! ; it's just about impossible to hate . it's an inoffensive , enjoyable piece of nostalgia that is sure to leave audiences smiling and humming , if not singing , " that thing you do ! " --quite possibly for days . to paraphrase a passage from the song : though i try and try to forget that song it is just so hard to do every time they play " that thing you do ! "
0	have you ever been in an automobile accident where you've miraculously walked away with only a few scratches , yet the car has been obliterated into an unrecognizable , mangled wreck ? well , that has never actually happened to me and i hope that none of us will ever experience this situation . but after watching this inane exercise of a movie , i certainly feel that i've miraculously walked away unscathed after a two-hour ride that mercilessly careens back and forth before finally plummeting into an icy pond . oddly , `eye of the beholder , ' which is a psychological-romance-thriller , starts off promisingly enough when the opening sequence introduces us to a british intelligence agent , called the eye ( ewan mcgregor ) , working in washington dc . in the humorous opening scene , he eyes a top lawyer across the street in his office with his pants down . using an array of high-tech surveillance and communications equipment , he proceeds to transmit pictures of the bared lawyer to pc screens and fax machines in his office . the law firm's employees get a good chuckle . the audience gets a good chuckle . the eye is later given an assignment where he encounters a beautiful woman ( ashley judd ) . there is something compelling about this mysterious woman . despite her glamorous looks , however , we learn that she is a psychopath with a propensity to kill men that get too close to her . after the murders , she sobs while singing the christmas tune `little bluebirds' and laments about being abandoned by her father long ago . after each killing , she puts on a different wig , assumes a new name , and then makes her way to another state . the eye has witnessed all her murderous transgressions . but he does not alert the authorities . he somehow empathizes with her sense of loss . the eye , it turns out , also is haunted by his past . his daughter was taken away from him and he anguishes this loss every day of his life . his tormented psyche creates a ghost-like image of his daughter with which he engages in conversation . she becomes a sort of spectral adviser , and one thing that the ghostly daughter says is that he must help the woman . he now diverts his energies into trying to help her find some kind of salvation . it doesn't matter that he has witnessed all of her murders . and it doesn't matter that the eye is abnormally reticent , hiding his entire life behind computer screens . he follows her to a dozen different locales and shadows her every move to keep her out of trouble . when a crazed druggie ( jason priestley ) attacks her , he shows up for some quick butt kicking . when the police are closing in to arrest her , he provides a distraction so that she can escape . all the while , the woman has no idea who her guardian angel is and the eye stays just out of sight . peculiar . how bad is this movie ? i refer you to my `review quote source' litmus test . just take a look at the full-page ad in the newspaper and see where they are pulling quotes . for this movie , they are from magazines called `flaunt' and `mirabella . ' no doubt , they were impressed with judd's series of catwalks and disguise changes . the major problem with `eye of the beholder' is that the film jerks forward , always unsure of its ultimate destination . if it was a thriller , there was little to keep us entranced . if it was a love story , there was absolutely no emotional pull . completely disjointed in structure , it's only saving grace was its stylish look which reminded me of my favorite car commercial ( the one where the `6' on the tachometer dissolves into a winding road and a passenger rail car dissolves into a small miniature on a child's train set ) . i am also still hopeful that ashley judd will find a serious role to showcase her potential talents . beyond that , the film is hopelessly out-of-control and is in need of seriously better traction and handling .
1	it seemed wholly appropriate that at a weekend screening of " the horse whisperer , " the start of the film was delayed some twenty minutes due to " projection difficulties . " robert redford's film version of nicholas evans' best-selling novel was supposed to have been in theaters last december , going head-to-head with " titanic , " but is only now making its much anticipated debut . this ( strategic ? ) delay has allowed " the horse whisperer " to compete , sans fanfare , against some smaller , unassuming movies during a relatively slower time at the box office . no matter . redford's film stands head and shoulders above james cameron's ocean-going tragedy , especially in the writing and acting departments . whatever the reasons for its postponement , " the horse whisperer " supports the old adage " better late than never . " redford has taken evans' book and given it the big screen treatment . while parts of " the horse whisperer " are epic in scope and vision , especially the aerial " travelogue " that maps out this great country of ours , its real strength lies in the subtleties it uses to paint the fragile alliance between man and beast . when her daughter , grace , is involved in a terrible riding accident , hard-driven fashion editor annie maclean ( kristin scott thomas ) devotes herself to rehabilitating both grace and grace's beloved horse , pilgrim . refusing to have the hideously disfigured animal put down , annie researches every possible source of information about equine cures before discovering an article about a faith-healing cowboy of sorts called tom booker ( redford ) , who has a way with horses and , perhaps , with people too . undeterred by tom's initial reluctance to get involved , annie drives grace and a sedated pilgrim across country to meet him , and finally persuades tom to work with the uncontrollable animal . redford's film unfolds slowly and lovingly , echoing the patience required in healing both physical and psychological wounds . the film's a little long and , even if you haven't read the book , it's pretty obvious where it's heading--but these are minor complaints . redford and thomas are strong and convincing as the couple drawn by a mutual affection for the great outdoors and each other , but it's scarlett johansson as grace who shines in a more difficult role . dianne wiest , chris cooper ( " lone star " ) , and sam neill--better than i've seen him before--round out the respectable supporting cast . and the director's respect for horses is clearly in evidence . one word of warning , however : while brilliantly shot , the accident scene , involving an out-of-control truck , is extremely disturbing . redford's canvas is huge and exquisite . he doesn't hesitate to incorporate vast , sprawling vistas of the american northwest : spectacular , snow-capped mountain ranges , azure skies , and shimmering fields of wheat--all are resplendent in cinematographer robert richardson's viewfinder . veteran english composer john barry was originally signed to score the film but left the project which is a pity , since " the horse whisperer " is " dances with wolves " by way of " out of africa " ( oscar winners both for barry ) . fortunately , barry's replacement , thomas newman , contributes a fine score that nicely balances the majesty of montana with the delicate , human conditions--sonorous , string-laden passages that swell with pride playing counterpoint to more poetic , introspective movements ripe with nuance . " the horse whisperer " is that rare kind of movie : it looks good , it feels good , and by golly it does you good . the wait , it turns out , was well worth it .
0	woof ! too bad that leap of faith was the title of a 1992 comedy starring steve martin and debra winger , because that's what's required to watch this incredulous howler starring bruce willis as--of all things--a psychologist . not since the reagan administration has there been an acting stretch of such magnitude ! alas , mickey rourke , we hardly knew ye . story opens with a campy kick--willis is treating a patient who abruptly steps out of the window to take the best flying leap since charles durning dove in the hudsucker proxy . she goes splat , he goes ugh , and his character spends the rest of the film colorblind . really . the good doctor then moves to sunny l . a . , where he rooms with an old college chum ( scott bakula ) , a therapist who's getting death threats from someone in his monday evening group . buddy bites it in the second reel ( no surprise there ) and willis agrees to take over both the group and the death threats . for his troubles as therapy man , willis gets to share some cut-from-nc17 love scenes with the lover's jane march while dodging nails , cars , and rattlesnakes . why'd it have to be snakes ? color of night is the worst movie of the year . period . forget north , clifford , or , heaven help us , even on deadly ground . here is a movie misfire so audaciously awful that you can't help but wonder how the actors all kept straight faces while filming . for starters , the " group " is a collection of mixed nuts better suited to bob newhart than bruce willis . these are realistic portrayals of the mentally unhealthy ? playing a prissy obsessive/compulsive , cuckoos nest alumni brad dourif , alone , may set the psychology profession back ten years . the plot's a wreck with laughable dialogue , pointless pov shifts , and the one big secret solvable in the first fifteen minutes . director richard rush , who once helmed freebie and the bean , doesn't seem to mind . unfazed by the nincompoop plot and cuckoo characterizations , he overfills the film with enough canny camera shots and zany set-pieces to make the effort almost worth watching . his token freeway chase is ok , but the director has more fun with a vertiginous ending ala ( most recently ) fatal analysis . acting credits are across-the-board awful . willis can be forgiven because he's filming die hard 3 as we speak . but what about ruben blades insulting presence as the cop ? or lesley ann warren's stereotypical sex addict ? or worst offender jane march as a mystery-girl-who's-no-real-mystery ? shudder . bottom line : how they all kept straight faces , i'll never know .
1	in my reviews i try to make gentle recommendations rather than telling you what to see or what not to see . i realize that we all have different tastes and i cannot predict what my audience will like and what they will dislike . but in the case of american beauty , i must make an exception . if you haven't yet seen it , go see it . now . stop reading this review and head for your local multiplex , then after you've seen it , come back . i'll wait here . welcome back . if you followed my advice ( and i see no reason why you should not have , do you ? ) , i'm sure you've just had one of the richest cinematic experiences of your life . american beauty is an extraordinary film , a powerful , jolting exploration of the dark side of the american dream . it's humorous but it isn't funny because of the unrelenting ominous undercurrent that runs throughout the whole production . mixing comedy and the darkest of drama was the way this film was intended , and by god , it works , making it one of the year's very best . lester burnham ( kevin spacey ) has entered the mother of all mid-life crises . he is living life without a purpose . he is bored , depressed and sick of his sheltered , insignificant existence . he barely ever talks to his family , has no sex life , is stuck at a dead-end job and thinks he has no reason to live . but one day , when he and his equally troubled wife ( annette bening ) attend one of his daughter's ( thora birch ) cheerleading performances , he sees something that makes him come alive . what he sees is the performance by his daughter's friend , the head cheerleader . he develops a lust for the promiscuous young girl ; an obsession which soon becomes pedophilic in nature . but for the first time , lester feels that he is actually living . this crush is only the beginning . lester proceeds to make more and more radical changes in his life , buying the car of his dreams , cursing off the boss and quitting his job ( " today i quit my job , told the boss to f * * * himself and blackmailed him for $60 , 000 -- would you pass the asparagus please ? " ) , buying drugs from the voyeur-next-door ( ricky fitts , a teenager who mysteriously videotapes what he considers to be " beauty " ) and refusing to be docile in family affairs . his new attitude further alienates his daughter , only reassuring her that her parents are nothing more than freaks of nature unjustly forced on her by the powers that be , and inspiring her to enter a relationship with her eccentric neighbor . and the burnhams's neighbors provide american beauty with a significant chunk of its dramatic momentum . ricky fitts ( wes bentley ) serves as the film's thematic center , providing the obscure , powerful meaning of the title . colonel fitts , the father , is one of the most fascinating and complex characters in the movie , even considering his limited screentime . kevin spacey has never been better , and this performance will certainly earn him a chance to put a little gold person on his mantel . he never plays his droll character as a freak , rather , he effectively portrays him as a normal person led to drastic self-exploration by his dissatisfaction with life . spacey is poignant and devastating in the role of a lifetime . equally astonishing is young thora birch , who plays her potentially stereotypical rebellious teen character with suprising feeling and tenderness . at two hours and ten minutes , american beauty didn't feel nearly long enough . it's a complicated , unforgettable film that , like the ice storm two years ago , dares to explore the darkest reaches of suburban life . powerfully and cynically , it dissects the notion of the pretty house with the white picket fence and appealing garden being the american dream . it claims that this picture-perfect image is just that -- an image , and hiding behind it are lives much darker than common knowledge would have it . the dark , deeply ironic ending , though given away by our narrator in the first few minutes of the movie , stays with you for weeks after it's all over . american beauty is just the kind of uncompromising film hollywood needs every now and then to counterbalance the mindless drivel we see released ; even more so considering it's a masterpiece .
1	with a team of 200 graphic artists and animators working on this first film production from game developer squaresoft's square pictures , final fantasy , inspired by the top-selling game franchise , is visually awe-inspiring and groundbreaking . no doubt , you have never seen anything like this film , and the hyperbolic fanfare surrounding its release is absolutely deserved . but why does such a tremendous feat of eye candy have to be weighted down with a problematic story , wooden dialogue and generally uncharismatic voice acting ? obviously , the primary goal of the film is to stun and amaze audiences with extremely sophisticated cgi . everything you see in the film is rendered in great detail : individual threads in the fabric , individual strands of hair swaying , wrinkles and pimples on skin , incredible water effects . overall , the expressions and lip movements fairly accurately match the emotions and dialogue ; and the times when they don't sync perfectly really stand out , since the animation is usually so dazzling . but you won't spend much time dwelling on those gaffes -- as soon as you catch one , the next stellar monster or effect will have you muttering , " wow . . . " like the series of games , final fantasy's plot and characters have little to do with its predecessors , outside of being born from the same japanese mastermind , hironobu sakaguchi . it's the year 2065 , and humans are prisoners in caged cities of their own making that guard them from an outside world now overrun with deadly alien " phantoms . " whenever a human comes in contact with the ghostly visitors , the often-invisible beings pass through the body and wrench out its soul ( for some unexplainable reason ) . while many humans agree with a plan by monomaniacal general hein ( james woods ) to blast the aliens with a " zeus cannon , " dr . aki ross ( ming-na ) and dr . sid ( donald sutherland ) plan to build a " wave " using eight collected " spirits " to counteract the phantoms and kill them off . while the images serve the sci-fi aspect of the film well , the storytelling doesn't . it's unfortunate , because the plot seems so intricately thought out . perhaps it was far too complex and enormous to be entirely incorporated into the script . some could blame this weakness on the fact that it was a japanese concept translated to english , except two americans wrote the screenplay . nevertheless , the end result is an elaborate story complicated by confusing holes . why do these aliens feed on souls ? if they can pass through bodies and ships , how can humans hurt them with guns ? what is so special about the " spirits " that they would create a force strong enough to destroy the aliens ? worse yet , the dialogue is scripted to be either like a science-heavy star trek episode , an installment of die hard , or a sappy love story , depending on who's doing the talking . for the most part , it's bearable considering the genre , but tedious speeches and cheesy lines don't do anything to help the actors and can get annoying in the longer scenes . the only exception is steve buscemi as pilot neil fleming , who always has great cracks during tense moments . but , when the lights come up and the credits roll , you're more likely to be remarking on how fantastic the film looked . there's no question that the roughly 33 million people who have bought at least one final fantasy game will be eager to see this movie , and so should anyone who enjoys being floored by the best cg animation ever put to film . you'd be living in a fantasy world of your own if you expected much more .
0	as bad as " mimic " was , it definitly scared me . " mimic " continued the frightening hollywood trend of taking a foreign director who shows a lot of creative ingenuity and style , and completely flushing it when he comes to america to make a movie . director guillermo del toro was recently imported from mexico after he made the award winning and inventive horror film " cronos . " that movie worked because it took an unconventional story , unique characters and well written plot and dialogue to create a truly scary movie . in " mimic " , del toro doesn't bother to give us anything original . the plot is a stupid combination of " aliens " meets " species " meets " jurassic park . " the characters have been recycled from a few hundred other movies . there's nothing new in " mimic " . it's just a bunch of old tricks that rarely work . at the end of the movie , you're stuck wanting your money back . maybe the worst thing about the movie is that del toro followed another annoying trend of recent movies : he forgot to turn the lights on . i don't understand why suspense movies lately have to follow the " seven " trend and be set in dark , dank areas . watching " mimic " i was tempted several times to yell at the screen " turn the lights on ! the switch is to your right ! use common sense ! just do it ! you'll be able to see the monster in the corner ! " there's a scene where mira sorvino is standing in subway station while the lights are flickering on and off . it looked like the light operator was having a seizure , and sorvino didn't even notice - she just stood there looking like she was having deep thoughts . " hmmm . . . . i think bean soup would be good for dinner tonight . " " mimic " has a lot of incidental shock tactics ( boo ! just kidding ! ) and follows them up with the real scare , but nothing in this movie scares you . the audience in the theater never jumped during suspenseful moments ; i think they were bored , too . i shouldn't blame del toro . he isn't the first successful foreign director to come to hollywood and make a bad movie . hong kong director john woo made two of the best action films of all time , " the killer " and " hard boiled " then came to america to make the stupid " broken arrow . " french directors luc besson ( " la femme nikita " ) and george sluizer ( " the vanishing " ) followed woo's lead and made dumbed down versions of those movies . robert rodriguez , who directed the terrific low budget " el mariachi " came to hollywood and directed the horrible , high-budget " desperado . " i don't know why a foreign director who shows such talent in his country can't make a good american movie . woo finally broke through and made " face/off " , but it still isn't up to par with his earlier films . i get the feeling a hollywood producer sits in his office , chews on a big smelly cigar and says to the director , " welcome to america ! i bet you must be tired after being on that boat for so long . do you speak english ? now , i know you think you've made good movies in the past , but now you're in america , so things are a little different here . just remember what the american audience always wants , and you'll be fine . they want to see at least one big breasted woman , characters that they've seen a thousand times before ( because change scares americans ) , and you always need a cheesy feel-good ending to wrap things up . if you don't make that kind of movie , you'll be shining my shoes in no time . "
1	in `enemy at the gates' , jude law is a gifted russian sniper made hero by a political officer named danilov ( joseph fiennes ) who uses him in a propaganda newspaper to raise the hopes of the soldiers and people of stalingrad . it's world war ii , and the russian-german standoff in town could determine the outcome of things for the motherland . law's vassili is the russian's top pawn to victory . lots of war stuff happens . an older , german version of jude's character played by ed harris shows up halfway into the proceedings . he's equally talented , and the two men play a cat and mouse game trying to kill each other . they constantly switch roles , as the war fades far into the background . the cast also includes the terrific rachel weisz as a love interest for both vassili and danilov the set-up is decent , and so are the production values . boasting a wide range of grimy locales , greasy hair , and tattered costumes , the art direction prospers . the actors , however , suffer the problem matt damon had in `saving private ryan' . either their eyes , teeth , skin , or a combination of other features looked too white and clean . with dirt and blood all around , the blinding teeth or bright eyes of these actors divert attention from the action . that said , the players are mostly good in their roles , although i don't think ed harris was really trying . maybe he realized his role struck a difficult chord in one-notedom . while the film is technically about snipers , there are far too many predictable sniping scenes . director jean-jacques annaud expects us to view each tense situation with jude and some cohort in a tight spot as edgy and exciting , but after about the sixth time , in which we realize that jude is not going to die , it's relatively pointless . we get that he's talented , okay , let's move on . that's the problem with `enemy at the gates' ; it just doesn't know when to stop . witness the wasted seventeen minutes that could have been spent elsewhere . reestablishing his title as the most beautiful ( and often talented ) man on film , jude law carries the movie . without him , this costly production would have gone into the ground . the story and acting are of good quality , but there's never a sense of authenticity or reality . something about this war movie is undeniably modern , and it loses its feeling . strange enough , the screenplay is based on the true story of a real russian sniper .
0	hollywood never fails to astound me . every time i think those coked-up little buggers have hit rock bottom ; they come up with a new excavating tool . i was truly convinced that " wild wild west " marked 1999 studio filmmaking at its most hapless , but then along comes " end of days " to prove me wrong . this big budget , brain dead apocalyptic thriller bludgeons its audience with overwrought music , grisly violence , explosions galore and lots of cheesy special effects . the result ? nothing but groans and yawns . even the devil himself is unable to produce a decent scare in this festival of the inept . at the very least , " end of days " should have done us the courtesy of being bad-enough-to-be-good , but it can't even manage that . it's just lousy . arnold schwarzenegger , still recovering from heart problems and " batman & robin , " plays an ex-cop turned security agent or bodyguard or something . along with his obligatory comic relief partner ( kevin pollak , impersonating matthew perry's chandler character from " friends " ) , he gets involved in some major league supernatural hoodoo . it seems that satan ( gabriel byrne ) gets a shot at world domination only once every thousand years ( and here i thought he'd pulled it off with the republican landslide of '94 ) . if he has sex with 20-year old christine york ( robin tunney ) , " the chosen one , " their child will be the antichrist , or at least a brat . ah , but this deal has more catches than a new year's eve pass from a halfway house . the unholy union must take place on december 31 , 1999 ( you see , 999 is just 666 turned upside down ) , but only between 11 p . m . and midnight ( no wonder this guy is so cranky ) . and if the chosen one is given refuge in a church , the devil won't know where she is , because he can't see into the sanctuary . you know , it's kind of like superman's x-ray vision and lead walls , only evil . a group of guerrilla catholic priests decide the best way to stop the situation is by killing the girl . arnold chooses to save the girl and kick the hell out of satan , if you'll pardon the expression . and kevin meets up with an exploding van and has to make some decisions of his own . oh , the anguish ! oh , the humanity ! oh , the writing ! andrew w . marlowe's screenplay ladles implausibility upon implausibility , from the preposterous otherworldly histrionics to his handling of jericho cane , schwarzenegger's character . cane starts the film a la mel gibson in the first " lethal weapon , " preparing to put a gun in his mouth due to ongoing despondence over the murder of his wife and daughter . twenty minutes later , he's racing through the bowels of new york city , deciphering clues that sherlock holmes and kreskin would find baffling . when cane meets up with christine york , he instantly switches to terminator father figure mode , with the young woman serving as surrogate daughter . in case anyone misses the connection , the camera comes in for a close up of christine's music box , which just happens to be identical to one owned by cane's daughter . subtle , marlowe , subtle . speaking of cameras , director peter hyams is just the man to take marlowe's script and make it even more self-important , murky and annoying . hyams' direction shows all the subtlety of a gwar video , with cane running a gauntlet of ridiculous action set pieces , punctuated with loads of big explosions . eager to satisfy arnold's core audience , he even throws in a few pairs of breasts as well . what a guy . had the film delivered some decent scares , or even maintained a consistently ominous tone , the bombastic clich ? s might have been tolerable , but " end of days " is simply a flaccid special effects show . the cast is just as ineffective . in his early scenes , gabriel byrne attempts to invest beelzebub with some panache , but he all too soon turns into just another standard issue monster . kevin pollak comes and goes quickly , robin tunney comes off like a bargain basement winona ryder and as for arnold , well ? he's a better actor than casper van dien . that should count for something . way back in the aftermath " the exorcist " and " the omen , " supernatural swill like " end of days " might have passed muster as a b-movie . but that was then and this is now . " the x-files " and " buffy the vampire slayer " deliver real scares on a weekly basis and , if we want to see the devil , all we have to do is flip on " the 700 club " and take a gander at pat robertson's grinning maw . after enduring " end of days , " all i can say is " get thee behind me , satan . and while you're at it , get thee a better agent as well . "
1	" the blair witch project " was perhaps one of a kind , a unique film that played completely on its own merit , managing to scare even the most experienced horror fans out of their senses . its success made a sequel inevitable , but this is not the sequel , i suspect , anyone much wanted . after the release of " the blair witch project " , tourists have practically invaded the small town of burkettsville , in order to get a glimpse of the blair witch . locals have turned this mass hysteria into a great business opportunity , selling twig-sculptures , stones and dirt like those in the movie , and the exasperated local sheriff patrols the woods with a bullhorn , shouting , " get out of these woods and go home ! there is no goddamned blair witch ! " . jeff ( ) is one of those people , who has used the sudden popularity of the small town to his advantage . after he got released from the mental institution , he created a mobile business that attracts thousands of customers through the internet . as the movie starts he is leading one of these groups into the woods , on the " blair witch hunt " . among the five strangers is stephen and his girlfriend , the pregnant tristen , who are writing a book on the hysteria caused by the film called " the blair witch : history or hysteria ? " , and kim , who dresses in black and has some psychic powers . the last member of the crew is erica , a young beautiful witch-wannabe , who constantly quotes from the wiccan lore , saying " the first rule of wicca is , do no harm , because whatever you do will come back to you threefold . " this strange group plunges into the woods , where they begin to argue about their different approaches to the experience . on the very first night that they decide to spend under the stars amidst the ruins of parr's abandoned house , strange things start happening . when they wake up their equipment is gone and only the tapes remain . after a while they discover strange markings on their bodies . they are somehow lost in time , as it loops uncontrollably back and forth . they are all haunted by hallucinations and horrible nightmares and soon they can not see the difference between dreams and reality . the only thing that they are sure of is that they have brought something or someone with them from the woods . . documentary director joe berlinger ( " paradice lost " ) helms " blair witch 2 " , leaving the creators of the first film ( dan myrick and ed sanches ) in the background . the opening scenes--the documentary showing the townspeople affected by the first film-- is a more promising approach , because instead of trying to cover similar ground , it goes outside the first film and makes its own stand . but soon the movie gets confused and sidetracked by its own story , that is never resolved and ends with a very anticlimaxic epilogue . in a way , this is a typical hollywood sequel . more money has been spent and more people have worked on a project that was doomed to fail . the horror and suspense of the original simply could not be repeated . of course in these situations , quantity is more important than quality and profit is more important than the artistical values . from its opening scenes when the camera gracefully panes over the bloody-red forest , with carter burwell's ( " being john malkovich " and " fargo " ) musical score in the background , you realize that with the exception of its title , this film has absolutely nothing to do with " the blair witch project " . " blair witch . . " was filmed by handheld videocameras and nfeatured acting that was mostly based on improvisation . in the sequel the technical aspect of the film is close to perfection , creating a completely different atmosphere . with its graceful cinematography , production design and flashy editing , the film has a very polished look , which is impossible to associate with the first installment . and though berlinger directs his film with an energy and pace that makes the adrenaline rush through the body a couple of times , he has obviously misunderstood the nature of his predecessor . the key is simplicity . " blair witch project " had a story which was incredibly simple . that allowed the audience to fill the gaps with our own imagination . the film was practically an empty screen , on which we projected our most frightening nightmares . the effect was incredibly powerful , lasting and entir e everyone , but in a different way . " book of shadows " feels incredibly controlled and restrict . here , very little is left to our imagination and the story is so complex and " clever " that the screenwriters are the first to get lost in it . there is is no book of shadows and no conclusion that we can be satisfied with . this is simply a less artistic film that doesn't have the talent and originality of its predecessor . it resorts to fancy cinematography and special effects to create the right effect and doesn't always succeed . but most importantly : it stands on its own ground and has almost no connection with the first movie , which doesn't allow it to destroy the original . in the end , i can't call it a bad effort . it's less artistic , not so scary and less original , but certainly not bad . it's simply different . in fact , if you haven't seen " the blair witch project " , you might like this film for what it is -- a cross between " the blair witch project " and the " scream " -films . the only element that remains constant and similar between the two films is the solid acting ( jeffrey donovan and tristine skyler should be mentioned ) and incredible sense of surrealism . but it's a common knowledge and experience that , with a few exceptions , every movie sequel is worse than the original and some are even not worth making . to me the story of " the blair witch project " seemed completed , but there are obviously no limits to commercial success that " the book of shadows " is certainly assured . and it's already time to look forward to " blair witch 3 " .
1	i was pleasantly surprised by this film . with a budget topping $200 million , i was quite skeptical about whether throwing all that money toward one of the twentieth century's greatest tragedies would make a film exciting enough to see . how much could you dress up the sets ? how many models and computer effects could you use ? how much more action could you pack into a ship that sinks ? oh , if i've just given away part of the plot for you , go back to school . after having viewed titanic , however , i found it to be a well-paced , well-designed , and overall well-made movie . there have been many films made about the maiden and final voyage of the ocean liner titanic , but this latest offering from director james cameron is the best i've seen . titanic tells its story in two time periods . it starts out in the present , when ocean explorer brock lovett ( bill paxton ) and his team are exploring the wreckage of the titanic on the floor of the atlantic , searching for a priceless diamond necklace which supposedly went down with the ship . what they find instead is a drawing of a woman wearing the necklace , which is broadcast on the news . the woman in the picture recognizes herself and phones lovett , who has her flown out to his exploration vessel on the high seas . there she tells her story to lovett and his team . in 1912 , rose dewitt bukater ( kate winslett ) , a young lady belonging to society's upper class , boards the titanic for the ship's first atlantic crossing , from southampton , england to new york . she is engaged to cal hockley ( billy zane ) , an heir to old money , and a snob in every sense of the word . on board , rose feels the stifling trappings of high-society's expectations , and resolves to escape from it all by throwing herself off the titanic's stern , but is saved from her self-proclaimed fate by jack dawson ( leonardo dicaprio ) , a passenger in third-class ( " steerage " , as it's referred to ) , who talks her out of jumping . although for rose the attraction is not immediate , a love affair soon develops between the two , which endangers rose's social standing as well as her engagement to the jealous cal . the story sounds very simple , and perhaps even unexciting , but through solid performances by the leads and good direction by cameron , a good movie comes through . dicaprio is marvelous as the young , but worldly-wise jack , playing the role with the confidence usually found in older actors . his is a character that is immediately likable , as he knows what he wants out of life and is charmingly able to handle a variety of situations . girls are going to swoon over him . winslet also proves herself a good actress , delivering her lines convincingly , and the quality of performances between winslet and dicaprio makes the relationship believable . the only problem with winslet is that she does not carry herself in accordance with her character's upbringing . simply by judgment of her gait , i was distracted from the fact that she was supposed to be an upper-crust debutante . rather than demonstrate the poise one would expect her character to possess , she sometimes looks positively clumsy , and it unfortunately detracts from her otherwise great acting . billy zane is cast well as the aristocratic snob cal , since he has a certain look that immediately makes you want to hate him . his features are such that even when he smiles , there's something mistrustful about him , and when he scowls , he is evil incarnate . he's something like a porcelain version of peter gallagher , but a cheaper model . like dicaprio and winslet , zane slips comfortably into his role and plays it well . backing up zane is david warner as lovejoy , cal's personal assistant ( or " man " as they said at the turn of the century ) . no matter who else is in the cast , you can always count on a good performance by warner , who seems to be made to play the distinguished gentleman with a gaze of steel and will to match . additionally , there are a number of smaller fictional and non-fictional roles thrown in for color , such as kathy bates as " the unsinkable " molly brown , danny nucci as jack's friend fabrizio de rossi , eric braeden as john jacob astor , and even bernard fox as colonel archibald gracie . nice to see dr . bombay getting work . also scattered about are some of the other steerage passengers who are basically in the movie so you can feel sorry for them when they die . this by itself may have been largely compulsory in a film about the titanic , but it transcends this status by putting these characters in direct conflict with the ship's crewmembers who strive to maintain order and assure that the first-class passengers are placed aboard the lifeboats before anyone else . in this way , titanic possesses a depth not usually found in action pictures . you don't just get a love story with a tragedy as a backdrop , but a very real account of class struggle as well . as i mentioned before , the budget for this film was tremendous , and it certainly showed in the set dressing and special effects . the interiors of the titanic are nearly breathtaking with their elaborate trimmings and intricate detail , and one has very little doubt that the layouts are authentic . with regard to the exteriors , i would dare anyone to point out a film in which a vessel has been recreated with such meticulousness or on such a scale . cameron actually built a scale model of the titanic in a water tank , but only had room for 90% , and therefore had to computer-generate the remaining 40 feet . could've fooled me and everyone else in the theater , as the splicing is seamless . also of note in this film is the way the audience is presented with the anatomy of the disaster right at the beginning . we are told of where the iceberg struck the ship , how the flooding occurred , the way the ship sank , and why it did so in that manner . these technical details serve as a guide for later on when the action starts happening , and allow us to view the sinking with informed analytic detraction , in addition to the more conventional placement in the midst of mayhem and confusion . in all , james cameron's titanic is a good blend of love story , history , and action . the fact that the film runs longer than most at about three hours is almost unnoticed as the viewer's attention is held alternately by those three main elements , from the movie's intriguing beginning to it's satisfactory ending . in box office receipts , titanic the movie will undoubtedly live up to the unsinkable expectations of titanic the ship .
0	the premise of this movie is , well , pretty far-fetched . tom berenger plays shale , a mercenary who is temporarily out of work ( those fools at the cia have denied his existence just because he and his buddies botched a job in cuba ) . fortunately , his girl friend ( diane venora ) , a teacher at christopher columbus high school in miami , gets her knee cap broken by a disgruntled student , creating a job opening for shale as a substitute teacher . not telling his girl friend , who might object on pedagogical grounds , he creates a number of fake higher degrees for himself ( from yale , harvard , princeton , et al ) and begins his tenure as a high school teacher . the students ( junkies , drug dealers , gang members , sleazy sluts , ice-pick wielders . . . you get the picture ) don't really take to him right away , so he hits one in the face with a can and breaks a few fingers . this gets their attention to a certain extent , so he tells them the story of the vietnam war : " see , some homeboys from the north tried to muscle in on the turf of the homeboys from the south . " oh yeah , now they can dig it ; the problem is just that nobody ever explained it properly before . but wait ! there are drugs being dealt in the school itself ! and behind the whole scheme , in cahoots with the head gang , the kod ( no , not " cod " , but " knights of destruction " . . . really ! ) , is none other than . . . the upright , ex-cop principal , played by the forgotten ghostbuster , ernie hudson ! so shale does what any good teacher would do . he gets his buddies together , they gather together a bunch of bazookas and other major weapons , explosives , and cool stuff like that , and they have a big showdown against the drug dealers and kod at the high school . ok , so the premise is not just far-fetched , it's downright dumb . if this were a hong kong action comedy , we might just accept it , but it takes itself far too seriously to be truly fun . oh , it has its moments ; how one can truly hate a movie in which huge ( really huge ) amounts of cocaine are delivered in school busses ? and to be fair , it is almost never really boring , as the action is interrupted by only short sequences of actual story . but over all , this is pretty much a made-for-tv movie with more ( and bigger ) explosions and more foul language . in fact , it reminded me of " miami vice " without the production values , babes in skimpy bikinis , and pastels . if you can sneak into the theater without paying , go for it . otherwise , wait for video . the flying inkpot rating system : * wait for the tv2 broadcast . * * a little creaky , but still better than staying at home with gotcha ! * * * pretty good , bring a friend . * * * * amazing , potent stuff . * * * * * perfection . see it twice .
0	well , as i check my score card for what i've done this holiday weekend , it reads good ideas : 0 and dumb ideas : 1 . i don't know what i was thinking when i decided to watch this movie . but in my defense , i can only say that it was someone else who urged me to see this with him . the film that i'm talking about is `a night at the roxbury , ' one of those offerings based on a saturday night live skit . wayne and garth , these two are not . rather , we meet doug and steve butabi ( the actors' names are not worth mentioning ) , two eternal partyers whose greatest ambitions in life seem to be finding a way to get into the hottest night club in the city , the roxbury . driving in their dad's bmw and donning metallic disco suits right out of miami vice , they try to bribe the bouncer to get into the club . `have you met my friend washington and his friend roosevelt , ' they confidently say as they pull out spare pocket change . their second greatest ambition seems to be oozing out as many silly pick-up lines as is humanly possible in order to start a conversation with a girl ( `let me see that label . just as i thought - made in heaven , ' says one of the brothers ) . and , like the losers that they are , they fail to do either for much of the film . however , as fate would have it , an accidental meeting with `what-ever-happened-to' richard grieco gives them the all-important ticket to get in . their sad lives take on a whole new direction . they make an important contact with the club owner who believes that these two brothers have uncanny insight into the club scene . and they are mistaken as rich swingers by two voluptuous young women . but their newfound popularity does not impress their father , who has other plans for them . the unfortunate thing about this film is that this is a one-joke movie , and the brothers are the joke . actually , there's about 10 mintues worth of tolerable stuff . alas , too long for tv and way too short for a feature-length film . thus , there just isn't enough material to sustain the 83-minute movie . there's no plot to be found and everything that these two do seem to culminate in an opportunity to execute their trademark move of snapping their heads in unison to the funky beat of haddaway's europop song , what is love . i was amazed that none of the two suffered from whiplash . to take up more film time , there is a subplot involving the daughter of the businessman next door who wants to marry doug . this creates not only friction between the brothers , but their unlikely pairing will also agitate audience members as well . she's educated and a forebearing witch . meanwhile , doug is a complete loser . how did these two ever get together ? i suppose that if i can ever figure out the answer to that question , i'll have figured out why i decided to go and see this movie . if you're looking for entertainment , you won't find it at the roxbury .
0	this feature is like a double header , two sets of clich ? s for the price of one . not only do we get the usual tired sports chestnuts , but the banal rich girl-poor boy love story is tossed in for good measure . an original moment in this loser is as rare as a chicago cubs world series appearance . the screenplay by kevin falls and john gatins , based on a story by falls , merely lobs its plotline at the audience . this is a story that needed sent down for seasoning and more coaching . summer catch centers around ryan dunne ( freddie prinze jr . ) , a cape cod youth chosen to participate in the prestigious cape cod baseball league , supposedly a showcase for the best young amateur and college players in the country . ryan is a blue-collar kind of guy . he works with his dad taking care of the lawns of cape cod's rich and famous . he also , as we are informed early , his own worst enemy . he has the potential and the talent , but always seems to self-destruct at the crucial moment . so , ryan tries to remained focused on baseball . then he meets tenley parrish ( jessica biel ) , daughter of one of the blue bloods whose lawn he manicures . tenley , a name only a hack screenwriter could invent , is unlike her snobbish counterparts and falls for ryan . if you can't figure out where all this nonsense leads , then you need a remedial course in film viewing . as always prinze is pretty to look at , but his performance mainly consists of facial expressions : puppy dog love , heartbreak , frustration , self-loathing or determination . biel cries a lot , while bruce davison merely acts smarmy as her class-conscious father . the only beacon is matthew lillard's fun-loving billy brubaker , the team's catcher . summer catch borrows situations and stylings from other baseball movies , such as bull durham and the natural . no curve balls here , no sliders . every pitch is predictable . a blind umpire could call this movie . summer catch is strictly rookie league moviemaking . it has as much chance of making the movie hall of fame as the dodgers have of moving back to brooklyn .
0	one might expect a cathartic viewing experience walking into a new jean-luc godard film . after all , he was a founding member of the highly influential french new wave . he is also an esteemed film critic , lending intelligence and historical perspective to us in much of his writing . however , his latest creation , in praise of love , is possibly the most exasperating film experience of the year . the abstract concept on which the film is based had merit , to dissect love into the following four categories : meeting , physical passion , quarrels , and reconciliation . these four universal truths would be revealed through three different couples : young , adult , and elderly . it is edgar's ( bruno putzulu ) self-appointed task to capture these moments after a recent breakup , to define a central idea : " it's only when things are over that they make sense . " whether this project will end up a play , film , or opera remains undecided . the thesis is simple enough that , if played right , it could really hold sympathetic value for anyone . instead what ensues is an hour and a half of repetitive vignettes , the next scene no more engaging than the last . only once does any character utter something worthwhile , but by the time it happens you're so thoroughly bored you can easily miss it . but don't fret , it will surface again . you could easily sleep through whole sections of the film ( as some fellow critics did ) and wake up in a scene exactly like the one you nodded off in , not having missed anything worthwhile . but you hold hope for some time . the background music keeps you in a state of urgency , and even suspense , for the first few conversations . it's only after repeated failures to pay any of this off that you lose all hope . and with speeches like , " i am thinking of something , but i can only think of that something when i am thinking of something else , " how can you expect to hold anyone's interest ? to godard's credit , he certainly knows how to frame a scene . the black and white footage used for the first half of the film is starkly beautiful . watching edgar read while walking along a train track on a mountain makes you wish you had something to ponder along with him . and if this film had anything poignant to say , you would have , which makes you all the angrier at the numerous missed opportunities . the environments , be it city or country , are impeccably captured in crisp detail , but the script never complements them . unfortunately , godard also manages to pillage his photographic eye by randomly cutting to black numerous times within any given scene . sometimes these breaks are used for chapter headings , but these are even more cryptic than the spoken words . the second half is composed of nauseating hyper-color that often blurs the image . you suddenly feel like a doomed character straight out of scanners . the only scene that makes any sense is one that complains about the united states bastardizing history in the making of movies . steven spielberg is picked on in particular . while i'll grant that this does happen , and i tend to shy away from watching such garbage , it's still a pointless focus for a film that purports to articulate the specific qualities of couplehood . it just goes to show , an intelligent person isn't necessarily an admirable storyteller . the days of breathless are no more .
1	it's not often that i laugh so hard at a movie that my head hurts . but that's just what happened to me at uhf , weird al yankovic's big screen debut . uhf is a television parody a la airplane , and like airplane , the movie is extraordinarily stupid . but it's dumb in the best way a movie can be dumb : it's so silly and outrageous it's hilarious . the movie stars weird al as george newman , a world class nerd with a hyperactive imagination , the type who fantasizes he's indiana jones and who uses hostess twinkies as hot dog buns . george is basically a loser ; his daydreams and smart-alec attitude perpetually prevent him from holding onto a job for more than two weeks . but george finally gets a chance to funnel his creativity into something productive when his uncle wins channel 62 in a poker game and makes him the general manager of the struggling uhf television station . george revives channel 62 with innovative programming : shows like " wheel of fish " and movies like " conan , the librarian . " as the station's ratings rise , it comes into competition with channel 8 , the leading vhf network-affiliate . as r . j . fletcher--channel 8's ill-natured , hard-nosed owner--veteran stage and film actor kevin mccarthy is flamboyantly sleazy ; he really hams it up with his snorts , grimaces , and scowls . uhf satirizes anything and everything to do with television , including game shows , tabloid talk shows , children's shows , dizzy news women , and movies--everything from rambo to close encounters . the funniest scene , the one that made my head spin , is a commercial for spatulas which has to be seen to be believed . like most movies in its genre , uhf is hit or miss . for every gag that works , at least one fizzles . for instance , weird al's mock video of " money for nothing " by dire straits is only mildly amusing and brings the film to a grinding halt ( although it does have some nifty computer animation ) . but the funniest bits in uhf are so hysterical that we can forgive the ones that fail ; we know another gut wrencher is on the way . in fact , uhf hits the mark often enough to make it the most effective airplane-type movie since . . . well , since airplane . much of the credit goes to weird al's exceptionally inventive script and to the movie's winsome cast . weird al seems a little stiff at the beginning , but because he's not afraid to look silly , he ultimately has a lot of fun with his character . the real standout is michael richards as stanley , the dim-witted janitor who becomes the host of his own children's show : " stanley spadowski's playhouse . " stanley's off-beat , mixed-up personality is a big hit with the audience and makes him an over-night star . he is an endearing mixture of good-natured innocence , high-energy enthusiasm , and puppy-dog cuteness . and above all , he's a good janitor who adores his work . another highlight is a vintage cameo by the incomparable emo philips . the cast also features gedde watanabe ( the chinese foreign-exchange student in sixteen candles ) as the karate master who hosts the hit series , " wheel of fish . " also aboard for the ride is fran drescher , who plays pamela finklestein , channel 62's roving reporter . unfortunately , as weird al's girlfriend , victoria jackson is wasted in a role that calls for nothing but whimpering , whining , and sulking . her character is extraneous and should have been either further integrated into the story or cut from the script altogether . while uhf is not an absolute must-see , it's definitely the ticket if you're looking for a wild and zany , whacked-out comedy . the movie is good enough to see in the theaters , but it may work even better on television , the very medium at which it pokes fun .
1	when i first saw the previews for ron howard's latest film , my expectations were discouragingly low . a show about nothing ? sounds like " seinfeld . " a guy whose entire life is broadcast 24 hours a day ? sounds like " the truman show . " what is it with hollywood that no sooner than one production company puts out an animated feature about ants , another puts one out about bugs ? which is why i was pleasantly surprised by " edtv , " which turns out to be a fresh , insightful , and often times hilarious film about the follies of instant celebrity . the writing , by howard's longtime collaborators lowell ganz and babaloo mandel , is right on the money and howard himself should be credited for giving the subject matter a fresh focus . in the hands of a less-experienced director , " edtv " could easily have had all the flavor of yesterday's meatloaf . with their 'true tv' cable ratings being threatened by 'the gardening channel' ( apparently people would rather watch soil ) , the northwest broadcasting company is looking for a novel concept to attract viewers . program director cynthia topping ( ellen degeneres ) comes up with the idea of putting a nobody on the air and broadcasting his every waking and sleeping moment . the hook is to find a regular guy , someone normal that people can relate to . while scouting possible candidates , cynthia's camera crew discover ed pekurny and his pig brother ray ( woody harrelson ) in a bar , where ray believes he has what it takes for his fifteen plus minutes of fame . but on watching the videotape , the show's producers are more taken with ed than with ray . he's cute , he says all the wrong things , and he's 100% usda hick . cynthia's boss , played by rob reiner , gives the show a week to deliver the goods and it's tough going in the early stages . the most exciting thing that happens is ed brushes his teeth . " action shot ! " wags one of the production assistants when a couple of pop tarts jump out of the toaster . you get the idea . but soon enough , things--nielsen-boosting kinds of things--start to happen to this unassuming san francisco video store clerk and the 'true tv' cameras are right there to document it . ed's privacy is no longer his own , his newfound fame starts having a negative impact on his family life , and what little dignity he has left is trampled on by the media . who should ed go out with ? you can be sure the pollsters have a list . not only is the film exceedingly well cast , but its performers are consistently excellent . matthew mcconaughey provides the face , the body language , and the lovable texan accent to fill the shoes of america's latest phenomenon . he and harrelson look like they really could be brothers . sally kirkland is noteworthy in a difficult role as ed's mother , and martin landau is one of the film's highlights as al , ed's ailing stepfather . jenna elfman ( from tv's " dharma and greg " ) proves herself surprisingly worthy in the company of kirkland and landau , although those alpine eyebrows of hers get a little distracting . even degeneres and reiner are better than you'd expect . in 1979 , writer/director/comedian albert brooks made a zany little film called " real life " in which a small-time opportunist makes a real-time documentary about a typical american family . the scenes of ed's family sitting around the dinner table feasting on kentucky fried chicken and waxing idiotic play like a big-budget variant on that film , paralleling its wickedly inventive humor . as with most films by albert brooks , " real life " was funny , but absurd . the funniest--and scariest--thing about " edtv " is that it is absolutely believable .
0	my friend here in film school just made a two minute-long film for one of his classes that includes a staged anal rape scene , done by two guys and shot on the shadow of the incident , with a banana being used as the instrument of penetration . as sick as this all is , watching it is one of the most admittingly hysterical moments i've ever witnessed . sure , it may be in bad taste , but what the hell is bad taste other than something that may be offensive to some but is riotously amusing to the rest ? then there's " caligula . " this film features incest , necrophilia , beastuality , anal rape , homosexual felatio of both sexes , elaborate and lengthy orgies , a greased-up fist forced up a man's rear , wine poured down a man who's had his urinary tracts tied off , a penis chopped off and fed to hungry dogs , etc , etc , etc . this could very well be a respectable film , and if could have been had the following not occurred : a ) the events were graphically shot in clear view ; b ) the tone was not that of trying to shock comically but to , well , show " historical accuracy ; " c ) the film was a 20 million dollar production with lavish sets , a rather impressive cast , and a whopping 2 1/2 hour running time . produced and funded by none other than bob guccione , owner of penthouse magazine , " caligula " comes across as the most hysterical dramatic picture since " plan 9 from outer space " because underneath there's a sense that everything this film is doing is not only accurate and justified , but also brilliantly entertaining . after all , it's not really the fact that this film features the aforementioned disgusting moments , but that it actually believes in them as dramatic weaponry . no film should be discarded because its content , because film is never about what it's about , it's about how it's about ( as the old cliche goes ) . those who bash this film for content are glancing over the biggest and most obvious problem with " caligula , " and that's that it's nothing but overdramaticized bullshit from start to finish , without a second of credibility in its mammoth running time . " caligula " allegedly tells the true story of the evil roman emporer of the same name , a man who was so insanely decadent that his assasination came as a blessing . . . or so i guess , even though almost every single roman emporer was assasinated as well and for much the same reasons . the film opens on the wrong note , of course , with a quote from mark appearing before any image graces the screen , using the over-used passage " what shall it profit a man if he should gain the whole world an dlose his own soul , " depite the fact that the opening scene of the film is of the emporer before he was an emporer , fucking around with his own sister in a field ( i suppose if one has to lose their soul , one has to have a soul in the first place ) . the plot is so incomprehensibly done that all i or anyone else can make out of it is that caligula ( disastrously played by the great malcom mcdowell , a performance that does the opposite that his performance in " a clockwork orange " did ) is next in line for the throne but can't wait for the current emporer , tiberius ( peter o' toole - ditto , only for his performance in " lawrence of arabia " ) , his grandfather , to die . . . so he kills him and ascends to the throne . then he abuses his position , marries a woman ( helen mirren , who retains her dignity as an actor by not exactly acting ) so he doesn't just have to sleep with his sister ( a dreadful teresa ann savoy , there to be pretty , naked , and willing to hop in the sack with mac or anyone he asks her to hop in with ) , abuses his position a little more , a little more , and a little more , and then , i believe , invades england , then is killed off . the filler , instead of recounting his life , is supposed to be , as guccione claims , the ultimate portrait of decadent pagan rome , complete with orgies , vicious deaths , and lots of nudity . but instead of being the historical accurate film it really really wants to be , it instead becomes guccione's twisted masturbatory image of what it could be like . oh , isn't it great that they just loved having sex ? and that they killed people so disgustingly ? and wouldn't it be great if i could make a couple bucks by selling this shit off as accuracy even though it's so blatantly real bad porn that i've completely convinced myself that it's not . i mean , why not just show a roman orgy when i can spend a good ten minutes examining every single facet that makes it up . and it's not just that it's disgusting or vile or whatever adjective you want to use to describe this film - it's that in a film where the entire feel it's going for isn't felt , it's also the sloppiest expensive movie of all time . the sets are lavish , but so blatantly innacurate that i wonder if no historian wanting to have his name on this film explains this . but that doesn't matter since the cinematography is so dark that you wonder if a light meter was used at all , making this not only dark and ugly , but just plain dark . the camera operation is also the worst i've ever seen in my entire life . not only does this film hold the record for the most unnecessary zooms in one single shot ever , but often the camera will lose its subjects and pan around till they find them , then have them out of focus . the editing is so sloppy that some scenes are absolutely impossible to follow . there is no writer to speak of ( what the hell does it mean that it's " adapted from an original screenplay by gore vidal ? " ) , but nevertheless , the dialogue is shit , so laughably bad that i can't in good faith believe that anyone with an iq over 5 could say them with a straight face ( my favorite being the line when caligula inquires the doctor about the health of the dying tiberius : " he could go at any moment , but with care , he could last a year or so . " ) the music in this film is mostly prokofiev and khachaturian ( they use his gorgeous " adagio of spartacus and phrygia , " ad nauseum ) , used in an attempt to give the film some emotion , but instead feels as if it was shipped in from elsewhere . the orgy scenes ( and one infamous lesbo scene between penthouse pets lori wagner and aneeka dilorenzo ) are the result of reshoots by guccione himself , which are so obviously removed from everything else in this film that it only adds to the embrassment ( every five seconds or so , the film cuts to random nudity , as if it was afraid its audience would forget this film is rated " x " ) . john gielgud represents the only voice of sanity , walking around in his brief role as if he was constantly the mantra , " i'm going to kill my agent , i'm going to kill my agent . . . " and so on and so on , for over 2 1/2 hours , making " caligula " about as exciting and enriching as a three hour college lecture class and twice as deliriously annoying . guccione , in his pursuit of historical accuracy has instead made a film that is such a painstaking , arduous task to watch in its entirety that i doubt anyone can sit through an hour of it without irreversible psychological damage . throughout the entire film , the presence of guccione is easily felt , as if he were standing there at the edge of the screen , pretentiously looking down upon us saying " look what i can get away with ! and if you don't like this , then you're a prig , and worse than that , you know nothing about history ! " uh huh . there's a clear difference between historical accuracy and doing something that's artistically good . a film which showed roman decadence as something that was perhaps liberating for some but could not last - that would probably make for a good film . but using historical accuracy as a licence to get away with any kind of disgusting-for-disgustingness'-sake acts is total , total bullshit , and all i can say is that guccione and the makers of this film have lost any kind of touch with either entertainment or eroticism , and have developed a pathetic and sadistic taste for both , judging from this film . there's a film that came out in 1989 called " the cook , the thief , his wife , and her lover , " a magnifcent film by legendary cult director peter greenaway ( also starring helen mirren ) , which deals with graphic sex , heartstopping violence and gore , and even a little cannibalism for good measure . that film not only never patronized its viewers , but also handled them in a way that was shocking , yes , but also , in a bizarre way , entertaining and totally involving . there were real characters there in a real situation , and best of all passion and just the right amount of restraint as not to get off on the fact that it's going to be offensive to many . that film achieved everything it wanted to do , and has since retained a status as one of those cult films that is not only popular but actualy good . and it's everything " caligula " might have been but , alas , wasn't .
1	the question isn't why has grease been reissued . the answer to that one is easy : to celebrate the movie's 20th anniversary and to make more bucks for paramount's coffers because john travolta is once again a hot commodity . no , the question that ought to be asked is : should grease be reissued ? the answer is not an easy one . grease is a fun movie , an entertaining fantasy of the '50s , embodying all the cliches of that era . the music is lively and the dance numbers , choreographed by patricia birch , are energetic and high-spirited . travolta was at his pinnacle as a sexual icon , cool , but non-threatening . but grease didn't break any new cinematic ground . it was not a milestone in movie history such as citizen kane or easy rider . what grease is - or has become - is the highest-grossing musical in film history . ok , let's not be a spoilsport . grease is a fun and entertaining movie , even though it stretches credulity to see such performers as travolta , olivia newton-john , taxi's jeff conaway and the multi-talented stockard channing try to act like high schoolers . it's nostalgic to recall how good a dancer travolta was , and it's sad to think of what could have been had not a few missteps sidetracked his career . he could have become a musical comedy star in the tradition of gene kelly . cinematically , the musical comedy has basically gone the way of the dinosaur . between grease and 1996's evita . , you can probably count the number of movie musicals on one hand . two reasons have contributed to the demise of the genre : the first is that movie audiences have become more sophisticated , no , make that cynical and jaded . today , if a character began to dance and sing with no orchestra in sight , he or she would probably be hooted off the screen . today's audiences lack the innocence , that belief in movie magic that is required for a musical to succeed . secondly , a lack of talent . performers with the charisma , the style , the larger-than-life panache of fred astaire , gene kelly , ginger rogers and judy garland are gone . most singers and dancers remain on the stage , and those who do succeed in movies usually wind up in serious dramatic parts . a good example is gregory hines , one of the greatest dancers in the world . he danced a bit in the cotton club , tap and white nights , but those were essentially dramatic vehicles . so , perhaps the reissue of grease can serve a purpose . if audiences show enough interest , meaning if the re-release earns the studio enough revenue , it may spark a revival in movie musicals . perhaps not original musicals such as singin' in the rain , an american in paris or seven brides for seven brothers , but for broadway properties that have been in the planning stages for film adaptations for several years . at one time or another , according to the industry rumor mill , hollywood has been set to create an animated version of andrew lloyd webber's cats , a filming of the popular phantom of the opera as well as les miserables and chicago , the latter reportedly to star madonna . so , let this grease be the forerunner of an armada of movie musicals . let grease be the word that sparks this revival .
0	come on hollywood , surprise me . stop giving us these poorly written thrillers with banal dialogue , sketchy characters and plots as predictable as the sunset . the always watchable morgan freeman plays a detective who becomes personally involved in a case involving missing girls . personal , because his niece is one of the victims . it's a slobbering psychopath , of course , but this time there's a twist . freeman notes that each of the young women who've disappeared are all strong willed , assertive , and more successful in their careers than the average girl . we soon learn that the guy calls himself casanova , whose aim is to " dominate " these modern gals by imprisoning them in some dungeon and keeping them as his personal harem . anyway , one of the women manages to escape ( ashly judd ) and teams up with freeman to . . . well , you know the rest . a brief glance at the plot to silence of the lambs , with which this film is constantly being compared to by the hype merchants , may suggest lambs also has a fairly predictable story . perhaps , but that film also has superbly drawn characters and smart dialogue . so lets not insult a great movie by taking the comparisons any further , okay ? and as for comparisons to seven . . . oh please ! kiss the girls is based on the novel by james patterson and written for the screen by one david klass . maybe the novel was a stinker to start with , but whatever the case , it's the writing that's clearly at fault here . one , these characters have very little to say that's engaging or interesting . two , the script has no sense of humour . three , while the notion of a psycho's victims being smart , successful women is an interesting twist , the execution isn't even half as good as the idea . thus , ashly judd comes across all out of focus , instead of being the heart of the story . we can't feel her rage . some atrociously written casual exchanges between her and several male characters are supposed to remind us that she's the no-bullshit 90's type , but these conversations barely register . and as for freeman , kiss the girls is his second dog in a year : first chain reaction , now this . for an actor of his calibre , this is most worrying . young director gary fleder scored a hit a few years back with his quirky pulp fiction-esque things to do in denver when your dead . but what can he do with material as resolutely mediocre as this ? not much , and you can hardly blame him . there's a few well-staged chase scenes through the forest where the camera whirls , dives and jumps , and the effect is startling . but the script is beyond rescue . what hurts most is that hollywood continues to get away with serving up this tripe , safe in the knowledge that jaded audiences will lap it up . complacency rules : it's been so long since we saw a mainstream american thriller that delivered juicy characters , real surprises and consistently sharp dialogue . the only consolation for this viewer is that my ticket to the movie was a freebie , positive proof that the best things in life aren't free . . . . .
0	the best thing about , " lake placid " is that it's only 80 minutes long and when it's over you're glad that you didn't waste more than an hour and a half of your time . it's nothing more than a bad rip-off of , " jaws " ( and i think that's being kind . ) it was written by david e . kelly ( " ally mcbeal " ) as a horror-comedy but fails at both , miserably . i was never scared and i think that i only laughed once . the crocodile even fails in comparison to the snake in , " anaconda . " the plot begins when a man is eaten in half by the giant crocodile in black lake in maine . that brings the local sheriff ( brendan gleeson ) and a fish-and-game warden ( bill pulman ) to investigate . also , a paleontologist ( bridget fonda ) from new york is sent to look at a tooth and an eccentric millionaire/crocodile lover ( oliver platt ) flies in because he wants to swim beside the beast . soon there is tension between everybody because half the people want to kill the croc and the other half want to save it . there's also an eccentric old lady ( betty white ) who lives by the lake and has a few secrets . as i mentioned before kelley and director steve minor ( h20 ) don't go for a serious approach towards the material but they also don't have anything sly or satirical or witty to say either . the betty white character is completely unfunny and none of the other characters are really that interesting , they're all basically idiots . if they had any brains the croc wouldn't have been that much of a challenge to catch and they wouldn't have put themselves in half of the situations that they did . but then again , if they were smart there wouldn't be a movie . basically , " lake placid " is best undiscovered .
1	every year , hollywood crowns a new " it boy " --a young actor pegged for major movie stardom . inheriting the mantle from last year's " winner , " matthew mcconaughey , is matt damon , and , like mcconaughey , he proves to be more than just a fresh young face , as evidenced in two radically different projects currently in release--john grisham's the rainmaker and good will hunting . damon has his first major starring role , a la mcconaughey , in a john grisham adaptation--in this case , francis ford coppola's take on the rainmaker . damon plays wet-behind-the-ears attorney rudy baylor , who , immediately after passing the bar exam , finds himself representing the mother ( mary kay place ) of a terminally ill young man ( john whitworth ) in a big-league suit against a negligent insurance company . while rudy's ( and the film's ) main concern is this case , he also finds time to protect a young wife ( claire danes ) from her abusive husband ( melrose placer andrew shue , in a mercifully brief role ) . written for the screen and directed by coppola , the rainmaker is the best grisham film yet mostly because it does not take itself too seriously . coppola's most notable--and effective--contribution to the tried-and-true grisham formula is a sense of humor about itself , which largely comes in the presence of danny devito ( as rudy's unlicensed co-counsel ) and golden globe nominee jon voight ( as the insurance company's hotshot attorney ) . the inclusion of the battered wife subplot feels rather superfluous , but danes is as superb as always . then , of course , there is damon , who nicely juggles the weighty ( the insurance case , the spousal abuse ) and the humorous ( rudy's often comical naivete ) requirements of his role without missing a beat . as good as he is in the rainmaker , damon showcases the depth of his talent in good will hunting , directed by gus van sant and written by actor ben affleck and damon himself . damon plays the title character , will hunting , a troubled young construction worker/janitor at mit who also happens to be a supergenius . in an attempt to steer this brilliant young mind in the right direction , an mit math professor ( stellan skarsgard ) taps his old college friend , community college psychologist sean mcguire ( robin williams ) , to counsel the abrasive , standoffish will and try to help him come to terms with his turbulent life . good will hunting is the touchy-feely enterprise its plot synopsis suggests , but to simply dismiss it as that would be to discount the true emotional chords affleck and damon's intelligent script touches . even though no one ( and , if so , _very_ few people ) can directly relate to will's burden of superhuman intelligence , the insecurities he suffers are universal . the material is brought to life by the terrific ensemble of actors . williams delivers a nice dramatic turn ; affleck , a hot up-and-coming actor himself ( chasing amy ) , turns up in a warm and charming performance as will's best friend ; and the ever-appealing minnie driver shines as will's harvard-schooled love interest . the clear standout in the cast , though , is damon , who bravely does not soften will's prickly nature but has such a natural ease with the audience that it is hard _not_ to care for him . so many names come and go with the fluctuations of the hollywood hype machine , but based on his impressive work in john grisham's the rainmaker and especially good will hunting , it is a safe bet that matt damon is one name we will be hearing a lot more of in the years to come .
1	this has some major spoilers for the film , so be forwarned . the won't appear till later in the article , so you're safe for now . eyes wide shot ( 1999 ) running time : 2 hours 39 minutes 2 . 35 : 1 theatrical aspect starring : tom cruise ( dr . bill hardford ) , nicole kidman ( alice hardford ) , sidney pollack , leelee sobieski , todd field ( nick nightingale ) directed , co-written , produced by : stanley kubrick inspired by : " traumnovelle " by : arthur schnitzer this is an interesting film . i must first off state , that you musn't believe any of the rumors of the film . cruise is not a cross dresser , kidman doesn't shoot heroin , and there's not any scene between the two that would suggest that they were aided by a sex therapist . the look of the film is to suggest that it follows the translation of the inspired book from the film was written . the translation , " dream novel , " makes you thing that the film should have been titled dream film . there is a noticable amount of graininess to the film . rather than complain about it as some may and already have , see it as a style of shooting . i would gather that kubrick got on another lighting kick shooting this and shot with as much natural light as he could . this and the film looks like it was pushed another two stops to add more grain and brighten it slightly . as an auteur and stickler for details , kubrick seemed to be a bit lax on this one . the film looks great , but there are a good deal of bloopers/flubs that occur . you see lots of boom shots ( in reflection ) and you see the camera at least twice . 16 months for this ? wow . reflection is the biggest killer for this film . their apartment and almost everything in the film casts reflections and the crew can be seen in these , some quite glaringly . one more topic of heated discussion : i saw the " austin powers " version , and to be perfectly frank , unless you know where the overlays are supposed to be , you'll probably not see them . two girls standing next to each other look a little suspicious , but i can wait for the unrated version on video to see it the way it's supposed to be . spoilers below : the film itself starts with ( cruise ) bill and ( kidman ) alice getting ready for a little x-mas soiree . they go to a quite elegant party in what seems to be a storagehouse for lighting equipment , which is actually an apartment owned by pollack . bill runs into an old friend from medical school who is now the party's entertainment . soon after , bill and alice are flirting with others at the party , thinking that the other has not noticed . bill is called to help with a partygoer who has had a bit too much of a good time . the next day , bill and alice , casually smoking marijunana in their bedroom discuss the previous nights flirtations . they both discover that they both knew about the flirting . bill starts talking about what women can provide in a relationship , and gets alice extremely angry . in her hazy state , she tells of an opportunity she almost acted on to cheat on bill , not caring about the possible aftereffects . bill gets called away when one of his patients dies , and goes to console his daughter . when his patient's engaged daughter makes a plea for his love and affection , he is struck with images of an affair that never occured between his wife , alice and a naval officer . he sees " opportunity " as a betrayal to his wife , and before they can continue , they are interrupted . as he strolls home , he encounters a hooker . seeing another " opportunity " arise , he follows the hooker home . they toy around , but before the act ensues , alice calls his cell phone . he breaks the date with the hooker , and heads back out into the night . he passes a lounge and notices that his old medical school buddy is playing , so he heads in . when he meets the friend , the friend reveals that for extra scratch , he plays these strange parties , while blindfolded . bill is intrigued and wants to go to one . nick reluctantly sets him up with directions and a password . what follows this is a short meeting where bill obtains a costume for this party and meets a young girl , leelee sobieski , and her father . the young girl has drawn his eye , but her young age , and the prescence of her father deter this from happening . he gets to the party , which is to say the least , a strange affair . after partaking in some strange " religious " right , women and men pair off for the orgy to end all orgies . a woman warns bill in disguise , that he should leave before he is exposed as a fraud at the party . he is detained after a second warning , where he is outed for not being in the group . after getting home , he hides the evidence of his evenings events . unable to carry on in his day , he tries piece the events of the previous night together . in the process , he finds that nick has disappeared , his life is possibly in danger , and the woman that warned him has died . i'm trying to save a bit of the film here , it's worth sitting through to get to this point . this is only about 100 minutes at this point . this is a strange film , because despite the events that occur , the film has a strong family message behind it . it will be hard to pidgeonhole this film as a certain kind of a film . it's got sex in it , it has nudity , drugs , and many more immoralistic values . but they all serve to show why they are bad in one's life . i recommend this film highly on many merits . cruise and kidman are rarely together for longer than 5 minutes after the opening scene , and the secrecy that shrouded the film should hopefully be apparent as to why it was kept once you see it for yourself .
1	with many big-budget science fiction films , great ideas are often wasted by bad scripts , cheesy plot twists , and , terrible acting . the fifth element , the abyss , and godzilla had great concepts squandered by bad acting , writing , or both . at first glance , the matrix , larry & andy wachowski's sci-fi/kung-fu/shoot-em-up spectacular , looks like a prime candidate to join the list of high-concept bad movies , especially with dopey keanu reeves in the leading role . but despite high levels of cheese and gaudy dialogue , the matrix works . it's an uncanny blend of action and surreal fantasy that borrows from dozens of other films ( most obviously the terminator films , star wars , and total recall ) , but remains refreshingly original and interesting throughout . reeves plays neo , a computer hacker who stumbles into an initially bewildering set of encounters with " trinity " ( carrie-anne moss ) , a rival hacker who has supernatural powers and stunning good looks , a unseen , omniscient cult figure known as " morpheus " ( lawrence fishburne ) , and a trio of creepy men in dark suits who act like irs agents from hell . neo quickly learns that the world he has known all his life is not what it seems . moreover , he discovers that the grim , bleak world he is introduced to has been waiting for him to save it . neo is reluctant to assume the role of messiah , with grave doubts that he is actually " the one " prophesized to come and save the world . reluctant or not , what follows is a mix of hong kong-style slow-motion shootouts , surreal dream sequences , high speed chases , and comic book kung-fu fights . the film also raises interesting philosophical questions about reality . how exactly do you know what is real and what is in your mind ? and if the real world were much harsher and grim than a fantasy one you were living in , would you want to face the true world or continue to live in a more comfortable illusion ? unfortunately , the matrix doesn't provide many answers to the questions it raises , but at least it puts some ideas behind all the explosions , shoot-outs , and flying roundhouse kicks . perhaps stealing the entire show in the matrix is australian actor hugo weaving , who plays agent smith , the leader of the creepy agents in sunglasses and suits who seem capable of being anywhere and doing anything to stop neo and friends from destabilizing the matrix . weaving's stony appearance , deadpan voice , and chilling comments put a grim human face on the haunting , evil technological force that controls the matrix . like robert patrick as the shapeshifting t-1000 terminator in terminator 2 : judgement day , weaving is more frightening than any monstrous alien or homicidal robot because , despite his power and seeming invincibility , he looks ordinary , even scrawny . weaving embodies his role with a memorably chilling presence . the film features some truly breathtaking special effects and stylish cinematography . it seems to be deliberately kitchy , with stylized fight sequences directed by hong kong stunt specialist wo ping that reportedly required months of martial arts training by the actors . in a few scenes , the posing and posturing is unintentionally funny . just seeing keanu reeves engaging in serious kung fu is a bit jarring . however , with the comic-book style and tone of the film , you can sustain willing disbelief long enough to enjoy the ride without losing patience . the matrix isn't a classic . its open-ended and confusing conclusion raises more questions than it answers . it fails to resolve many of its own plot twists and philosophical questions . it also relies on some conventional sentimentality to save the hero - the kind of shmaltzy feel-good goo that most of the film avoids . reportedly , the producers have high hopes for the film being the first in a trilogy and have already begun work on the story for the sequel . unfortunately , audiences deserve a little more than a vague sense that the story will continue in the future . the matrix is an fun , enjoyable diversion , like a big puff of cotton candy at a carnival . just don't be surprised half an hour later when you still feel a little hungry .
1	my summer was recently saved by two very different movies . on opening night , i saw american pie 2 and laughed like a moron . then a few nights later , i watched and thoroughly enjoyed joel hershman's greenfingers even though it didn't feature a trip to band camp , girl-on-girl action , or seann william scott . however , i felt just as good leaving american pie 2 as i did after leaving greenfingers , which tells the offbeat tale of british murderer colin briggs ( clive owen of croupier ) . after spending roughly half of his life behind bars , he is transferred to a more lenient facility , edgefield . the picaresque , rustic prison allows its inmates to learn a trade , while enjoying accommodations generally found at most colleges . at first , briggs doesn't want to be there . he's used to living as a prisoner and wants to be left alone . however , his ailing roommate , fergus ( david kelly of waking ned devine ) , wears briggs down through his benign nature . the two become friends , with fergus giving colin a packet of violet seeds as a christmas gift . briggs is astonished when the violets grow in the limestone soil , and begins a fight with three other prisoners when an errant soccer ball smashes his beloved flowers . after the prison's governor ( warren clarke ) reprimands them , he's awed at what briggs has accomplished . and he's struck by an idea -- briggs , fergus and the other men will grow a garden on the prison's grounds . greenfingers , which is " inspired by actual events , " becomes a bit like a sports movie after that . despite their differences , the men come together and through hard work and love earn a spot at the big game -- in this case a prestigious garden show . one renegade , in this case , briggs , will prove to have talent . of course , love will also rear its head ( no , not " prison love " ) . to hershman's credit , he doesn't pump up the drama or try for cheap laughs , like last year's lame marijuana comedy saving grace . i had to keep pinching myself when i didn't see a single scene of a hardened con sneezing over a pot of pansies , or the men giving high-fives over a particularly stunning batch of wildflowers . the movie deals with people and scores on that concept . it's wonderful seeing briggs turn from a bitter prisoner to a man who cares again . give credit to owen for keeping his cool in a part that begs for overacting . his speech to the parole board about being reborn through gardening is the best scene of its kind since morgan freeman's last stand in the shawshank redemption . owen's bedside scenes with kelly , who lends the film a human touch , are a marvel to behold , emotionally gripping without being sappy . written by hershman , greenfingers contains plenty of laughs . most come courtesy of helen mirren , who shines as the world-class gardener who works with the inmates but fears for her daughter primrose ( natasha little ) when she starts dating briggs . the mother can't believe what he'll do if her daughter " burns the sunday roast . " nothing is forced in greenfingers . the funny lines come forth naturally in conversations and not from punch lines . primrose and briggs' relationship takes awkward steps . even when briggs decides to go back to edgefield , it's done for reasons of loyalty , not because the movie requires him to do so . after grimacing through the forced screwball antics of movies like america's sweethearts and the princess dairies , it's an almost indescribable pleasure to see a director taking his time to tell a story very well .
0	susan granger's review of " the watcher " ( universal ) just what we need : another lurid , trashy serial killer saga . this time , keanu reeves plays an elusive homicidal maniac who engages in a gruesome ticking-clock cat-and-mouse game with james spader , a burnt-out fbi agent who has suffered a traumatic nervous breakdown after too many years on the job with the lapd . to taunt spader , who has relocated to chicago , reeves packs up his trusty piano wire and moves too . before long , he starts mailing photographs of the lonely , unsuspecting young women who are his intended windy city victims , challenging spader , along with the chicago police department , to stop him within 24 hours before he strikes again . in the midst of this murderous frenzy , there's spader's psychologist , played by marisa tomei , who is even less convincing as a medical professional than jennifer lopez in " the cell . " writers david elliot , clay ayers and darcy meyers , along with first-time director joe charbanic ( helmer of music videos for reeves' band dogstar ) , dwell on the warped thrill of the methodology and the chase , revealing , early on , exactly whodunit since the killer says he and the cop " need each other to give meaning to our lives . " plus , as reeves explains , " we're all stacked right on top of each other , but we don't notice each other any more . " after that , it's all sound effects and tricky camera-work , along with a muddled , discordant soundtrack . james spader's acting technique can be described as 'wooden deadpan' while keanu reeves maintains his perpetually monotone 'dude' persona which sometimes works , sometimes doesn't . chris ellis , as spader's self-important colleague , is the only cast member who manages to be convincing . on the granger movie gauge of 1 to 10 , " the watcher " is an appallingly awful , amateurish 2 . the real torture is watching it .
0	i'm really starting to wonder about alicia silverstone . sure , she is one of the most beautiful creatures on god's green earth ( second only to that movie critic at large guy ) , but when it comes to choosing what movies she stars in , she always strikes out . the crush was a slow-moving , predictable piece of fluff . hideaway was a horrific novel adaptation alicia had only a minor role in . clueless was an annoying , unfunny waste of time . and people have e-mailed me too , saying clueless is a good movie and that i'm the only one who doesn't like it . one girl said if i'd seen the movie with " an open mind , " i would have enjoyed it . nothing could be further from the truth . i went into the theater expecting to love the movie . the preview looked good and of course i'm crazymadinlove with alicia , but the movie was a bunch of bad jokes coming from whiny , unlikable characters . almost everyone i saw the movie with felt the same way . when we were walking out of the theater , one guy ( and it wasn't me ) yelled out , " that was the worst f$&#in' movie i've ever seen " and the rest of us had to laugh in agreement . so last night i walked into the video store and saw alicia's pretty face on the cover of some made-for-video thriller called the babysitter . i knew it would be bad but some inner compulsion i'll probably never understand made me rent it anyway . what i got was 90 minutes of regret--the worst alicia silverstone movie ever . and you already know from the last paragraph what the competition is like . where to begin in criticizing this movie ? the plot is a thin shred that moves slower than a glacier , the writing could have been done ( and for all we know it was ) by a ten year old , alicia is the star and she's still wasted in a movie that has no appeal whatsoever . there is zero humor , zero suspense , zero drama and zero action , until the last ten minutes , when the story is needlessly and pointlessly concluded with a violent sequence . zero plus zero plus zero plus zero equals zero . so why does this movie get one star out of me ? well , alicia spends twenty minutes of the movie in the bathtub . and if it wasn't bubble bath , the babysitter would have instantly joined the ranks of our other four- star features , but you settle for what you can get . alicia plays a babysitter who's spending friday night looking after two kids whose parents are out getting drunk at a cocktail party . and of course anyone as beautiful as alicia automatically spends their friday nights at home ( at least that movie critic at large guy does ) . as the movie trods along , we discover she's not only the mostly-silent star of the movie but also the object of every male character's fantasies ( and probably every male viewer's too ) . the drunken father thinks she's just the thing to recapture his lost youth , her boyfriend lets his imagination run wild while spying on alicia from outside , even the prepubescent boy looks in on alicia through the bathroom keyhole while she's taking her bubble bath . they even throw in the middle aged wife's fantasies about a male counterpart at the party . not that any of us asked or ever even thought about seeing this 200+ pound woman in a black silk teddy . at least none of the sex fanatasies ever leave the realm of the pg-rated . in fact , i could imagine the babysitter becoming a cinemax late-night staple if not for the fact that there's absolutely no nudity in it . so you can't call it a sex flick . i've already pointed out that it can't fall under drama , comedy , thriller or action , so what do you classify the babysitter as ? bad .
0	`bats' is an insulting slap across the face for any dedicated horror movie fan . to pull something like this off , you need to have a sense of wit and style , with a heavy dosage of humor to back up the process if the fright factor ever declines . something like the underground worm thriller `tremors' had just the perfect mixture of these elements , and in return , the film was tremendous fun . with the notable exception of a wisecracking supporting player , `bats' mainly plays it's premise for straight-arrow horror . judging by the ridiculous premise , this was not exactly a wise move . the movie attempts to capture the essence of alfred hitchcock's `the birds' , but fails miserably . done right , it could have been adequately amusing halloween cinema . unfortunately , `bats' is a prime example of a formula movie done terribly , terribly wrong . the only thing amusing about this festering pile of guano is in how intelligible the filmmakers anticipate their core audience to be . i will recite the following paragraph in a manner that will reach the audience of individuals to whom `bats' is aimed toward . those guys in hollywood have made a movie about bats . these bats are not very nice , because they eat a lot of people . boy , are these bats ugly . they are infected with this bogus virus that makes them super-duper smart . they've got big claws and red eyes and they are not very friendly at all . a whole bunch of people in texas get killed , so a sheriff guy and a scientist lady are brought in to kill the bats . they have big guns and other cool things to fight them with , but the bats are pretty smart , so it's sorta hard to do . the bats swoop down and they shoot at them to make they go away for good . but no , `bats' is probably too violent for pre-schoolers . the film , directed by louis morneau , should have ventured straight into video stores . on the small screen , perhaps more fun could have been derived with lower expectations . but sitting through this crapper on the big screen is almost awkward ; although at a few moments it becomes a guilty pleasure , the film is poorly written , poorly acted and executed with glaring ineptitude . even the bats themselves are cheesy , and the attack sequences too rushed and jittery to be properly enjoyed . the sheriff in the story is emmett kimsey ( lou diamond phillips ) , who embodies every pathetic stereotype a small-town authority figure usually portrays ( he chomps on a cigar , struts contentedly in his boots , etc . . . ) . the scientist is dr . sheila casper ( dina meyer ) , who specializes in flying mammals and is classified as `the best in her field' . meyer uses a lot of technical terms designed to make the movie seem more intellectually capable , but everything about dr . casper is recycled beyond recognition . her memories of how she became hooked on the topic of bats sounds suspiciously like oceanographic student matt hooper's tale of how he became infatuated with sharks in `jaws' . everything revolving around `bats' is tired drivel , which desperately requires some directorial style or acting capabilities to spruce it up . the supporting cast could have been constructed out of straw , with voices dubbed in later . in fact , that may have worked out better in the end . take one glance at casper's bat-loathing sidekick jimmy ( leon ) , and you'll have immediate deja vu - he's the exact same humorous buddy caricature from every other movie , constructed specifically for timed comic relief . unfortunately , none of his comic interludes are funny . in the role of deranged mad scientist dr . mccabe , the reliable bob gunton gets cornered with the most hideously idiotic character in the bunch . mccabe `accidentally' released two experimental test subjects , and the virus spread to other bats . the entire town of gallup , texas is under attack from an enormous swarm of the creatures , but gunton appears to be inconspicuously contemplating something else . something like : `when is the damn movie going to be over ? ? i just want my money . ' the bats are ugly , i must say . there's the occasional moment where they look moderately convincing , but mainly , the swarm is represented in cheesy digital imagery . only bits of the bloody action even hint at the campy fun the film could have been , but by the absurdly stupid climax , it's way too late in the game for a decent recovery . characters experiment in slaughtering the bats with gunfire . let's explore the logic there : is this really a very efficient way to decrease the bat population ? ? you could empty an entire clip at the flying winged serpents and not even wound one , and after that there are only 18 , 000 more of them . this kind of behavior represents the regular level of intelligence behind `bats' .
0	it rocks-actually , lots of rocks fly at us or from us , in slow or fast motion , at several points in the film . they seem like dangerous rocks because they kind of twirl through the air instead of just propelling forward , and when they land-once in a while , when we need a break from the space sequences-they cause damage enough to destroy the chrysler building and the like . ( nary a mention of these apocalyptic events is made after they occur . ) they also just might be the most interesting element of armageddon , a steroid user's answer to deep impact . bruce willis stars as harry stamper , a famed oil-driller commissioned by the white house and nasa to stop a giant asteroid before it travels beyond " zero barrier " and destroys our planet . why an oil driller ? they require someone experience with deep-core mining to plant a nuclear missile into said asteroid . ( in one unintentionally ( ? ) hilarious sequence , nasa asks harry to inspect a deep-core driller they built based on his blueprints ; it is poorly constructed-harry criticizes almost every aspect of it . we trust nasa to build space shuttles ? ) harry assembles the obligatory " ragtag " bunch of " cowboys " , including a blond guy , a fat guy , a black guy , a wiseass , and the man who is sleeping with his daughter ( affleck ) . once they reach space , we experience sequence after sequence of something going wrong-perhaps the fact that they sent a bunch of nincompoops into outer space has something to do with it ; i cannot count the number of times they almost fail the mission on all my fingers and toes . whether or not they save the day , i will not reveal . nor will you care . i will say this : you know you're in trouble when deep impact dwarfs your asteroid movie in terms of emotion and scope . willis has barely a chance to come alive ; ditto for affleck . their big scenes are mostly reserved for the third act , in a last minute-and futile-attempt to inject warmth into the material . steve buscemi's character-the wiseass-is exceptionally problematic . " rockhound " , as he's called , is sarcastic and foolish , so they tape him to a chair , where he spends most of the film . so why did they bring him up there to begin with ? rather , why write him into the film ? -give his almost-witty one-liners to serious willis , who scowls and mopes and demonstrates psychotic tendencies : at one point he chases after affleck with his shotgun for screwing his daughter , firing often and causing significant damage to his oil rig . i'm guessing he qualifies under nasa guidelines as someone unfit for space travel , at least in my world where the sky is blue . liv tyler is pretty and humourless , as always ; suspiciously , four of her father's band's ( " aerosmith " ) songs grace the soundtrack . director michael bay lays the visual and sound effects on thick , like ketchup , eventually drowning the movie on-screen . ( the middle hour is a non-sensical , pyrotechnic assault on the average primate's brain . ) whenever someone dies in this movie , a crew member inevitably yells out " we lost ( insert dead person's last name here ) ! " i must admit that not once could i distinguish a dead oil-guy-cum-astronaut from a live one , and close-ups of the corpses' faces beneath cracked helmets provided little assistance , as their skin was often covered in fake blood . armageddon is not as terrible movie as godzilla . it looks nicer , and has fewer plot-holes within its equally ludicrous framework . it has a vivid soundmix . but at almost two-and-a-half hours , i could not believe how little actually happened over the course of the story . the love story has been played up in the ads , perhaps hoping to catch people before they recover from titanic-fever . bollocks ! the lovers in the film are miles apart throughout-erase all thoughts of nude sketching or car-sex and replace them with obligatory shots of liv tyler tearing up while ben affleck dicks around in a moon-crawler . remember a little film called jaws ? in this film , three independent-minded men suddenly found themselves on a fishing boat in pursuit of a deadly shark . they didn't much like each other at first ; eventually , they started to respect one another . one of jaws' great scenes involved the would-be-ahabs drinking and singing songs and telling stories . this is the sort of male-bonding foreign to bay or his producer , jerry bruckheimer , who throw too many characters into the mix and expect we'll care about them on the grounds that the world is about to end . not once do we get the feeling that these characters are even acquaintances-i'd be surprised if these actors bothered to introduce themselves to one another before " action " was called . a male friend who loved the film suggested to me that perhaps i cannot relate to a bunch of men who don't bare their souls , who believe in dying macho concepts like heroism and a kind of chest-beating bravery . to this , i will respond that the boys in armageddon are neither heroic , nor brave , nor smart , even : this team couldn't build a birdhouse . and if i get no respect for disliking a movie with all the synthetic feeling of a trailer-a trailer for a movie written by a team of body-builders and greeting card authors-i've never been a prouder wimp my whole life .
0	steve martin is one of the funniest men alive . if you can take that as a true statement , then your disappointment at this film will equal mine . martin can be hilarious , creating some of the best laugh-out-loud experiences that have ever taken place in movie theaters . you won't find any of them here . the old television series that this is based on has its moments of humor and wit . bilko ( and the name isn't an accident ) is the head of an army motor pool group , but his passion is his schemes . every episode involves the sergeant and his men in one or another hair-brained plan to get rich quick while outwitting the officers of the base . " mchale's navy " 's granddaddy . that's the idea behind this movie too , but the difference is that , as far-fetched and usually goofy as the television series was , it was funny . there is not one laugh in the film . the re-make retains the goofiness , but not the entertainment . everything is just too clean . it was obviously made on a hollywood back lot and looks every bit like it . it all looks brand new , even the old beat-up stuff . martin is remarkably small in what should have been a bigger than life role . in the original , phil silvers played the huckster with a heart of gold and more than a touch of sleaziness . martin's bilko is a pale imitation . the only semi-bright spot is phil hartman as bilko's arch-enemy . it's not saying much , considering martin's lackluster character , but hartman leaves him in the dust .
1	" gattaca " represents a solid breakthrough in the recent onslaught of science-fiction films -- it's a genre picture that doesn't rely on alien creatures or loud explosions to tell its story . the movie takes place in a futuristic world where babies are created through genetic tampering and not sexual reproduction . this allows parents to predetermine what kind of eye color , intelligence and life span they'd like for their child , and also eliminates most pesky chances of health defects . those made the old-fashioned way are labeled as " in-valids " and confined to the lower rung of society . vincent freeman ( ethan hawke ) is one such person , born not too long before the genetic process was perfected and forced to grow up in a home with his petrie dish-molded younger brother anton . fed up with being second-rate and enchanted by dreams of one day traveling through space , vincent leaves home and takes a janitorial position at the gattaca aerospace corporation . everyday , he watches as " superior " folk make his fantasy a reality . determined to do the same , vincent meets a dna broker ( tony shalhoub in a funny cameo ) who sells fake identities to in-valids . his counterpart for this scam is jerome morrow ( jude law ) , an ex-athlete left paralyzed in an accident and confined to a wheelchair for life . for a price and the promise of a caretaker , jerome supplies vincent with his identity , as well as blood , skin and urine samples for all of those pesky on-the-job tests and physical examinations -- this future is one where employees clock in by pricking their fingers instead of punching a time card . because of his drastically improved status , vincent is quickly propelled to a high position in gattaca , and catches the eye of comely co-worker irene ( uma thurman ) on the way -- obsessed with her own minor heart defect , she's enamored by his flawless persona she doesn't know is a lie . but on the figurative eve of his upcoming planetary departure , the mission director is murdered . two ardent detectives ( alan arkin and billy bathgate's loren dean ) determine the killer is on the inside of gattaca , and the sole clue they find at the crime scene -- one of vincent's eyelashes -- threatens to blow vincent's cover and derail his goal . even if " gattaca " were dramatically empty , it would still boast a sublime set of production credentials -- the film's look is dazzling without ever being flashy . first-time director/writer andrew niccol ( he also wrote the screenplay for the upcoming jim carrey drama " the truman show " ) demonstrates a keen eye for the stylish ; his collaboration with cinematographer slawomir idziak , production designer jan roelfs and costume designer colleen atwood result in a sophisticated composition that emanates classy , retro ambiance . an opening credits sequence -- where skin , nail and hair fragments fall in slow-motion through a colored camera lens -- displays these combined talents uncannily . niccol even utilizes voice-over narration ( a device almost always poorly-employed ) in an effective way . when it comes to acting , the movie is also flawless . ethan hawke does magnificent work , proving his ability to carry a film and reaffirming his enormously high charisma level . his chemistry with thurman is a bit on the icy side , but needfully so , adding to the setting's clinical chill . as the bitter jerome , jude law has a star-making presence , and it's his scenes with hawke that give the movie its fine emotional core . in " gattaca " 's series of final shots , the fates of vincent and jerome are superimposed over each other , and the effect is sad , lyrical and beautiful . things get a little strange as the movie nears its climax , when vincent's relationship with his brother comes back into view . the big dramatic culmination is a swim race , which is somewhat silly albeit beautifully photographed . still , the single most surprising aspect of gattaca is its use of backdrop -- it's successful sci-fi without showy special effects , it's a crisp thriller with character-driven thrills , it's a futuristic fable without blood and guts . even its murder mystery is relegated to a secondary subplot , ensuring that a smart story about smart people and smart science takes center stage . although it's portrayal of the upcoming century is grim , " gattaca " serves up one of the most thought-provoking societal forecasts ever depicted on film .
0	if snake eyes were a dog , you'd put it to sleep . if it was a couch , you'd put it out on the sidewalk , where it would sit for a week . if it were your child , you'd be reading military school catalogs . if it were a ship -- no , it wouldn't be the titanic , that would imply glamor and tragedy -- it would be the exxon valdez . ( personal side note : i saw this movie on the road during a houston business trip . for whatever reason , my hotel's cable system wasn't showing the astros-braves game , which featured a randy johnson-greg maddux matchup . this forced me to pay full price for snake eyes instead of watching a perfectly good baseball game for free -- so the invective , deserved as it is , should be seen in that perspective . ) snake eyes is supposed to be a mystery movie , and good mystery movies are supposed to leave you asking yourself questions on the way out of theater . snake eyes is not a good mystery movie , but i had some questions : where's the manager , and how do i get a re-admit pass ? if i fall asleep on the drive home and wreck my rent-a-car , can i sue brian de palma ? is it too late for the academy to revoke nicolas cage's oscar ? will someone please ( i'm begging you ) give gary sinise a role worthy of his talents ? and how , exactly does cage end up wearing the exact same shirt and tie as sinise does ? the first and most glaringly wrong thing with snake eyes is the trailer . if you've seen the trailer without seeing the movie , consider yourself fortunate . the trailer is a work of sheer genius . it manages to convey everything worthy of the movie -- the noteworthy steadicam work , the exuberance of cage's performance as a thoroughly corrupt atlantic city policeman , the essential elements of the marginal plot . the expert craftsman who pieced together a fairly good trailer out of snippets of a wretched movie deserves praise and a percentage of the gross . ( is a best trailer category at the oscars that far-fetched , after all ? ) but all it does is set us up for an overwhelmingly disappointing movie . the trailer sets up what should have been a promising plot : detective ricky santoro ( cage ) must solve the mystery of who shot the secretary of defense at an atlantic city pay-per-view boxing match . unfortunately , there are multiple problems afoot . the trailer gives away much , too much of the story . the shooter is killed instantly , so the story revolves around why the secretary was killed and who is involved in the conspiracy . the film's secret is ho-hum at best , and anyone who has watched the trailer and is aware of the law of economy of characters can figure out who the top conspirator is . without an interesting plot , without interesting dialogue , and without much of a reason to care about the characters or the story , snake eyes is a failure on almost every possible level . as much as i hated this movie , i must give brian de palma one tiny bit of credit . de palma is maddeningly inconsistent . he can , on his day , create amazingly well-done movies ( the untouchables , carlito's way ) . on off-days , he can be , well , just horrid ( the bonfire of the vanities , raising cain ) . snake eyes falls into the horrid category , but there are a couple of moments that are worth seeing strictly for their film-school degree-of-difficulty value . the steadicam opening scene does a good job of introducing the cage character and is a virtuoso technical job by both the director and the actor . there is a split-screen chase scene that looks pretty good , and it's followed by a god's eye view of a bank of hotel rooms that's imaginitively done . this is what's called giving the devil his due . but the technical skill doesn't even come close to making up for the sheer evil of this movie . placing plot holes to one side for a moment , snake eyes features easily the worst boxing match in cinema history ( george foreman is in better shape than the movie boxers ) , a hurricane that exists for no other reason than to punctuate significant plotlines with portentuous thunderclaps , and perhaps the worst , most overly drawn out ending in years . snake eyes is a criminal act , an evil waste of time and talent . cage , sinise , and yes , even de palma deserve better . the audience deserves better -- but no refund , no re-admit pass , no free popcorn coupon , can ever restore to us the time we've spent or wash the awful images from our mind . however , we are left with one consolation , that we were warned by the movie's title -- because snake eyes is nothing more than a roll of craps .
0	" there will be another , " the ads for this sequel proclaimed , and why not ? true , brandon lee is dead , but there would be no reason for him to appear in a followup to 1994's the crow , anyway . the idea of spinning artist james o'barr's original comic book series into a sequel franchise revolves around the notion that a different startled soul would come back from the dead in each movie , taking its own righteous vengeance against the world . given that basic framework , the story could move in any number of directions . of course , it doesn't . stubbornly , the crow : city of angels backtracks to the beginning of the previous film , when lee's eric draven found himself drawn back out of his grave to do a charles bronson on the thugs who tortured him and his girlfriend to death . i remember the first film primarily as a harrowing exercise in brutality . in flashback , we see the most excruciating crimes exacted on eric and his lover , and then we watch in real-time as eric pays each perpetrator back in kind . it's loud and repetitive , true , a sadist's delight -- but it's also horrifying and fascinating . city of angels gives us more of the same , but less skillfully . there's an audience guaranteed for a film like this , although bad reviews and poor word-of-mouth will likely ensure that it won't be much of a success . in fact , miramax subsidiary dimension films was so fearful of the critical reaction to this picture that reviewers were shut out of advance screenings . ( i've never understood the reasoning behind this tactic , since good notices have never been key to the success of movies like the crow . ) so much for any confidence in the worthiness of their followup . this time , ashe ( french-accented actor vincent perez ) is retrieved from his watery death ( he and his young son were shackled together , shot , and then thrown off a pier ) by the crow who serves as his link between the worlds of the living and the dead . perez might have some screen presence if he's given something to do with himself , but here he's simply thrown in front of the camera as a pretty face . at first , he's shivery and frightened , but he quickly recovers from the shock of his own death and becomes a badass biker from beyond the grave . he's befriended by sarah ( mia kirshner ) , presumably an older version of the child who narrated the first film . kirshner , so beguiling in exotica , is here an exquisitely photographed blank . tattooed with angels' wings , sarah is just about as lovely as women come , but she serves no purpose , not even as seductress . the gang of punks who killed ashe are ostensibly commanded by judah ( richard brooks ) , but a far more interesting choice as leader would have been iggy pop , who plays a gaunt fellow named curve . iggy , all bones , veins , and drawl , is the only one who seems to have shared in the aesthetic of ruin that defines this film . like all good things here , he's dispatched too soon and without much imagination . in the meantime , we're subjected to tedious glimpses of judah's compound , where bondage is the order of the day and hot wax is poured over naked bodies in s&m fantasies that would seem shy of the cutting edge even if they weren't distinctly secondhand . even the soundtrack is tired . more than anything i've seen from hollywood lately , city of angels smacks baldly of product -- it's a movie with a lousy script but a great look . critics have been quick to fault the direction of mtv veteran tim pope , but his work isn't that bad per se . he's got a good eye , and some intriguing visual ideas -- if anything , this movie has a few too many scenes of ridiculously striking imagery . his major stylistic failing is that he can't seem to direct an action scene , and the quick , nonsensical cutting that ensues is reminiscent of a low budget kung fu movie . but as director , he must also shoulder the blame for the little screenplay that wasn't , the performers who couldn't , and an apparent lack of ideas on the parts of everyone involved . who bought david s . goyer's anemic script , anyway ? the producers of this crow were either too dim to realize their story was doomed to be a hollow rehash , or too cynical to figure their audience would know the difference .
0	capsule : an insult . a stupid and incompetent movie that doesn't even have the benefit of being trashily enjoyable . weslely and woody would do well to leave this off their resumes . money train is one of the worst movies i have ever seen . it's not simply idiotic , it's contemptuous of its audience . it tries to make us swallow things that a better movie would be stopped cold by or just plain omit entirely . it's a waste of wesley snipes and woody harrelson , who are enjoyable actors in their own rights but are nauseating here . it's not even fun as trash . woody and wesley star ( maybe that's not the right word ) as new york city transit authority police . they have a job which could actually be the core of a really interesting movie : one of them plays drunk possum to attract chain-snatchers and the other does lookout . i had a whole headful of legal and ethical questions surrounding this , raised by a documentary i'd seen on the subject once , but the movie does not waste any time with being intelligent or thought-provoking . see if you can follow this . they chase a kid down the tunnel and into the station where the " money train " , the heavily armored car that picks up all the cash from the token books , is parked . the guards on the train see this kid running at them , lift their machine guns , shout " halt ! " and then open fire when the kid doesn't stop running at them . blam , the kid's dead . then woody and wesley show up , and of course the other ta cops hate them ( why ? ) , and a pushing match starts , and someone gets decked , and . . . i covered my face . i'd seen enough . i've never seen a movie work so hard and in so little time to destroy , systematically , any chance of being credible or interesting . fed up with the bs at their job ( most of it their own goddamned fault ) , woody and wesley hatch this plot about how to rob the money train . hence the title , in case some of you ( all two of you ) didn't figure it out yet . then there's this subplot about a maniac who torches token book clerks , * and * a love story , * and * a holdup -- no , two holdups , sorry , easy to lose track in a movie this braindead -- * and * a mob boss who wants his money . there wasn't a minute when i gave a horse's ass about any of it . neither woody nor wesley play characters that are interesting for a single minute . we do not care about them . they are not interesting . they are noisy , loud , stupid , foolish jerks who whould have flunked out of the police academy . they deserve to get shot -- or run over , as the case may be . they only exist to rehash the kind of dynamics that was * written * into a movie like white men can't jump , and which simply does not exist here . they are idiots , and we're expected to root for them . bullcrap . the movie is completely schizophrenic in its tone and texture . what exactly is this mess ? a cop movie ? police procedure is not given a moment's genuine thought anywhere . a thriller ? the subplot with the token booth killer is inept , a throwaway that should have been ditched in the rewrite . a comedy ? the few jokes that do work are wasted . a drama ? all dramatic tension between both principals is freeze-dried and off-the-rack . there's not a moment in the movie where i felt like i was listening to genuine human beings talk ; it's all screenwriterese , that bizarre analect where every sentence ends in a punchline and the primary mode of expression is the unique conjunctions of four-letter words . ( actual dialogue excerpt : " fuck you . " " what ? " " you heard me : fuck * you * . " " no : fuck * you * ! " ) look . i'll be honest here . i've tried writing screenplays , and even * i * suspect that if i tried to pitch this mess , i'd get laughed out of the office . anyone interested in hearing my ideas for a few good movies can write me and hear my pitch , because god knows i know i can do better . i've weasted enough time on this piece of tripe .
1	in the wake of the smashing success of " rumble in the bronx , " it's looking more and more likely that more jackie chan films will see american release . rumor has it that one of these films will be drunken master ii . the version i have is a copy from the laserdisc ; it's widescreen and bilingually-subtitled , as are most hong kong films these days . availability over here in the united states is very limited ; these films must either be purchased via pirates or sought out from asian distributors such as tai seng . the subtitling on the copy i have is slightly hard to read ; the letters are white and a bit small . although the american release will almost certainly be dubbed , this review is of the subtitled version , so please keep that in mind if you're reading this review to help you decide whether to go out and see it . to be fair , i must admit that i've never been very fond of " period-piece " martial arts movies--the ones set in some nebulous china of the distant or not so distant past . perhaps it's because most of those i've seen were filmed on inferior stock , with either butchered dubbing or all-but-illegible subtitling , or perhaps it's because their plots all tend to be very similar to each other and , in many cases , all but nonexistant . in fact , many of them get so wrapped up in their subplots that they seem to forget their main plot entirely until only a few minutes before the end . or , for that matter , it might be because the jackie chan films with more modern settings ( armour of god , rumble in the bronx , etc . ) tend to have more spectacular stunts , often involving large motor vehicles and large explosions , whereas period pieces simply have the martial arts . having said that , i must now turn right around and say that drunken master ii is a remarkable exception to all or most of the above , is one of the better martial arts films i've seen , and i quite enjoyed it . surprised ? well , so was i . drunken master ii is about a young man named wong fei-hong ( played by jackie chan ) who is a master of the drunken boxing style of kung fu . where he learned this style is uncertain , as his father , wong kei-ying ( ti lung ) is steadfast in his opposition to fei-hong's practicing it rather than some more normal style of kung fu . apparently , fei-hong is some sort of figure from chinese folklore , rather like paul bunyan is for americans , but i've heard very little about this , and could quite well be wrong , so i'll leave analysis of that to the people who know it better . one of my friends points out that the character of wong fei-hong is also featured in the " once upon a time in china " movies , but i have not yet seen those . the plot of drunken master ii is somewhat hazy , as are the plots to many such films , but if you're watching a jackie chan film , odds are you aren't expecting something on the order of " war and peace " . the story seems to revolve around those evil foreigners who are spiriting away ancient chinese relics ( and hence , china's cultural heritage ) while overworking , underpaying , and beating up chinese workers in a nearby steel mill . however , this plot merely serves as a framework for the other main story of the film--fei-hong's perpetual struggle to win his girlfriend , supplicate his father , keep his ( pregnant ) mother ( played by anita mui ) from fighting , and keep from getting beaten up by evil foreigner thugs . the macguffin that drives the plot ( s ) is a precious antique jade imperial seal which is being taken away by the evil foreigners . in the beginning , fei-hong accidentally steals it while trying to recover an identically-wrapped box containing the medicinal ginseng his father was bringing back for a customer . in the process , he clashes with another thief , who is himself trying for the seal but ends up instead with the ginseng . after fei-hong narrowly avoids getting caught with the seal by the evil foreigners' lackies , thanks to some timely intervention by a general's son ( a cameo appearance by andy lau , who would later take on the starring role in drunken master iii ! ) , comedic chaos ensues back at the wong household when fei-hong and his mother attempt to come up with a replacement for the missing ginseng . and so it goes . and the plot thickens later on , such as when fei-hong's girlfriend maneuvers him into a kung fu match with a rival , or when fei-hong and the thief , now revealed to be a loyalist manchu officer trying to recover the seal and stop the evil foreigners , are attacked en masse ( another grand kung-fu movie tradition ) , but i think i've already spent more time on the plot than it really deserves . let's move on to the real draw of jackie chan movies . . . the action . there's plenty of martial arts action to be found in this movie . . . of course , in a kung fu film , that's to be expected . however , this isn't just another kung fu movie ; this one has jackie chan doing the fight and stunt choreography , and jackie chan is a genius . the primary martial arts " style " featured in the film is drunken boxing , a form of kung fu which attempts to draw the adversary off his guard by making it seem like the fellow using it is drunk . further , for the purposes of this film at least , drunken boxers fight better when they actually _are_ intoxicated . . . but there's a fine line between just drunk enough and drunk into a stupor . under normal circumstances , the idea of someone staggering around looking sloshed but managing to fight effectively and even incredibly might seem rather stupid , but jackie pulls it off with flair . the kung fu sequences are so intricate in their staging and execution that it is pointless to try to describe it on paper , so i'll just say that the fights--especially the big climactic fight at the end--in themselves make the movie worth watching . another thing drunken master ii has going for it is the stunt work . even without motor vehicles ( well , not counting a train ) , there are some remarkable stunts in this film . among other things , jackie dives off a balcony into a table and crawls across hot coals ( not once , but at _least_ twice , if you count the outtake shown during the credits ) . ( quicktime movies of these stunts can be found through the www movie database . ) unlike in american films , these stunts are _not_ faked . drunken master ii stars several veteran actors of the hong kong movie scene , including jackie , ti lung ( " a better tomorrow " 1 & 2 ) , and anita mui ( the " heroic trio " series , " rumble in the bronx " ) . the performances are first-rate , especially when it comes to the comedy parts of the film . the scene where fei-hong and his mother conspire literally behind fei-hong's father's back to cover up for the missing ginseng root is hilarious , as is the scene where fei-hong's mother , having just revealed that she is pregnant , is threatening to hurt herself ( in order to draw her husband's anger away from fei-hong ) . jackie has developed his knack for physical comedy into a sort of mastery over the years , and he's in fine form all through drunken master ii . as far as cinematography is concerned , it certainly works for this film . it's nothing spectacular , but is at least a dozen times better than all those old kung fu movies of the 70s . the picture is crisp and clear . one thing i find particularly worthy of mention is that , at least in the copy i have , the screen was wider than any film i've ever seen on videotape before--almost a whole 1/3 of the screen was blocked out above and below . ( watch this on a bigscreen tv or movie theater if you can . ) it will be an utter shame if this film is eventually pan-and-scanned for american video release . drunken master ii shows the full potential of " period piece " kung fu movies , and it's good enough to overcome even my usual distaste for such movies . the plot does meander a bit , but that's to be expected in this type of film . if you like this kind of movie , you'll love this movie , and if not , well , give it a chance anyway . if nothing else , the martial arts and stunt sequences are by themselves worth the price of admission or rental .
0	in french , the phrase " film noir " literally means " black film . " webster defines it as " a type of crime film featuring cynical malevolent characters in a sleazy setting and an ominous atmosphere that is conveyed by shadowy photography and foreboding background music . " classic film noir , including such memorable fare as " the big sleep , " the original " cape fear , " and orson welles' striking " a touch of evil , " employed black and white photography to emphasize the long shadows associated with the genre . color came into play with neo-noir films like " chinatown " and " blade runner . " " l . a . confidential , " easily the best film of 1997 , is a wonderful piece of contemporary neo-noir filmmaking . for a textbook example of how to take all the elements of neo-noir and create an absolute mess , there's " palmetto . " based on " just another sucker , " a short story written by british author rene raymond under the pseudonym james hadley chase , " palmetto " shows what happens when a filmmaker puts style ahead of substance . director volker schlondorff ( " tin drum , " the handmaid's tale " ) stated " we weren't even sure for a long time if it was going to be a thriller or a comedy . " it shows . " palmetto " is too preposterous too be taken seriously as a thriller and too ponderous to work as a comedy . the story begins when journalist harry barber ( woody harrelson ) is released from prison . someone turned state's witness and revealed that harry was framed , a " reward " for blowing the lid on corruption in the small florida town of palmetto . bitter and broke , harry plans to hitchhike to miami and start his life over , but ex-girlfriend nina ( gina gershon ) appears to return him to palmetto . while hanging out at a bar , he notices that a beautiful woman has left her purse in a phone booth . harry pockets her cash , only to have the woman reappear and catch him with her money in his pocket . no problem , though . the radiant blonde is rhea malroux ( elisabeth shue , ) the young wife of a very rich older man with heart problems , and she has a proposition for harry . rhea needs " a threatening voice and someone to collect the ransom " for the staged kidnapping of her teenage stepdaughter odette ( chloe sevigny . ) the girls want to bilk a half-million dollar " ransom " from the old man and will happily give harry $50 , 000 for helping with the scam . things go wrong , of course . odette is found dead , leaving harry frantically trying to dispose of the corpse and cover his tracks . in an ironic twist , harry is asked to work for the local d . a . 's office . they need a press liaison to field questions about odette's kidnapping and feel that harry is the perfect man for the job . not a bad set-up for a noir film , if only schlondorff knew how to handle the material , but he never settles on a consistent tone . the actors don't know what to do with their characters either , muddling the proceedings even further . as if that wasn't enough , the story suffers from major problems in logic . woody harrelson is a talented actor with an admirable willingness to take on risky parts , but he's lost here . presented as a crusading journalist who was horribly wronged , it makes no sense that harry would be stupid and dishonest enough to get caught up in this scheme . harrelson clearly doesn't know what to do with harry's character , so he spends most of the film glowering , sweating and generally acting miserable . meanwhile , elisabeth shue gives a goofy performance , behaving like a vamp on nitrous oxide . as the stepdaughter , chloe sevigny lays on so many slurpy quirks that she comes off like juliette lewis jr . despite a number of steamy scenes , there's no chemistry between harrelson and the women . to make matters worse , schlondorff badly dubs in dialogue while the character's lips are running over each others bodies . two particularly bad scenes highlight the film's problems . while driving with a body in his trunk , harry has a minor car wreck and a cop shows up . the officer wants to help change harry's flat tire and asks him to open the trunk . harry's pathetic attempts to keep the trunk closed might have worked if played as comedy , but under schlondorff's grim direction , the scene is just embarrassing . the film's nadir comes when a bad guy prepares to kill harry and nina . we're supposed to be horrified watching our hero dangling over a bathtub filled with acid , but by this point the film has foundered so badly that the scene is merely reminiscent of when jessica and roger rabbit were suspended over a vat of dip . had " palmetto " been played with tongue firmly in cheek , it might have been an entertaining shaggy dog story . but under the harsh direction of schlondorff , the film is just a sluggish paint-by-numbers exercise in neo- noir cluelessness . avoid this nonsense and go see " l . a . confidential " instead .
1	aliens ! ! well , that is what this movie is about . computer generated aliens . ok , the movie is not just about computer generated aliens . it's about computer generated aliens and a secret organization known as mib . if one wasn't green and running around the other would not exist as it's known . the computer graphics in this movie are spectacular , they make you want to believe that aliens like the ones depicted exits . since seeing this movie i have to agree concede that denis rodman is an alien , he simply has to be . well , in all seriousness the aliens created here are not only of the monster variety but are also of the soft , squishy and cuddly kind . just adds something of a lighter note to the movie where it could have become very dark . along with aliens comes the humor and in a pretty decent way . j , well soon to be j , a smart ass cop ( played by will smith ) runs down what he thinks is a would-be villain and gets some attention from the mib and k in particular . k aims to recruit our poor j , but that is not the whole point of this movie . the main duty of the mib is to police the extra terrestrials on earth who have chosen it as a home or a refuge . that's also the main point of this movie : protect the earth from the scum of the galaxy . some of the scum from space is awfully bad and just down right nasty . color commentary abounds when forced to deal with alien scum and none other than will smith and tommy lee jones are there to deliver the punch . the dialogue is witty to say the least . this wittiness lets the movie flow well from scene to scene developing the characters to the extent needed for this movie . tommy lee jones ( as k ) and will smith ( as j ) provide both the action and the comedy beautifully . the characters they play don't seem to be wrong in any way nor does their performance as them . i would have to say that k is more amusing than j , but what's one without the other . both roles complemented each other very well and the script seemed to be written for these two actors . the story also goes deep enough to provide a proper background so the audience is not totally clueless . altogether good performances were put in by all the cast and the director blended everything marvelously with the necessary special effects to create a good movie . a movie well worth seeing if you are up for some lighthearted and witty humor . as most movies have their good things they also have their bad things . the character development in this movie was not all that grand because it didn't need to be . but if there was more character development and if there was some development of the alien characters that might have added quite considerable to the movie . especially the evil alien , he did need some work . though this could have been worked on , the movie was what it proposed to be a rather shallow and witty comedy . that was achieved rather well , with some interesting commentary and observations . a movie worth a view , but keep in mind what the movie is and if you are not fond of will smith's form of humor then i wouldn't go . originally written after original release . totally rewritten december 26 , 1997
0	it's a shame the execution of this concept falls very short of its premise . the movie is lacking and most unsatisfying . osmosis jones is crude , gross , disgusting , and was directed by the farrelly brothers - the twisted siblings behind there's something about mary , me , myself and irene and a couple of other movies in which the humor is mostly targeted below the belt . not that there's anything wrong with scatology . i bet even cavemen appreciated bathroom humor - such as it was . it's merely that with osmosis jones , the farrellys humor is too juvenile , too predictable . you can almost foresee the puns just by viewing the part of the inner anatomy a sequence is drawn . osmosis jones looks like one of those old health class movies gone psycho . the trouble is , the animation may please the very young , but the jokes may be over their heads , while the teen-age audience may find it too tame for their tastes . adults ? well , let's just say most will find it unappetizing . osmosis jones plays like a 100-minute infomercial for the eat healthy foods lobby . the live action sequences revolve around frank ( bill murray ) , who seems to be the grungiest human being in the universe . he continually looks as if he needs a shave and a shower . frank , much to the consternation of his daughter , is a fast-food addict , eating anything - and everything - that can kill you . he works at a zoo where the animals look cleaner - and presumably smell better - than he does . frank's body is invaded by thrax , a lethal virus , after frank eats a hard-boiled egg that had fallen to the ground . it's not gross enough that frank picks the egg up from the dirt and plops it into his mouth . nope , the farrellys pile it on by first having frank wrestle a chimp for the egg , wresting it from the primate's mouth . like i said , the gross meter tips the scales on this one . after ingesting the egg , the movie begins its animated sequences . here , osmosis jones ( voiced by chris rock ) , a renegade white blood cell is teamed with drix ( voiced by frasier's david hyde pierce ) , a 12-hour , painkiller cold capsule to battle thrax ( smoothly voiced by laurence fishburne ) . basically , what we have is a cliched cop-buddy movie , rife with all the clich ? s of that genre . and this is why osmosis jones doesn't click . it merely falls back on tired , familiar conventions instead of creating new and exciting situations . the jokes and puns are lame : osmosis searches out a snitch , a former flu virus . after pumping him for information , drix tells osmosis , " funny , he doesn't look fluish . " and the jokes don't rise above that level . the live action scenes are no better . frank is such a slob , so unappealing that it is difficult to fathom how he ever married or even sired a child . he's almost a bigger cartoon than the animated characters . osmosis jones is a movie that may be too violent for young children as thrax burns and dissolves blood cells right and left . the animation is rather two-dimensional and flat . it lacks scope and depth . it is an unappealing movie that will leave you scratching your head , and maybe leaning toward a shower after you walk out of the theater .
0	" the world on land -- it's just too big for me . " starring tim roth , pruitt taylor vince , bill nunn , clarence williams iii . rated r . the legend of 1900s is the year's most absurd movie , a rambling , nonsensical piece of seafaring garbage that goes nowhere fast . it stars thespian extraordinaire tim roth , looking wistful as ever , as a guy named . . . 1900 . you heard right . his name is , in all actuality , 1900 . he was born on an ocean liner on 1/1/1900 ( uh , hence the name ) , abandoned and adopted by danny , a ship crewman . 1900 spends most of his early years hiding in the bowels of the ship because of danny's fear that he might be taken away from him because of " visa matters . " well , when 1900 is about 9 or so , he starts wondering all around the ship . one day , he discovers a grand piano . he sits down and starts playing . miraculously , what comes out is beautiful . a group of onlookers gathers to watch this stunning prodigy make such amazing music at such a young age . when one of the people who knows 1900 tells him that his playing the piano like that without permission is " totally against regulations " 1900 replies " f * ck the regulations ! " ho ho ho . 1900 grows up never setting foot on dry land . when he's about 30ish and can play the piano like nobody's business , onboard comes another musician . his name is max ( pruitt taylor vince ) and he plays the trumpet . after 1900 catches max barfing everywhere during a storm , he sits him down on the piano next to him , takes the piano's braces off and plays while the piano flies all around the hall , taking them with it . how the chair they're sitting on and the piano don't separate , i don't know , but this apparently isn't the kind of thing we're supposed to ask . after that , 1900 and max become friends . max is determined to get 1900 off the ship and discover what he is missing on land , but 1900 has no intention of doing so . what's more , he doesn't even want his music to go anywhere without him : when a record company hears about his talents , they come on board to make a record of his music , but after finding out that -- gasp ! -- they're going to make millions of copies , he breaks the record . the conflict of the movie is that after max , unsuccessful in his endeavor to get 1900 off the ship , gets off himself , he stumbles upon a record of 1900's music in a store . the record shouldn't exist because a ) 1900 never stepped on dry land and b ) the one record that was made on the ship was broken . ladies and gentlemen , it's a mystery ! the story itself is ludicrous and uninteresting and so are its elements . we're supposed to be roused by a climactic . . . piano duel ? there isn't anything in this movie with the potential to compel . 1900 comes off as a whiny , brooding , extremely unlikable man : i can't recall a single word he said that was not some sort of depressing pseudo- meditation on life . ditto for max , who doesn't seem to have a life outside his friendship with 1900 . tim roth plays 1900 with about as much panache as a fig leaf ; there's no spirit , no gusto to the character . he insists that he leads a happy life on the ship , but to us he is dead . pruitt taylor vince is a little more palatable , at least providing a moment of comic relief here and there to liven things up a bit . the highlight of the movie would have to be the eminently amusing clarence williams the iii as the arrogant , leering " king of jazz " who challenges 1900 to the aforementioned piano duel . the legend of 1900 was made by giuseppe tornatore , whose 1988 cinema paradiso is considered a masterpiece by many . this effort is utterly limp and lifeless . at once ridiculous , boring , narrow-sighted and pointless , this is one movie that should be -- and will be -- quickly forgotten .
1	it has been three long years since quentin tarantino stunned the cinema world by claiming the cannes film festival's palme d'or , a $100 million-plus box office gross , and an oscar nomination ? all for his sophomore outing , pulp fiction . since then , the talented film maker has been virtually invisible , surfacing briefly as a co-director of the wildly uneven four rooms and the screenwriter of the gory vampire-fest , from dusk till dawn . in between , he has moonlighted as an " actor " with several decidedly unmemorable performances . now , with much fanfare and anticipation , tarantino has returned with his third directorial effort , jackie brown . and , while this motion picture , adapted from elmore leonard's novel , rum punch , offers solid entertainment , those expecting another bravura outing from tarantino will leave theaters disappointed . for the most part , jackie brown is a pretty ordinary crime movie . the story , which starts out slowly , develops into a twisty affair , with double-crosses and triple-crosses . and the movie is littered with occasional tarantino trademarks : witty dialogue , unexpected gunfire , '70s pop tunes , and close-ups of womens' bare feet . yet , for all of that , the production is something of a letdown . the sheer , in-your-face exuberance that marked reservoir dogs and especially pulp fiction is absent . the mostly-straightforward chronology of jackie brown doesn't match up favorably to the non-linear style of tarantino's previous efforts ? an approach that added tension and edginess to the narratives . and there aren't nearly as many deliciously offbeat conversations this time around . there's a samuel l . jackson monologue about guns , a jackson/chris tucker argument regarding the merits of hiding in a car trunk , and a jackson/robert de niro exchange that recalls some of the jackson/travolta material from pulp fiction , but that's about it . jackie brown's lone " innovation " is its presentation of a crucial sequence from three different perspectives . this isn't exactly an original technique ? it has been done numerous times before , most famously in akira kurosawa's rashomon and most recently in edward zwick's courage under fire . however , while in those two movies ( and others ) , there was a legitimate plot reason for the multiple points-of- view , tarantino's sole purpose for using it appears to be because it's unconventional . had the scenes in question been shown from only one of the three vantages , nothing would have been lost . as a result , this aspect of the film is little more than a curiosity . for the second picture in a row , tarantino is attempting to revive the career of a '70s icon . this time around , instead of john travolta , it's blaxploitation queen pam grier ( foxy brown has become jackie brown ) . in one of many nods to the most famous segment of grier's career , tarantino uses a '70s song to accompany her first appearance during the opening credits . there are also several instances during jackie brown when the director offers a sly wink towards certain conventions of the blaxploitation genre ( although grier never does any butt-kicking ) . grier is jackie brown , a flight attendant who gets caught transporting drugs and money into the united states . she's working for gun dealer ordell robbie ( samuel l . jackson ) , but she keeps her mouth shut under questioning , despite pressure from ray nicolet ( michael keaton ) , a federal official . no longer sure whether or not he can trust jackie , ordell arranges for a bail bondsman , max cherry ( robert forster , tv's " banyon " ) to post the necessary $10 , 000 , then plans to shoot jackie if she proves disloyal . jackie passes ordell's test , however , and soon the two of them are plotting a way to smuggle $500 , 000 of ordell's money into the united states without tipping off the feds . soon , just about everyone is after that money , including jackie , max , ray , ordell's perpetually oversexed and drugged-out girlfriend , melanie ( bridget fonda ) , and his right-hand man , louis ( robert de niro ) . unsurprisingly , the most memorable performance is turned in by samuel l . jackson , but ordell isn't nearly as invigorating or compelling a character as jules from pulp fiction . in addition to looking fantastic , pam grier is also quite good , although hers is not an oscar- caliber performance ( although she might get a nomination ) . robert forster and michael keaton are solid in their tough-guys-who-rarely- smile roles . bridget fonda is around for three discernible reasons : to look sexy in a bikini , to provide a little twisted comedy , and to satisfy tarantino's foot fetish . robert de niro is criminally underused in a part that could have been played equally well by any grungy- looking , middle-aged actor . the film , which clocks in at several minutes over the two-and-a- half hour mark , is probably too long for the material , but the plot is convoluted enough to keep us guessing throughout ( although the payoff is a letdown ) . tarantino keeps things moving along nicely , with a heavier dose of humor and less violence than in pulp fiction , but , on the whole , this movie seems more like the work of one of his wannabes than something from the director himself . when it comes to recent caper films ( like the grifters and bound ) , jackie brown is a second-tier effort . it's an entertaining diversion , but not a masterpiece , and certainly not an oscar contender .
1	sometimes a movie comes along that falls somewhat askew of the rest . some people call it " original " or " artsy " or " abstract " . some people simply call it " trash " . a life less ordinary is sure to bring about mixed feelings . definitely a generation-x aimed movie , a life less ordinary has everything from claymation to profane angels to a karaoke-based musical dream sequence . whew ! anyone in their 30's or above is probably not going to grasp what can be enjoyed about this film . it's somewhat silly , it's somewhat outrageous , and it's definitely not your typical romance story , but for the right audience , it works . a lot of hype has been surrounding this film due to the fact that it comes to us from the same team that brought us trainspotting . well sorry folks , but i haven't seen trainspotting so i can't really compare . whether that works in this film's favor or not is beyond me . but i do know this : ewan mcgregor , whom i had never had the pleasure of watching , definitely charmed me . he was great ! cameron diaz's character was uneven and a bit hard to grasp . the audience may find it difficult to care about her , thus discouraging the hopes of seeing her unite with mcgregor after we are immediately sucked into caring about and identifying with him . misguided ? you bet . loveable ? you bet . a life less ordinary was a delight and even had a bonus for me when i realized it was filmed in my hometown of salt lake city , utah . this was just one more thing i didn't know about this movie when i sat down with a five dollar order of nachos and a three dollar coke . maybe not knowing the premise behind this film made for a pleasant surprise , but i think even if i had known , i would have been just as happy . a life less ordinary is quirky , eccentric , and downright charming ! not for everyone , but a definite change of pace for your typical night at the movies .
1	a big surprise to me . the good trailer had hinted that they pulled the impossible off , but making a blues brothers movie without jake blues ( john belushi ) is such a dumb idea i really had no hope . they replaced him just fine . not with john goodman , he didn't do much of anything , but with the brilliant actor joe morton , who can really sing . the fourth blues brother is j evan bonifant , who's ten . this was another of my fears for the film , but he's a really good dancer , and plays a mean harmonica ( although he may have been dubbed ) . things that intellectually had bothered me before , like no mission from god , everyone being richer , it not being filmed in chicago -- gave me no problems at all . i'm quite pleased that there were less car pile-ups , because they meant less music , and john landis seems to have lost interest in the whole thing . there's a few early crashes , and then one huge pile-up , but after that it all stops . it's just the music . one of my problems with the first is that cab calloway's song is so good the actually blues brothers look dull after him , but there's no problems with this . the music is all as good as ever , tons of great musicians showing up -- with the exception of johnny lang , who can't sing , all the musicians do a great job . the only real problems i had was the special effects . these were superfluous and a waste of money . since the film isn't doing very well , they could mean we have no possibility of another sequel , which i want to see . the bluegrass version of riders in the sky is even better than rawhide . -- http : //www . geocities . com/hollywood/academy/8034/ remove no spam to reply . " drive carefully but recklessly " , mama , child's toy " the only excercise i take is walking behind the coffins of friends who took exercise . " peter o'toole
1	in roger michell's romantic comedy notting hill , william thacker ( hugh grant ) leads a rather dreary life maintaining his flagging travel bookshop in the quaint section of london which lends it's name to the film's title . one day , american movie superstar anna scott ( julia roberts ) walks in to purchase a book on turkey . quickly enamored of each other , the two embark upon an on-again , off-again love affair replete with romance , humor , and the occasional lump in the throat . the film opens with a non-verbal cue to anna's stardom as the title credits appear over a montage of slow motion sequences featuring the actress's appearances in films and at premieres - coming out of limousines , walking the red carpets and such . without words , this sequence gives us a background to her character . following , however , is a set-up narration by william indicating what he does and where he lives . i don't know why the filmmakers chose to go with a narration which tells us nothing we couldn't have figured out by watching the first ten minutes of film , and which never resurfaces after the movie's beginning , but there it is . if there were ever a clear case for " less is more , " this would be it . the film is told nearly first person from william's point of view , as he is in every scene . by nature of this arrangement , we get a very definite sense of what he is all about , and his nice guy personality wins us over easily . in fact , much of notting hill's strength lies in the great dialog written for this character by richard curtis . a scene where william is still in shock over the fact that he's even talking to a silver screen goddess is made golden by the way bumbles through his attempt to offer her some honey-soaked apricots from his refrigerator . or take an instance where anna kisses william and asks him never to tell anyone for fear of the incident hurting her image . william assures her he wouldn't say a word , then adds , " well , i'll probably tell myself now and then , but i'd never believe it . " great stuff . the downside to spending so much time with william is that we don't get to see enough of anna to make their relationship whole and plausible . we're constantly exposed to william's thoughts , feelings , actions and desires , but don't actually get the sense of how much anna really feels for him . there are a couple of instances where she declares her obvious interest , but they nearly come out of nowhere due to the fact that we're not sure what she's been thinking all the times in between . this , combined with the sheer iniquity of screen time between the two , makes this hugh grant's film hands down . he gets the great scenes ( look for one in which he has to portray an interviewer from horse and hound magazine in order to speak with anna ) , the great lines , and gives an overall wonderful performance . julia roberts fans will probably be disappointed by the actress's top billing and subsequent lack of involvement in the film ( ala sandra bullock in a time to kill ) along with her detached performance which is only worsened by her character's unpredictable behavior . anna doesn't get a lot of our compassion . this romantic comedy leans a little more toward the comedy than the romance , much of it supplied by grant himself , but with considerable help from the supporting cast . most notable is rhys ifans as spike , william's eccentric roommate , who is in the film for no other purpose than to make us laugh . hugh bonneville , emma chambers , james dreyfus , and gina mckee bring up the guard as william's friends and family , particularly shining in a scene where william brings anna to his sister's birthday dinner , and we get to see how these common folks react to the presence of a movie star in their midst . it's a scene most of us will probably think would play out in our own living rooms were we faced with a similar situation . roger michell's use of visuals doesn't sweep us off our feet , but does give us more than your typical movie of this type . for example , there are a couple of instances in this film where large amounts of time pass . whereas some films are content to simply put in a caption saying " eight months later , " michell presents us with more interesting cues , such as william's walk though his neighborhood while the seasons change around him . another memorable shot occurs in a park where the camera is lifted from ground level to a couple of hundred feet in the air . we're generally used to scenes where our point of view is lifted from the earth to treetop level or so , but in this case , the camera just keeps going up and up until we have a bird's eye view of the ground below . music is used rather glaringly as an enhancement to many of the film's scenes , and some of this might have been better toned down , but in other areas it works to full effect . it's kind of a mixed bag , but still fares better than many of today's lighthearted movies which are so influenced by the mtv fare that the film becomes one long music video . at least this film has some pretty good music that for the most part remains relevant and appropriate . notting hill's grant and roberts will not go down in history as one of the all-time greatest film pairings , but the chemistry is decent and the comedic aspects of the movie more than make up for it . for a couple of hours , you should expect to laugh more than cry , and that's not so bad , now is it ?
1	" through a spyglass , i could see everything . " king louis xvi was beheaded on january 21 , 1793 , but instead of visualizing this act of regicide , legendary auteur eric rohmer's the lady and the duke observes from afar . consider it a view to a kill made abstract . a proper british ( yes , british ) gentlewoman , grace elliott ( lucy russell ) , and her loyal maidservant gaze from a lofty terrace in meudon at the glistening city of paris , where raucous crowds seem tinier than ants . the maid narrates what little she sees of the execution through her telescope ( often muttering , " i don't know , " ) as the sound of cheering patriots and revolutionaries echoes through the air . what we don't see might not be able to hurt us . just close your eyes and think of england . during times of revolution , the aristocracy may feel a false sense of calm in their parlor halls , discussing tumultuous events over glasses of sherry until the walls cave in on them . adapted from elliott's memoirs , journal of my life during the french revolution , rohmer's latest artistic tour-de-force may seem far removed from his domestic comedies ( tales of the four seasons , etc . ) , a period film set during the most violent changes in french history . resisting the temptation for grand-scale theatrics , much of the lady and the duke is about quiet , decisive moments between members of the cultural elite as they determine how to proceed as the world implodes . grace elliott makes for an unlikely protagonist : a headstrong , snobbish blueblood , one unprepared for the machinations of history that sweep her along . a foreigner who accepts the french king as her own , grace's life seems defined by fancy attire and lively political debate with her former lover , the king's hot-blooded cousin , prince philipe , duke of orleans ( jean-claude dreyfus ) . the times are changing , though , and the gears inch ever closer toward violence . during the september massacres of 1792 , she is encountered by a procession of rioters brandishing the head of the duke's sister-in-law on a stake . rohmer makes a harsh transition from tranquil , old fashioned , almost stagy parlor scenes to the swell of an angry mob . in doing so , he achieves what braveheart and the patriot could not : the face of death . when grace sees her friend's disembodied head on a pole , rohmer's attention drifts from the societal change to one woman's reaction shot , laden with hot tears . grace finds herself taking in a fugitive from justice , sheltering him from the mob . through her relationship with the duke , she seeks a passport for this one activist's escape . grace doesn't even understand her own actions ( and the duke reacts in stunned disbelief at how she places herself in such danger ) . she endures persecution from robespierre and his gang of thuggish equalizers , ceaseless police monitoring , house searches , even a brief imprisonment for harmless international correspondence . maintaining her stiff upper lip and pampered life ( her imperious attitude to the servants never changes ) , she becomes a heroine through circumstance . the events themselves are intrusions upon her person , her home , and therefore her values . aristocracy proves a glass house , one that can barely withstand the upheaval of stones . the duke is called to vote on the king's punishment , and despite his hours of deliberation with friends and advisors , talk means nothing in the face of bloody action ( or futile inaction ) . the episodic structure creates a wobbly , jarring detachment from the events of the french revolution , which serves as metaphor but also disconnects potential audience identification . lazy viewers ( and critics ) may also complain that knowledge of french history is required for enjoyment of the lady and the duke . that's foolery , but brings up the valid criticism that rohmer's characters occasionally become didactic . rohmer's imperfect but assured push toward the future remains staunch and notable for casting a cautious eye upon the past while taking bold steps forward into an uncertain future . what may arouse interest in the lady and the duke outside of foreign film enthusiasts with literary and historical passions is rohmer's use of cutting edge digital technology as a means of exploring the theme of artifice as safety net or coping mechanism . the actors were filmed against a bluescreen , then placed against painted backdrops recreating the vastness of 18th century paris . this recreation calls attention to itself in every shot , a technicolor dream of fanciful buildings and wide-open streets . it looks as phony as titanic , but unlike james cameron's debacle , the lady and the duke plays with the notion of false security in those walls of stone . why ? they aren't real . the very foundation rohmer's characters stand upon is false , and in their groundlessness they must discover themselves , in all their insubstantial glory . screened at the 2001 new york film festival ( feature coming soon ) .
1	" well this is not mission : difficult , mr . hunt , it's mission : impossible . difficult should be a walk in the park for you . " ---agent swanbeck ( sir anthony hopkins ) , the series' new agent phelps , takes ethan hunt ( tom cruise ) down a notch . a russian scientist ( rade serbedzija ) has created a new virus ( and its antidote ) called chimera that destroys its host within twenty hours of injection . a rogue imf agent , sean ambrose ( dougray scott ) , wants to use the disease and cure to blackmail a pharmaceutical company into selling him enough stock to make him owner of the company ( he knows it will soon be worth its weight in gold thanks to the outbreak of the virus he is going to cause ) . posing as ethan hunt , ambrose gains the confidence of the scientist long enough to get only the cure , not realizing that the scientist had injected himself with the virus to prevent exactly what ambrose was trying to do . the real ethan hunt is called in from his vacation to persuade beautiful thief nyah nordoff-hall ( thandie newton ) to assist the imf team in retrieving the stolen goods . ethan and nyah fall quickly in love , but ethan soon finds himself in a real dilemma when he learns that his new love has only been hired because she was a former lover of ambrose's . reluctantly , he sets up nyah to be rescued from prison by ambrose so she can infiltrate his compound and send back intelligence to the team . ethan must race against time to keep ambrose from obtaining and spreading the virus and prevent any harm from coming to nyah . although the first mission : impossible film was a moderate box office success , audiences panned it because they felt the plot was too confusing and there wasn't much action ( although being a fan of the series both old and new , i thought the movie was pretty decent and especially gutsy to make phelps a bad guy ) . that problem has been rectified in the sequel by making the plot more accessible ( courtesy of one of the writers of the previous entry , robert towne ) and by turning the film into one gigantic action set piece under the steady hand of action film guru john woo . the end result is one of the most entertaining ( yet simple ) action films made in a long while . unfortunately , the first forty minutes or so are relatively slow , dwelling mainly on ethan and nyah's quickly blossoming romance and seeming more in place in a james bond film than with the less glamorous mission : impossible tv series . ethan's conflict is a compelling one , but it seems very rushed ( and comes about because of a near fatal car wreck that ethan himself causes ! ) . john woo handles all of this with an artistic flair that seems out of place , featuring a great deal of slow fades and dramatically framed close-ups . the surreal nature of these sequences are distracting and ultimately a detriment to the film . thankfully though , at the point ambrose discovers nyah's deception , mission : impossible ii becomes very entertaining and action-packed . robert towne's screenplay takes some of the conventions set up in the first film and parodies them during a sequence where ethan must break into a high-rise building and retrieve the remaining specimens of the virus . after that , the action scenes just begin to build in intensity , as is the case with many of woo's previous high-octane films . the final half hour is an all out assault of action ( a good deal of which is ruined by the trailer , unfortunately ) . as far as summer entertainment goes , mission : impossible ii is serviceable fare . anyone looking for hardcore action won't be disappointed ( except for during the first half of the film , perhaps ) . even if you weren't a fan of the first film , this entry deserves some checking out . [pg-13]
1	of the major horror sub-genres , vampire movies are easily the most adaptable . think about it . frankenstein movies haven't changed all that much because they still need that mad-scientist-in-bavarian-castle setting . if you made a frankenstein movie today , you'd have to have the monster be a virus or something -- and outside of michael j . fox , there aren't any actors that could play a virus convincingly . movies about mummies would still have to be set in egypt . there's not much you can do with werewolves except take them to london or paris , unless you want to have a teenage werewolf or something . ( and there's that michael j . fox thing again . ) but you can have vampires do anything , and you can place them in any genre you want , just about . you can have traditional vampire movies ( bram stoker's dracula ) or have the anne rice version ( interview with the vampire ) , or play it for laughs ( vampire in brooklyn ) . you can put vampires in locales from sunny southern california ( the lost boys ) to squalid mexican dives ( from dusk till dawn ) to your local high school ( buffy , the vampire slayer ) . were it not redundant , you could have a movie about a law firm full of vampires . any day now , i expect we'll see a movie about a vampire third baseman who has to decide whether to play a day game in order to break the home run record . or , you can insert the vampire legend into a hong kong action movie -- and when you do that , you get blade . wesley snipes has the chow yun fat role in this movie -- the silent , expressionless hit man who destroys everything in his path . in this case , the everything happens to be vampires that explode into cgi shards instead of dead , bleeding corpses . snipes has less to say here than as the fugitive in u . s . marshals , but does a demonstrably better job here as a half-vampire wreaking vengeance on the bloodsuckers . blade is a silent , brooding presence , laying waste to vampires without a shred of remorse . he is as cold as his silver-bladed sword , as single minded as his garlic-filled bullets . yet , he's not without quirks : blade drives a battered muscle car and has to glean rolex watches from his vampire victims in order to stay solvent . like any good hong kong movie , blade is heavy on the chopsocky action . for some reason , blade spends a lot more time using his kung fu artistry than using the traditional anti-vampire weapons of garlic and silver . ( blade dismisses a man-portable arc lamp as being too heavy , although it looks to be a more efficient tool to dispatch vampires . ) unfortunately , the guiding hand of john woo is absent from this film , relegating blade to the status of the replacement killers , which it most strongly resembles . the replacement killers is the last movie i saw that i didn't review -- mostly because it made no impression on me , and i couldn't remember anything other than noise , violence , and the intensity of fat's performance . blade has a little more going for it , and has the vampire myth to draw from -- but other than that , it's the same kind of movie -- exciting , with well choreographed action scenes , but with no resonance . with a stronger villain ( stephen dorff is ( pardon the pun ) curiously bloodless as the head vampire , leaving us to wonder what denis leary might have done with the role ) , a wittier script , and a strong supporting cast , blade might have been able to rise beyond the level of commonplace summer entertainment . as it is , blade is an average action movie that serves to do nothing but remind us that the summer movies just keep getting dumber and the vampire movies just keep multiplying .
0	my first press screening of 1998 and already i've gotten a prime candidate for my worst ten of the year list . what an auspicious beginning ! welcome to the dog days of winter when the only film openings of merit are those oscar contenders that the studios opened in late december in new york and l . a . and which are just now beginning to appear elsewhere . firestorm , the directorial debut of dances with wolves's academy award winning cinematographer dean semler , is the first of the new year's crop of movies . as our story opens , the movie pretentiously informs us that of the tens of thousands of firefighters only 400 are " smokejumpers . " we then cut to a plane load of smoke jumping cowboys and one cowgirl , where one of the gung-ho guys is taking a romance quiz from " cosmopolitan . " having the time of their lives , they then jump into the middle of a burning forest . when , even in the beginning , the director can't get the small parts right , you can sense the movie is in trouble . with the noisy fire roaring all about them and with the trapped people huddled near their gasoline-filled cars , smokejumper monica ( christianne hirt ) tells them to get away from their soon-to-explode vehicles . not bothering to shout nor even get close to them , she announces her warning without raising her voice much or approaching the people . miraculously , they manage to hear her and move away . in a movie that specializes in cheap shots , the camera locates the proverbial young girl trapped in a nearby burning building . as it does throughout , overly dramatic cinematographer stephen f . windon from the postman uses extremely fast zooms right down to the endangered girl's face . our show's two heroes , the crew's chief , wynt perkins , played laconically by scott glenn , and his second-in-command , jesse graves , played by howie long in a weak attempt to be the next steven seagal , enter the burning house looking for the little girl . in a panic they have difficulty in locating her before they are engulfed in flames . the manipulative script has her hidden in her own dollhouse . this mawkish show cuts back to monica , who has a life-or-death decision to make . the chopper with the fire-retardant chemicals has only enough to save one group . will it be the large group near the cars or the helpless little girl and monica's two firefighting buddies ? she has only seconds to decide who will be saved . yes , she goes for the majority , but , miracle of miracles , the other three come out alive anyway . not content with a traditional firefighting story , chris soth's screenplay attempts to jazz it up by having william forsythe from palookaville play a vicious killer named randy earl shaye who sets a forest fire so that he can join the crew to put it out and then escape . ( " hoods in the woods , " is what the " ground-pounders " yell out when the convicts are bused in to help them fight the fire . ) along the way , shaye picks up an ornithologist hostage played by suzy amis , who turns out to have been trained in warrior ways by her father , who was a marine drill instructor . most of the highly predictable movie is a long chase in which poor howie long is given one ridiculous stunt after another to look silly performing . he flings a chain saw backwards over his head while riding a speeding motorcycle so that the saw can hit the windshield of the pursuing truck . arguably the low point is when he escapes from a locked burning building by riding a motorcycle conveniently parked inside . using a ramp , he shoots straight out of the top of the building's attic , and when he hits the ground , he just rides off in a cloud of dust . when the film isn't using some stock footage of actual forest fires , the simulated ones look hokey . editor jack hofstra cheapens the action even more by his use of burning flames in scene transitions . the ending , with its sick twists , manages to be even worse than the rest of the movie . perhaps the best that can be said for the picture is the faint praise i heard afterwards in the lobby , " it's not as bad as some of the television sitcoms . " firestorm runs mercifully just 1 : 29 . it is rated r for violence and language and would be acceptable for teenagers .
1	it's terribly unfortunate that " stir of echoes , " tautly written and directed by david koepp ( who made one of 1996's unsung treasures , " the trigger effect " ) , should be released little more than a month after " the sixth sense , " which is still going strong at the box office . these two films are undoubtedly going to be compared ( judging from practically all of my fellow audience members last night ) , and although they have eerily similar storylines , " stir of echoes " is more of a straightforward psychological horror film , while " the sixth sense " is closer to a psychological drama . additionally , while " the sixth sense " had a shocker of an ending that undoubtedly has been one of the major factors in its recent repeat business , " stir of echoes " is more conventional and predictable in its final twist . and where " the sixth sense " was disturbing , " stir of echoes " is just plain scary . i have a feeling most viewers are going to come away unimpressed because of the unavoidable similarities , and will foolishly forget to judge this film on its own respectable merits . adapted from a novel by richard matheson that was written some forty years ago , " stir of echoes " opens with a cute six-year-old boy named jake ( zachary david cope ) who is taking a bath . he is speaking directly at the screen , but we immediately have a feeling someone else is there . finally , he asks , " does it hurt to be dead ? " apparently jake sees the ghosts of dead people , but unlike " the sixth sense , " this young child isn't the focus of the picture . instead , tom witzy ( kevin bacon ) , a chicago lineman , is our protagonist . jake is his son , and maggie ( kathryn erbe ) , whom has just discovered she is six weeks pregnant , is his hard-working wife . one night while at a party with their closest friends , tom convinces maggie's new-age sister , lisa ( illena douglas ) , to try and hypnotize him . it unexpectedly works , and before long , tom is seeing things he wouldn't normally see , including a deceased teenage girl ( jenny morrison ) in his house who happens to have been missing for the last six months . seeking help from lisa , she tells him that , while he was under hypnosis , she told him that after he awoke , his mind will remain clear and free , like an opened door . she didn't expect it to work , but it did , and the only way to stop it is for tom to somehow find a way to help this girl he sees . " stir of echoes " isn't a perfect film by any stretch of the imagination , but in the thick , atmospheric mood it conjures up , it is a terrifically eerie domestic horror-drama , and is not only effective on a technical level , but is impressive in its portrayal of a struggling working-class family . kevin bacon and , especially , kathryn erbe ( 1997's " dream with the fishes " ) , are top-notch and exceedingly believable as a loving married couple who nonetheless have their fair share of problems . after tom is hypnotized and starts seeing ghastly visions , he is completely taken over by his desire to solve this mystery of the disappearing girl whom he has seen lurking in his house , and instead of maggie not being understanding , she instead believes what tom says , and aside from being a little worried by what he is going through , does not try to stop his pursuit . bacon and erbe are not traditional hollywood stars like tom cruise and julia roberts , and therefore , are easier to relate to and always plausible as a struggling couple who have to work overtime at their jobs just to make ends meet . in a masterfully-done , entrancing sequence , tom is hypnotized by lisa , but instead of watching him , we instead see what he sees , starting from his view as he closes his eyes into darkness . lisa tells him to visualize being in an empty movie theater , and so , we , as audience members , are watching a movie screen from inside a theater , which is also showing a movie screen in a theater . telling him to move closer and closer to the screen as a fuzzy word in black letters pops up on the screen , we begin to float closer and closer to the front of the theater until we see that the word is " sleep . " never before have i seen a hypnotism scene as mesmerizing and brilliantly-construed as this one . truthfully , this set-piece , and another in which tom wakes up from a nightmarish dream only to quickly discover he is reliving what he has just dreamt , are worth the full price of admission alone , just to see them on the big screen . having loads of fun with her small role as maggie's sister , lisa , illeana douglas ( 1995's " to die for , " her last great character ) is a delight , but rarely used to her full advantage in feature films . funny and enjoyably offbeat , douglas gets to utter the best line in the film : while talking to maggie about tom's visions of the girl , she remarks , " i wouldn't be worried about him seeing another girl , although the fact that she's dead gives one pause . " also of note are jenny morrison ( 1994's " intersection " ) , who is truly poignant in the last half of the film when we flash back to see what really happened to her missing character , and liza weil , remarkable in 1998's " whatever , " as morrison's grieving teenage sister , debbie . if the resolution of " stir of echoes " does not live up to its obviously frightful full potential ( and it doesn't ) , what comes before is both involving and appropriately gritty . the music score , by james newton howard , and unsettling use of whispers and ghostly sound effects , successfully compliment and foreshadow the off-kilter frame-of-mind that tom is put into , and director david koepp proves once again that he is a director with a knack for creating almost unbearably tense situations that revolve around realistically-written characters . " stir of echoes " isn't as good as " the sixth sense , " but why should it need to be ? both films are fully capable of standing on their own two feet , and " stir of echoes " really is a spinetinglingly good horror film .
0	" lake placid " marks yet another entry in the series of " predator pics " that were a screen staple in the late 1970s ( post- " jaws " ) and were revived recently by the godawful " anaconda . " " placid " claims to be a " horror/comedy " -it's directed by the same guy who did " house " -but its attempts at humor are actually less funny than deadpan seriousness of " anaconda . " paleontologist kelly scott ( bridget fonda ) is sent up to maine to examine a tooth removed from a body that had been bitten in half on the lake . discovering that the tooth belongs to a crocodile ( which shouldn't even be in this hemisphere ) , kelly goes croc-hunting with game warden jack wells ( bill pullman ) and sheriff hank keough ( brendan gleeson ) . they're joined by an unwelcome guest , hector cyr ( oliver platt ) , a scholar who worships crocs and searches all over the world for them . along the way , the merry band meets mrs . delores bickerman ( betty white ) , a weird old lady who lives out on the lake . you know what to expect from this movie : lots of shots where the camera is the eyes of the predator ( croc cam ) swimming toward someone's dangling legs while " jaws " -like music plays , one character ( hector ) who's obsessed with the croc and stupidly endangers the rest , another character who insists that the predator can't possibly exist . unlike its slippery cousin " anaconda , " " lake placid " wants to present its formulaic plot tongue-in-cheek , which is self-defeating . the result is neither scary nor funny ; it's just tedious . while director steve miner has several horror films on his resume ( including two installments of " friday the 13th " and " halloween h20 " ) , screenwriter david kelley ( best known as the creator of tv series like " ally mcbeal " and " chicago hope " ) doesn't seem to have the stomach for a chomp 'em up flick . the body count is surprisingly low and doesn't include any of the major characters , and most annoyingly kelly and hector insist that they capture the crocodile alive rather than killing it . ( " lake placid " manages to have it both ways-i'll let you discover how for yourself ) . the croc itself is mostly computer-generated , of course . like the snake in " anaconda , " the thirty-foot monster crocodile doesn't seem real ; it moves too quickly and in ways that seem unnatural . " lake placid " also offers little explanation for why a giant crocodile is in maine . there is a lot of semi-mystical mumbo jumbo about how " we really don't know much about crocodiles . " they would have been better off going with something like the urban myth about alligators in the sewers . a movie like this doesn't have to offer much of an explanation ( radioactive mutant ? creature from outer space ? ) , but it does have to give the audience something to hang their disbelief on . pullman and fonda seem to be plodding through the movie on auto-pilot . most of the time , they're probably thinking about killing their agents or wondering if making this movie marks the end of their careers . platt and white , on the other hand , seem to be giving their best efforts , and they manage to squeeze a few chuckles out of this sorry script .
1	my fellow americans is a movie that at first glance looks to have little substance ( or a movie that we've all seen a million times ) , two lifetime rivals thrown together and then the fun begins . this is exactly what happened in this movie , but fortunately , they managed to do it in an interesting and funny way . the movie starts with a quick ( and i do mean quick ) glance of two presidents russell kramer ( jack lemmon ) and matt douglas ( james garner ) . william haney ( dan aykroyd ) and ted matthews ( john heard ) are the new president and vice president . there is a scandal that arises involving a kickback from a contractor and haney is positive that he buried that years ago . he finds a scapegoat in kramer and now everyone wants kramer and douglas dead . this movie was exceptional for many reasons . one being that they found people ( lemmon and garner ) that have good chemisty together . they worked very well as a unit and they mirrored each other perfectly , one being a ladies man and one being the old man ( i'll let you fiqure which is which ) . also , they found people that know their parts as govenment officials well . it seemed to me that garner played almost exactly the same role that he played in the distinquished gentleman ( except then he was a congressman ) . experience counts for a lot ! !
1	maybe the most important thing about this movie is that it's not handled like the hallmark hall of fame movie of the month , because it very well could have been a manipulative tearjerker , broadcasted on abc on a monday night , starring kelly martin and yasmeen bleeth , respectively . because it's not handled like the greatest story ever told is precisely why it's so great . underneath the to-die-for cinematography , the brilliant acting , and incessantly wonderful direction is a film of modesty , not sure whether or not this story is totally great but with the balls to run with it , tell it in a certain original way . it doesn't merely go from plot point to plot point . it goes from character to character . it obsesses itself with the depth and the style of it all , and makes the story of a world-reknowned cellist who contracts ms and dies prematurely into the story of two sisters , both musicians , who have a totally unique relationship . it's that their relationship is the center of the story that makes this film transcend any cornball , shamelessly tired tearjerker qualities it could have had and makes this , unlike " patch adams , " effortlessly emotional and real . in short , this movie is just awesome . it merely tells its story really well , and that's something that just has to be commended these days , when most stories are botched because they're not told by great storytellers . director anand tucker tells this story well . he overdramaticizes everything , but still keeps it real . the film tells the story of hilary and jacqueline du pr ? ( rachel griffiths and emily watson , respectively ) , two sisters who are first seen in childhood ( played by auriol evans and keely flanders , respectively ) as the very best of friends . they are also both musicians , hilary a flutist and jackie a cellist , and when it all begins , both are considered child prodigies , but hilary is seen as the better of the two . jackie , a bit jealous , works and works at her playing skills , and soon the tables are turned . when they both hit adulthood , hilary strives for a comeback , while her sister is playing in famous halls around the world , but instead of fame , captures the heart of a hapless , joyful conductor , kiffer finzi ( david morissey , in a semi-star-making turn ) . they marry , after a short courtship , and move to a lovely country house , making jackie incredibly jealous since her cello playing becomes a symbol of her current life : when she plays , she has the eyes of the world , but when she stops , she's alone . she enters into a shallow relationship with an equally famous pianist , daniel barenboim ( james frain ) , in hopes that she may overcloud her sister , but she eventually begins to lose it , and runs away to hilary's country home , where she hopes to gain admittance by hilary to sleep with her husband , since no one she sleeps with gives her any pleasure . it's all terribly melodramtic , as you can see , and by the time jackie has contracted ms ( in a brilliantly edited scene that surpasses the breakdown scene in the semi-smiliar " shine " in technical and emotional devastation ) , it would have been the time that i could easily call the sign for melodramatic overload if it hadn't been handled in such a way . the key thing here is that it's not about her gradual death and slip into insanity but rather that it's about her tumultuous relationship with her sister , which , i might add , is perfectly realized . their relationship is the most down-to-earth complex entity of the year : they love eachother more than anyone else in the entire world , but they're also completely jealous of one another . when a young jackie surpasses her playing abilities , she tries in vain to make a comeback but can't , and almost seems to marry to get back at jackie for her success . when jackie lands on top and sees her sister marry a wonderful man , she is jealous of her lifestyle to the most extensive brinks that i've ever seen in a film ( only two sisters who truly love eachother would dare share the same man ) . and the whole time , their love for eachother is never doubted or even tested . another thing i really liked is emily watson's performance . i usually make it a note to never overpraise an actor for playing either a drunkard or a lunatic or someone with a mortal disease ( or any combination of the three ) . my reasoning for this is that it's a fucking easy job . the worst case for this very year may be thandie newton in " beloved " : sure , she's good , but what's so tough about playing a woman who stumbles around , slurs her words together , and acts like a three year old inside a 20-year old's body ? hell , i could play that if i had a pair of breasts . in that same exact movie , though , is a performance by kimberly elise where she has to be the rock that holds the family together as her mother slowly goes insane , her brothers run off never to be seen again , and her mother's lover is scared off . she has to actually deal with real emotions , something much harder than mere stumbling about . but the academy of arts and sciences loves loves loves overpraising performances like newtons . if you don't believe me , look at jack nicholson's performance in " as good as it gets " : great performance , but easy job . this isn't so for watson , though , because her insanity comes from real emotions , not just a plot point . and thanks to the opening sequence , where we see her and hilary as kids , we understand the motives behind all her actions , and by the time she actually contracts ms and begins to loose her sanity and her life , we've already understood that this is the last straw for a woman plagued with terrible neuroses . rachel griffiths , who would have otherwise been the understudy to watson's protagonist , actually matches watson step-for-step , because as watson grows insane , and demands unspeakable things from her , griffiths holds her own , and has to deal with what she is able to give her sister who needs emotional help from her . griffiths , an otherwise unknown actress ( and watson being famous from " breaking the waves " and " the boxer " ) , is absolutely brilliant , just as absolutely brilliant as watson is , and if the academy and all the other critics groups , who've already deemed watson's performance the best of the year , glance over hers because she's the one who doesn't get to go insane ( read : she gets the boring role ) , then the scream of hysteria you hear will be from me . after all , griffiths has the thankless job of keeping things real - the tom cruise role in " rainman " ( the one who should have gotten oscar consideration and not hoffman ) . she does , and if anyone deserves accolades from the academy this year , it's griffiths . together , the two actresses work extremely well , though , and both have to go through deep emotional hell , the likes of which haven't been seen this year . if it hadn't been for an otherwise not-totally-great final section that deals way too much with jackie and not enough with hilary ( when the two had gotten equal treatment for the entirety ) , i'd say this is one of the top ten best films of the year . it's so close to perfection , in its structure , its treatment of its subject , and its beautiful technical specifications ( cinematography nomination , without a shred of doubt in my mind , and maybe film editing ) , that it's nearly a shame that it's not the flawless gem that it should be . but , hey , as it is , i can hardly complain .
1	just look back two years ago at the coen brothers' comedic gem the big lebowski , change the actors , take away the bowling alley , add a record store , and you've got high fidelity ( or maybe the other way around since nick hornby's novel high fidelity came first ) . either way , it's been done before , a trio of losers cracking jokes and complaining about their failed romances , yet it remains consistently funny . why is this ? maybe because you know your life is much better than this , you know these guys are more pathetic than you are , and you know its ok to laugh at them because they're fictional . director stephen frears , possibly not intentionally , has created a movie that makes you feel good about yourself and even that ostensibly no good uncle who watches television twenty four hours a day . when watching high fidelity , expect to laugh at someone else's pain , realize what you are laughing at , and then laugh again . i laughed at dick ( todd louiso ) , the shy , timorous , steve buscemi character of lebowski , who seems to know what he is talking about but either can't put it into words or is harshly rejected by his friends . i laughed at the john goodman character barry ( jack black ) , an exact replica of the comic bookstore owner on the simpsons , pudgy , egotistic , and obnoxious at the same time . and i laughed at rob ( john cusack ) , the jeff bridges type , whom the story revolves around . rob is the character easiest to relate to , but he is nothing like you at all . he uncontrollably cheats and lies , then is unable to realize why he can not hold onto a woman . and like his other miserable friends , pop music is where he inevitably goes for comfort . he spends the afternoons at his job quizzing his coworkers with obscure trivia or listening to new music and either deriding it or praising it . whatever human emotions the clash , aretha franklin , and bruce springsteen records hold , rob and co . grasp them and help fill voids in their social lives . rob has built an extensive collection in his record store as well as his home and he organizes them depending on what mood he is in . during this confused stage of his life in which the movie focuses on , rob is trying to cope with numerous rejections over the years by visiting past girlfriends and eventually asking why they dumped him . but these aren't any girlfriends ? these girls made the all time top five break ups in the history of rob ( rob's incessant use of lists show how pop music has played a major role in his life ) . the plot in three words is : women and music . the approach director stephen frears takes by having the charismatic rob speak directly to the camera is very effective . it gives high fidelity a quickly paced , informal structure , adjectives which perfectly parallel rob's own lifestyle . it also helps open the viewer's eyes as to how annoying barry is . jack black steals the show with a hilariously realistic performance as a total sleaze ball . just listening to him speak for five minutes makes the audience immediately sympathetic for rob , who must work with him every day of the week . what frears does so well is that he makes us feel sorry for rob while laughing at his misfortunes . john cusack plays his character convincingly but it is the strong supporting cast , consisting of big stars and character actors , that really defines rob . now instead of rob just talking to the camera , after he explains something , the remaining cast members physically and humorously create what he is trying to say . the only problem with high fidelity is that it doesn't end when it should have ended . instead the movie goes on for a torturous twenty minutes that seem a lot longer than that . also bruce springsteen is completely wasted in a brief cameo halfway through the movie . high fidelity is a cheerful , old fashioned comedy with a voluminous soundtrack and as many laughs . i just hope hollywood keeps creating losers on the big screen , they make everyone look and feel great .
1	available in an all new video edition from arrow entertainment ( $29 . 95 ) , with an introduction by david carradine , written & produced by wayne j . keeley f . w . murnau's career ended sadly and prematurely . the german director of such classics as " sunrise " and " the last laugh " died in a car accident shortly after signing a deal to make american pictures at paramount . murnau was reportedly a giant man , well over six feet , a towering figure probably incapable of anything but a grand entrance . which brings us to " nosferatu : a symphony of horror " : surely he felt a kinship with his title character , the looming vampire embodied by intimidating max schreck ; in one of the most indelible images in film history , silent or otherwise , schreck rises from his grave , gnarled hands outstretched , and he's so big that part of his head is cropped by the top of the frame . the plot of " nosferatu . . . " is lifted--unauthorized--from bram stoker's " dracula " . the british hutter is an eager real estate man assigned to visit and discuss future living arrangements with count orlock of transylvania . he leaves behind girlfriend emily , only to discover orlock's secret--he's a bloodsucker--and struggle to return to england before the nosferatu reaches his lady love . in addition to schreck's performance , the cinematography and effects are outstanding . arrow video's digitally remastered version of the classic is something of a mixed-coffin . the cover art features a red-tinted , hairy , goateed vampire staring straight at you , his fanged mouth agape , while the bodies of two sexy , writhing women entice you below . trouble is , murnau's monster is pale-faced , bald , pointy-eared , and non-goateed , and there isn't a single sexy , writhing woman to be found in his movie . this sort of misleading packaging makes little sense when one recalls the countless number of ghouslish scenes in the film from which cool cover art could have been extracted . additionally , notifying the viewer that this is in fact murnau's film seems like afterthought since his name and the genuine title are written in small print below our goateed vampire . that said , a good mastering job has been performed on the film itself . the original elements are not in the best condition--non-studio silents were unlucky in their preservation-- so we're still dealing with a slightly washed out , scratched , jittering image . but at least the day and night scenes are tinted sepia and blue , respectively , especially helpful to an audience who may question nosferatu's waltzing around during what seems like sunlight ( it took a lot of light to expose stock in the twenties ) . the title cards have been redone , and they are legible , accurate , and digitally altered to flicker--a very nice touch . ( even the opening copyright warning flickers ! ) the score has been replaced by music from type o negative , a hard-rock group , arguably gothic , and their songs underscore the film nicely-- certainly the coolest video a band can ask for . when our hero , hutter , first steps onto the doomed carriage to count orlock's castle , we hear a well-timed " now you're dead ! " from lead singer peter steele . david carradine makes an appropriately vampiric host ; he fiddles with a blade and cane while introducing the film . after the feature , which runs about 63 minutes , is included a new music video from type o negative , the black-and-white fang-fest " black no . 1 " . of course , " nosferatu : a symphony of horror " is the main attraction , and while my latest viewing raised questions ( why is the woman called emily in the title cards but " mina " --as bram stoker called her--in hutter's letters ? , for instance ) , it made me realize how much this movie has inspired and been stolen from . coppola's 1992 " bram stoker's dracula " owes a great stylistic debt to murnau's masterpiece , but the one thing it couldn't thieve was the original's abstract charms . this latest incarnation from arrow will probably- -like the rescored " metropolis " a few years back--turn a silent film into more palpable entertainment for the latest generation of film freaks .
1	are we victims of fate in life or can we create our own destiny ? director/writer brad anderson seems to be saying yes to both questions in his witty film " next stop wonderland " . the two main characters , alan and erin , spend the entire movie in each other's orbit , catching glimpses of one another , yet not quite connecting until the inevitable conclusion . is it fate that keeps them near each other and ultimately puts them together ? does this predestination carry over to all aspects of life ? as the film starts , erin castleton ( hope davis ) , a melancholy 29- year old late shift nurse , is ending her live-in relationship with her boyfriend ( hoffman ) . rather , he is ending it with her . arriving home from work , erin finds her boyfriend parked in front of their apartment , car packed with his belongings . in a fumbling , amusing and self deluding ramble , he instructs erin to watch a videotape he's made detailing why their relationship is doomed to fail and why he's leaving . it's obvious he lacks the courage to confront her directly as he rails on about accomplishing something with his life and taking a stand , all the while backpedaling his way out of their relationship . he then flees the scene with the grace of an inept thief . erin's mother ( holland taylor , in a surprisingly effective , small role ) , fearing that her daughter will be without a man in her life , takes out a personal ad for erin . to erin's embarrassed horror , the ad describes her as a " frisky , cultured , carefree professional with a zest for life " . eventually , erin responds to the tidal wave of responses , which makes for some of the most humorous , telling moments of the movie as she meets prospective suitors and " poseurs " . alan , a plumber and aspiring marine biologist , first spots erin as he's cleaning the inside glass of a fish tank at the boston aquarium . wearing a wet suit and goggles , he follows erin from window to window , separated by the glass as erin , oblivious to his gaze , enjoys the fish . later , we see him on a train as she sits on a platform outside , mere feet away . the movie spends it's entirety having their paths circle each other without crossing . there are several subplots involving alan . one concerns his attempts to get on the job track at the boston aquarium , thereby escaping his apparent fate to carry on the family plumbing business . another subplot involves his father's desperate attempts to force fate's hand by gambling away his life at the dog track . a distracting focus is put on alan's debt to a loan shark and the manner in which he pays it off . the movie tries too hard to make alan a likable guy . thankfully , his dream- guy persona is counterbalanced by erin's distant , yet fundamentally hopeful , personality . the film moves along at an unhurried pace , albeit too much so in the latter third , as we wait for the two to meet . co-writers anderson and lyn vaus throw a couple of possible red herrings into the mix as the two find other possible relationships . the films shifts into a much slower gear as we wait for these romances to blow over . when alan and erin eventually do meet , we see that perhaps they both were destined for each other as they share a lingering , almost subliminally knowing , gaze . it's a sweet , measured moment . the disappointment comes in the fact that we've come to know the pair , yet we don't get to view their impending romance . the film's inherent belief in the subtle persistence of fate and the wonder it can bring to one's life makes " next stop wonderland " a quiet pleasure in a cinematic landscape littered with explosions , shallow characters and overdone special effects .
1	another 'independent film' , this comedy , which was brought by miramax for $5 million , is good fun . favreau and vaughn ( the lost world : jurassic park , 1997 ) play mike and trent , two everyday 20somethings on the lookout for women . the film just basically follows their plight on the lookout for lurve , and along the way we get to meet some of their friends , see their attempts at chatting up girls , and just basically get a insight into their lives . and all of this is great fun . swingers doesn't rely on huge special effects , or big name stars to provide entertainment . no , it just has a great script and superb little known actors . the script , by favreau , is great . mike is always missing is girlfriend , who hasn't called him for six months , and every time he meets a girl , he always end up telling her about the ex . the audience feels for this pathetic little man , thanks to the great script . vaughn is 'the money' ( swingers speak for 'the best' ) as the womanizing trent , always on the lookout for a new girl . some of his chat-up lines are awful , but he always seems to get the girl thanks to his 'hard man' nature . vaughns character also gets the best laugh in the film , towards the end in a diner . the conversations that go on between mike and trent are great , but it never quite reaches tarantino standards ( which i suspect the film was trying to reach . ) there are some excellent , laugh out loud jokes in the film , and some superbly funny set pieces ( such as favreau cringe-worhy battle with a answer machine that always cut him off before he finishes his sentence . embarrassing to him , hilarious to the audience . ) mike & trents friends are also good , although there characters seem a bit underwritten , and we never really learn as much as we would like about them . although this is primarily mike and trents film , it would of been nice to learn a bit more about their friends . they just seem to wander aimlessly in the background . but again , the lines they say are usually pretty good , and they do have some funny parts . it's just a shame that they didn't have more meatier roles . the acting is superb . as said above , vaughn is superb as trent , he's definitely the best thing in the film . favreau is also good , acting as 'the little man' very well , and the way he always feels sorry for himself is very funny . graham ( boogie nights , 1997 ) has a small but good role as lorraine , a girl mike finally falls in love with . she hardly features in the film at all , but she still manages to make an impact on the audience . swingers , then , is funny , but it does have some flaws . firstly , the running time is a bit too short . the film comes to an abrupt halt , and i actually wanted the film to carry on longer . it never really comes to a satisfying conclusion , which is a shame , as most films are too long ! also , this type of film has been done too many times , such as sleep with me ( 1994 ) . but these small flaws don't really spoil what is a funny , entertaining comedy .
0	upon first viewing of this movie , the phrases " been there " and " done that " come quickly to mind . spy hard manages to steal almost every joke from the zucker brothers films , the most popular of which are airplane and the naked gun series . stealing stuff can be profitable in this industry , but only when you steal the right stuff . what little plot there is involves dick steele , aka . agent wd-40 ( leslie nielsen ) trying to save the world from an almost deranged madman played by andy griffith . along the way to it goal ( goal ? ) , the film manages to spoof mainly the james bond type films , but also manages to hit on films such as home alone and sister act . the trick about spoofing is that you have to actually be funny , or at the least , satirical . spy hard achieves neither , as it borrows all of the wrong elements from the superior zucker brothers films . the " dick , the world is in danger . what is it ? well , it's a big roundish ball floating in space around the sun . . ( i'm paraphrasing ) " type of exchange is used at least four times in the opening ten minutes of the film , each time getting progressively less funny . what they should have stolen were the background sight gags which were so effective in the zucker brother's films while writing their own dialogue . director rick friedberg focuses more on the mug shots of his actors ( especially nielsen , who can do this quite well ) than on the delivery and context of their lines , much of the time cutting the punchline short . the whole film seems to be in a race with itself to be over , as is evident in the final sequence , where there is no comedic denouement after the climax . as was usual in the zucker brothers films and in spy hard , the end credits tend to replace this by being out of context . one of the more amusing was , " captain of the enterprise . . . . . . james t . kirk " . overall , i thought this was a very weak effort . while all of the right films to spoof were chosen , they used none of the right spoofing methods . next time they should " spy " a little bit harder . * * * * = excellent . one of a kind . must see . * * * = entertaining . worth the price of admission . * * = fair . nothing much special . * = what were they thinking ? ?
1	in zoolander , the world's most successful , influential and intellectually-challenged male model derek zoolander wonders , " is there more to life than being really really really good looking ? " obviously , the film's creator and star ben stiller asked a similar question when crafting a feature-length movie out of his hilarious vh1/vogue fashion awards short-film subject : can there be more to this film than being really really really silly ? no , of course not , and it never aspires to be anything more . much like derek , zoolander is a sweet simpleton of a movie . it's not complex in either its social commentary or its comedy , and it never produces any gut-busting laughs ( except maybe a scene when derek's model roommates all die in a tragic " gasoline fight " accident -- a riotously funny take-off of tommy hilfiger ads ) . but it has a satisfying handful of strong chuckles , wild characters and performances , and mildly harsh potshots at the fashion industry to keep you amused . better yet , this exaggerated version of the original three-minute skit is only blown out to an efficient 95 minutes -- just enough time to string together its goofball plot without exhausting the gag . zoolander opens with several fashion bigwigs plotting to assassinate the prime minister of malaysia , since he wants to abolish child labor in his country and thus driving up their costs . fashion designer and criminal mastermind jacobim mugatu ( will ferrell ) drafts a plan to brainwash the dumbest fashion model to carry out the evil deed . enter derek , whose career is slumping as newcomer hansel ( owen wilson ) takes the spotlight . on the trail of mugatu's plot is time magazine reporter matilda jeffries ( stiller's real-life wife christine taylor ) , and she's hoping to use mugatu's pawn derek to ultimately foil the scheme . much like the austin powers films , zoolander relies heavily on the strength of the talent involved , and this zany comedy features some of the funniest people in entertainment today . wilson is hysterical as the young , vain hansel . ferrell nearly steals the show from everyone as the flamboyant , freakish mugatu in the same way dr . evil upstages everyone in austin powers . jerry stiller -- ben's dad who's best remembered as frank costanza of seinfeld -- makes a priceless turn as derek's slimy agent maury ballstein . even ben stiller show alum andy dick shows up as a deranged , large-assed masseuse . as for ben stiller , it seems his derek has one gag : he's stupid , which plays out in some uproarious one-liners . unfortunately , taylor seems out of place and out of her league here . maybe it's just because i can't stop seeing her as marcia brady ( who she played in both brady movies ) , making her unbelievable as a dowdy , brainy plain jane who hasn't had sex in two years . she leaves me pining for the cynicism of janeane garofolo , who would've added real comic substance to the flimsy role . while zoolander is hardly highbrow , its screwball humor is welcome during these trying times , especially considering the gross lack of decent pickings in the theaters these days . zoolander's no masterpiece , but a very worthy distraction .
1	renown surrealist director , the 77-year-old frenchman alain resnais ( hiroshima , mon amour/last year at marienbad/m ? lo ) , has created a lighthearted musical played as an homage to britisher dennis potter and his pennies from heaven ( 1978 tv serial , 1981 movie ) and the singing detective ( 1986 ) . the film follows potter's gimmicky style of having the characters jump into lip-synched old or contemporary french pop songs to express their private thoughts . he also follows the kind of sweet and colorful musicals his fellow countryman jacques demy loved to direct , such as " the umbrellas of cherbourg " and " the young girls of rochefort . " the tale has resnais's unique touches as a director to go along with his homage . it is a satire about class differences and falling in love with the wrong person , and that there is a song in everyone's heart for every occasion . what hinders this production is that the stars are not portraying particularly engaging characters , the songs are not memorable and stand little chance of being recognized by an american audience ( the exceptions might be the edith piaf and maurice chevalier numbers ) , and the farce seems more banal than daring . yet it is not without its striking moments and charms , such as when jane birkin does a cameo and sings one of her own songs . also , the glossy amberlike photography added a very french romantic feeling to the story , while the mood of paris as being a place for love to flourish above all else , which has always been embellished in movie lore , comes through with flying colors . it also does a good job of showing you the way paris is in the 1990s and in the way ordinary people exist there . it tells the romantic story of six parisians who become intertwined with each other in their ordinary lives as they search for happiness . they are the attractive sisters odile ( sabine az ? ma ) and camille ( agnes jaoui ) , with the older businesswoman odile married and decidedly set on a bourgeois life of material comforts . she is married to the glum and laconic claude ( pierre arditi ) . she once went out with a businessman , nicolas ( jean-pierre bacri ) , who left her 8-years ago and now shows up in paris and asks her help to find someone to rent a flat for his family . simon ( andre dussolier ) works as a real-estate salesman and is trying to find nicolas a flat , in his spare time he writes radio plays . simon's boss is the much younger , unscrupulous and arrogant marc duveyrier ( lambert wilson ) , who inherited the firm from his father and is the real-estate agent selling a more luxurious and larger flat with a better view to odile , but fails to tell her that a building project is going up soon that will block her view . screenwriters and actors jean-pierre bacri and agnes jaoui wrote themselves the best parts . jaoui's camille is a university scholar finishing up a ph . d . in history , using for her thesis the study of 'the yeomen in the year 1000 at lake paladru . ' she works as a tour guide in the meantime and suffers from panic attacks , even though she appears to have outwardly perfect self-control . on her tours for the last four years has been the much older simon , pretending to be doing research for his plays but really attracted to her , but not having the nerve to tell her this . to his dismay , he finds out she is dating his mean-spirited but handsome boss , whom she meets when looking at her sister's new place and seeing him crying but not realizing that it was from a cold , not because he's so sensitive . bacri as the classy nicolas , turns out to be now working as a chauffeur . he is a hypochondriac with a history of depression who visits many doctors , until he finds one who tells him there is nothing wrong with him . odile still pines for him , but he's married , telling her he expects his wife to arrive shortly . love is 'the same old song' that makes the world go 'round , even when all the characters are liars and not exactly open to what their true motives are . everything comes together in a bourgeois housewarming party for odile's place , as the characters reveal their true feelings and all their deceptions and neurotic impulses are either uncovered or about to be . there's not a lot of bite to this satirical musical , but resnais has never made a bad film and is one of the best current french directors , if not the best . this film is not one his great ones , but it still has enough pep in its light touches to be interesting . it not only has an odd way for the characters to break into song but -- some males even sing in a female voice while some females sing in a male voice . it is also interesting in the way it examines its characters' behavior as being similar in business as in love .
0	don't get me wrong -- i tend to appreciate besson's naive , unashamedly romantic worldview , an artsy european sensibility gone thoroughly hollywood . his 1994 leon is exciting and absurdly moving , thanks mainly to the interplay between jean reno and a young natalie portman , and 1997's the fifth element is a goofy paean to love , l-u-v , that's even more of a hoot on repeated viewings . but his joan of arc is a mess , despite some stirring battle scenes and the mostly knockout presence of a close-cropped milla jovovich as the maiden herself . jovovich , besson's own personal muse through the making of his last two films ( though they've since separated ) , is magnetic and energetic enough to play a credible joan ( as long as you believe joan was not just a warrior , but also a fabulous , supermodel-level babe ) . and besson remains a servicable action film director , though not an especially facile one . leading her army against the seemingly impenetrable fortresses of the english , joan's struggle against great odds is undeniably stirring , and besson helps you understand how the french could believe , fervently , that god is on her side . besson's big mistake , i think , is trying to dramatize the interior life of his subject . yes , joan had visions -- but i guarantee that whatever image a sympathetic audience conjures in its collective mind will be more compelling than the blue-eyed christ figure on display in besson's hallucinatory dream sequences . the whole conceit turns into a disaster right about the time dustin hoffman ( billed as " the conscience " ) shows up , spouting platitudes and sending poor milla running around her cell , babbling like ally mcbeal . that's kind of a shame , since she does quite well up to that point , charging into battle with a banshee wail that suggests the eruption of a sublimated bloodthirstiness . that darkly attractive aspect of her character -- that she's as likely a charismatic madwoman as the vessel of the lord -- is more or less betrayed by the final reels , in which the conscience browbeats her over the killing she's overseen and joan starts to look like little more than a very confused young lady who's about to take a fall . as the story winds down , with joan condemned to a horrible death by fire , besson is aiming for tragedy and psychological significance . trouble is , he's chosen a lurid , often jokey tone for the balance of the picture -- including some blithe cgi bloodshed in the battle scenes -- and it's impossible to shake the feeling that this particular vision of the middle ages is , to a great extent , nothing more than a put-on . this glib , pre-fab version of such a great story makes me all the more grateful for dreyer's the passion of joan of arc ( 1928 ) , a film whose dialogue is drawn from the actual transcripts of joan's trial , and which stands as one of the most harrowing experiences in all of cinema . compared to that film , the messenger plays as a crime against history . -------------------------------------------------------------- directed by luc besson written by besson and andrew birkin cinematography by thierry arbogast music by eric serra starring milla jovovich france/usa , 1999 theatrical aspect ratio : 2 . 35 : 1 --------------------------------------------------------------
0	your first clue that something isn't gonna be quite right with the movie you're about to see : it's heavily christmas-themed and its release date is , oh , say , at the end of february . your second clue that something isn't gonna be quite right with the movie you're about to see : charlize theron , one of the movie's dubious stars , makes an appearance on the daily show in which , when asked if her new movie's any good , she replies with the equivalent of a verbal sigh . . . assuring us that , yeah , it sure is a movie , all right ! and there's some scenes like those you'd expect to find in a movie , and there's some action . . . and there's other . . . stuff . . . too . how to immediately grab my attention : open your movie with five dead guys in santa claus suits . then show a caption reading " six days earlier . . . " ya know , i was honestly interested to find out what killed all those poor santas . . . how to immediately lose my attention : follow your opening scene with a terminally dull nice-guys-who-don't-deserve-to-be-in-prison scene . write a line for the one of prisoners like " i just want to go home and eat christmas dinner and watch some ball with my dad . " then , have ben affleck actually say that line , on film , and forget to leave it on the cutting room floor . for good measure , throw in a poorly motivated prison riot and have affleck's best buddy stabbed . . . aw . . . and just two days before his release , too . already the cliches are piled on thick , and when it rains , it pours . how to take my attention , dash it violently against the rocks , and make it so that i'm contemplating my strategy for calling " shotgun " about an hour before i know the credits will roll : deny your characters the ability to think . have ben affleck , for some reason i'll never understand , pretend he's his dead prison buddy so that he can get his girlfriend , played by charlize theron . have gary sinise show up and force the two of them to participate in a poorly planned casino heist . the villains' big idea ? kidnap affleck because he used to be a security guard at the casino , force him to tell you where all the doors in the place are , then dress up in santa suits , create some " diversions " and rob the place . on paper , it seems like the stuff of a potential caper comedy , but veteran director john frankenheimer wrongly picks up that piece of paper and thinks he's looking at the makings for some sort of clever action-crime thriller . it's not like the man isn't capable . . . far from it . he's the man responsible for classic political thrillers like the manchurian candidate and seven days in may . he wowed me with some the most memorable car chases i've ever seen in last year's ronin . but he's certainly guilty of churning out some certifiable losers . . . put reindeer games on the shelf of shame with his 1996 version of the island of dr . moreau . step one in making your movie as easily forgotten as possible : cast ben affleck in the role of the world's most generic hero . he gets no good one-liners , he doesn't get to shoot or implode anything in new and interesting ways , and all we know about him is that he regrets his past as a car thief and wants a cup of hot chocolate and piece of pecan pie . his name is rudy ( short for rudolph , in all likelihood . see , it's called reindeer games . get it ? get it ? shut up . ) in the past , affleck has been at his best as a supporting actor , and reindeer games does nothing to further his viability as a leading man . step two in making your movie as easily forgotten as possible : gary sinise's villain dresses and looks like the most standard movie crook a filmmaker could have some up with . he's dirty and potty-mouthed , he's got long , scruffy hair and a goatee , and i fully expected him to walk out of the casino carrying sacks with giant dollar signs on them . he's also extremely inept at what he does . he thinks garish cowboy costumes and santa suits make acceptable disguises , and he trusts affleck's character to pull through even after , time and time and time again , he tricks him and lies to him and nearly kills him . but instead of tapping into the comic possibilities of this role , sinise seems to think he's playing some sort of tough , smart , and smooth criminal mastermind , rather than the complete moron that was obviously written into the script . [on a side note , gary sinise wins this week's " title ! " award , as he's the one who gets to awkwardly cram the name of the movie into one of his lines early in the proceedings . last week's winner was natasha henstridge for the whole nine yards . ] how to take your bad idea and make things worse : include two or three plot twists that , instead of making the apparently stupidity of the plan seem suddenly intelligent , make the plan seem even more ridiculous and unlikely . this is a bad movie . and what's worse is that , except for a few moments near the not-so-stunning conclusion as the preposterous is replaced by the ludicrously preposterous , reindeer games never really gives us the satisfaction of being laughably bad . if they'd done that much , at least i would have been entertained .
1	plot : jet li is a chinese cop asked to help some french policemen nab a bad guy . but one thing leads to another , and the next thing you know , li's being chased by the same french cops with whom he was supposed to be working . a lot of ass-kicking , face-whippings , gun fights and . . . okay , a little more ass-kicking ensues . critique : very cool ! now here's a movie that gives you exactly what you're looking for , if what you're looking for is kickass action , a palpable good cop/bad cop story line , some hardcore stunts and jet li slam-dunking everyone in sight ! the film also moves fast ( a mere 95 minutes ) , develops a certain " cute " chemistry between fonda and li , has nice surroundings ( paris , baby ! ) and gives us one of the best bad guys that i've seen all year . tcheky karyo is the devil incarnate in this film . he is pure evil . they should have called this movie bad lieutenant 2 as keitel has nothing on this man . what a great , great monster ! my favorite line of tcheky's was when li was explaining the whole " kiss of the dragon " thing to him and he cut him off by saying " kiss my ass ! " pure action movie poetry . anyway , other than him , jet li also handled his " acting " pretty well in this film , with very little real dialogue to say , but enough to make us believe his character . actually , just looking into the man's eyes generally tells you a lot . fonda was also pretty good , despite playing one of the most trashy and abused women that i have seen in quite some time , but i still felt kinda bad for her , so i guess she did her job okay . but in the end , nobody goes to see this kind of movie for oscar performances . we go to see jet li movies because we want to see jet li kicking a lot of ass from side to side , and this film delivers gangbusters on that front . and yes . . . they have no wire-fu in this movie . . . i say again . . . no wire-work , no bullshit stunts with li floating around in mid-air for over a minute . it's all straight action , fist to fist , boot to face and all around cool stunts . if that's what you're looking for , i don't see how you will be disappointed with this film . yes , it's not very original in plot ( just take luc besson's own la femme nikita and mix in plenty of his own the professional et voila ! ) , does have an annoying hip-hoppy soundtrack that just got on my nerves after a while ( i also would have gotten rid of the whole acupuncture thang . . . ) and will have anyone not willing to restrain their disbelief , rolling their eyes all over the place . but was i entertained ? thoroughly . does the film feature more gunplay , martial arts and over-the-top kills that most recent action flicks ? yes , again . does this sound interesting to you ? well , the answer to that question is entirely up to you . one thing that i would definitely recommend is , as jet li pointed out himself on his website , that you leave the kids at home for this one . in fact , you might even wanna leave yourself if you can't handle the more violent of sequences . all in all , a rippin' , roarin' fun time ! where's joblo coming from ? black mask ( 5/10 ) - blade ( 7/10 ) - la femme nikita ( 8/10 ) - lethal weapon 4 ( 7/10 ) - the matrix ( 8/10 ) - the professional ( 9/10 ) - romeo must die ( 3/10 ) - rush hour ( 7/10 ) - shanghai noon ( 6/10 )
0	capsule : annoyingly unentertaining , obvious and paper-thin buddy/cop/drug/sexy-witness movie . presence of director michael bay shows none of the talent he demonstrated in the rock . i've seen this movie already , i said , as i looked at the box art . no , i haven't even seen a trailer for the movie ; i don't even know what it's about , but i can look at the way they're promoting it , and i know i've seen it already . i thought : it's about these two cops . and they're buddies , sort of . they're at each other's throats a lot , but they really do like each other . and everyone else in their department hates them 'cause they're hot-shots . and they have some kind of diametric opposition in their relationship . and one day they're in the middle of cop business as usual when they get mixed up in this plot that involves a really sadistic bad guy with lots of henchmen who can never hit anything with the billions of rounds of ammo they are always carrying . and the bad guy is a drug lord . and there's a witness , and she's this sexy thing who rubs both of them the wrong way . and their supervisor wants their badges for breakfast when they blow up half the town bringing this guy down . i only missed the bit about the badges . the rest i got dead-on . and i hadn't even left the video store yet . the cops in this movie are will smith and martin lawrence , and the bad guy is the immensely underutilized tcheky karyo . smith plays a cop who has a trust fund and is thus not a cop for the money ; martin l . is a family man ( shades of the now-tired lethal weapon dynamic here ) whose wife and he are at total odds . this leads to some strained scenes about lawrence's " not getting any " , and some totally unneccesary bits with him skulking around his own house , thinking his partner is now his wife's " back door man " . not funny ; tiresome . bad boys gets some of its incredibly meager selling points from the presence of will smith and martin lawrence . will smith is a natural , and i'm happy to see him in movies like six degrees . . . and men in black . he's funny and charming without trying to be ; he really does seem to be enjoying himself . martin lawrence is a different story ; he's so uptight and verbally constipated that sitting through his improvised riffs are a trial . movies like this are not about originality . i know this . they are about style and energy and synergy between actors . i know this , too . and yet , while watching bad boys , which its glamorous photography and impossibly exact stunt choreography , i felt fed up . i'd seen con air , which despite being completely implausible , was still great fun , because it tried however feebly to put some new life into the mix . bad boys is a dry run -- and overlong , too , clocking in at just over two hours with a lot more by-play than i felt could be justified . i could write this movie . you could write this movie . many people have . many people will continue to write this movie , over and over again . other people will buy it from them , and make it , and we will pay money to see it . more the fools we all . in a terrifyingly prescient line from his book a scanner darkly , phil k . dick once mused that the mcdonaldburger ( as he called it ) would eventually eclipse money as the token of cultural and financial exchange . one day we will all just sit in our living rooms and sell the same burger back and forth to each other . the same could be said about this movie . i have the sinking feeling we're going to see it again . soon .
0	the lives of older people in the twilight of their years attempting to come to grips with their shared histories and possible futures is a fascinating topic . finding an all-star cast for such a film is a stroke of genius . combining all that with a three-time oscar-winning director ( robert benton of " kramer vs . kramer " ) and creating a decidedly mediocre movie is the stuff of disappointment . in yet another noir mystery set in hollywood -- how many of these have we seen during the past few years ? -- the atmosphere is moody , the actors enjoyable to watch and the story goes nowhere . over-70 harry ross ( paul newman ) is a washed up cop-turned-private eye-turned man friday trying to figure out how to live what remains of his life . he's screwed up things pretty well ( " i had a wife and daughter . now , i'm a drunk ) and is at a crossroads . a couple of years ago , he traveled to mexico to bring back mel ( reese witherspoon ) , the under-age daughter of jack ( gene hackman ) and catherine ( susan sarandon ) ames and now lives with them . the ames are former movie stars , past their prime and the three have become fast friends . one gets the impression that ross is just hanging out waiting for something to wake him up . to fill his time , he does odd jobs for jack and falls in love with catherine . jack is in even worse shape than harry . he's dying of cancer with only a year to live . things do turn more exciting when jack asks harry to drop off a sealed manila envelope for him . instead of the routine errand that ross expects , he walks into a barrage of bullets from the gun of another ex-cop who is , himself , full of bloody holes . this unsettling event gives the former detective a project to throw himself into and launches an investigation that revolves around the mysterious disappearance of catherine's first husband 20 years before . through a series of very complex and convoluted plot devices that involve murder ; blackmail ; guns ; mel's mexico traveling partner and his parole officer ; ross's former cop buddies , ex-lover and would-be sidekick , the tale finally ends up exactly where everyone expects it to . it's a film noir tradition that the story twists and turns down side roads for an unexpected finale , but here the journey meanders towards an ending that no one cares about . the only surprises are exactly whose face fits which role in the scenario . by the time they show you , it doesn't matter . the storyline gets goofier and goofier exemplified in ross's relationship with rubin ( giancarlo esposito ) , a partner wannabe . these scenes are obviously designed to be comic relief , however they are neither . rubin and ross have some past relationship but either it's not explained or i didn't care enough at that point to remember . a running joke about where harry was supposedly shot while in mexico is probably meant to mirror his questions about whether he is still able to perform . it's also not funny , doesn't connect and keeps on showing up long after it has run its course . on the positive side , it's often enjoyable to watch the seasoned actors on the screen . the three leads all have well-deserved academy awards and turn in accomplished , if not extraordinary jobs . newman is a grand actor , but doesn't seem quite suited to the dark film style . he is a bit too clean and understated to come across as desperate and down and out . hackman , also low-key , is believable but lacks sparkle . sarandon comes across well as an sultry older babe although she is one-dimensional . the actors do what they can with lame dialog , but they can't pull the film out of the hole it's dug for itself . james garner who plays ross's old buddy ex-cop raymond hope is always a treat , but even he half-heartedly struggles through lines like " i'm glad they didn't shoot your pecker off . " the best part of the film is the look at old friends , how their relationships change over the years and the difficult choices they must make . the genuinely easy and casual interactions among the actors hint that being on the set was much more interesting than what ended up on the screen the film doesn't run very long before the audience realizes that it's hopeless . the only reason for watching is the actors . it reminds me of disaster movies such as " towering inferno " where the star power is supposed to make everyone ignore the film's problems . in a better world , there would have been second-rate actors in this second-rate movie and the ones here would have been saved for something better . of course , we don't live in that better world , but you could make yours a little nicer by choosing a different movie .
0	the most interesting thing about virus is that the title of the film does not refer to the clunky robotic animals that try to kill our heroes . alas , it refers to our heroes ! as it turns out , the alien race that sends a computer virus to earth ( via the mir space station ) thinks of the human race as a virus -- perhaps even a cancer -- that needs to be eradicated before it spreads any further . after all , we have taken up this entire planet , and if they let us live for another billion years or so , we might advance beyond our solar system and into the next one . but the human race doesn't have much to worry about . after all , there's a woman named foster ( jamie lee curtis ) out there stopping the computer virus . she's the chief navigator on a sea vessel ; travelling with her is captain everton ( donald sutherland ) , steve baker ( william baldwin ) , woods ( marshall bell ) , squeaky ( julio oscar mechoso ) , and richie ( sherman augustus ) . they're all sailing in a typhoon one lovely evening when they stumble across an enormous , abandoned russian satellite ship in international waters . lucky for us , we already saw that the computer virus has taken over the ship and eliminated everyone on board . the evil captain everton thinks he's going to take the ship in and get a reward ; he convinces his crew that there's going to be big money , so they try to salvage the ship . soon , however , when it's apparent that no one is on board and that the ship has no power , they realize that something bad must have happened . finally , they meet nadia ( joanna pacula ) who explains their situation : a computer virus has taken over the ship ! it's creating bio-mechanical life-forms to eliminate the human race ! virus is a truly dumb action thriller , one of negligible intelligence and innovation . when considering the entire film , you will realize that it lacks a single original scene . it's a direct rip-off of nearly every james cameron film ( aliens , the abyss , and the terminator films are the most plagiarized ) ; more importantly , it's basically the same movie as last year's deep rising . i liked deep rising simply because it's funny -- it knows it's silly and derivative . virus takes itself seriously . and , in the most serious manner possible , it steals from every good and bad film of the genre , showing you countless familiar scenes , and sporting a cookie-cutter plot that any film of the sci-fi/horror genre could fit with a little trimming . but what is so amazing about virus is how poorly the whole thing has been thought out . okay , let me get this straight -- the alien race ( which is never really explained ) is basically sentient electricity . they need to make themselves physical , so they use a space station to get onto a ship ( which is surrounded by water , but who cares about that ) . on the ship , they make a bunch of clunky , immobile robots that somehow kill three hundred people . after that , they start using the dead people to create half-human , half-machine creatures that look like the terminator but are much worse at walking around . the leader , of course , is a big creature . every film like this has a big creature at the end , but the big creature in virus is so big that it has to tear down the walls to move around . virus is indeed a cliched film , but the central flaw lies in the fact that the computer virus just isn't very threatening . it's established that they can simply turn off the power to stop it , but the virus has sealed the power room by the time our heroes get there . on one level , virus is almost passable fun . it's really gory , and a few of the scenes have interesting camp appeal ( the director , john bruno , worked on a lot of cameron's films ) . there's also a nice array of actors , even though none of them do any acting ( except for donald sutherland , who does a lot of very bad acting ) . the bottom line , however , is this : virus is a bad movie . it rips off a lot of good movies that are worth seeing . in that order , i recommend that you rent any one of the alien films , simply to admire the qualities of a creature that actually threatens our heroes .
1	seen april 16 , 1999 at 10 p . m . at crossgates cinema 18 ( guilderland , n . y . ) , theater #15 , by myself for free using my hoyts' critic's pass . [theater rating : * * * 1/2 : very good seats , sound and picture] do you realize that every time you encounter a new person you've just become part of a story ? everyone has their own life story , both past and present , and every time two or more interact , they become part of each others' story ( not necessarily an important or even significant part , but a part nevertheless ) . that seems to be the basic theory behind `go , ' where several characters' chance encounters all effect each other in extreme ways . in order to test this theory screenwriter john august and director doug liman assemble a cast of characters that wouldn't usually be the types to have an entire film revolve around them , such as a teenage supermarket cashier , a bottom-of-the-drug-food-chain dealer and two struggling soap opera actors . these types of characters might not sound all that original , but consider that they will all be somehow effected by a strip club bouncer and his psychotic father , a mid-level drug dealer , a narc obsessed with multi-level-marketing , horny wedding guests , a zen lovemaker , two shrimp-scarfers and a cute normal teenage girl to round things out . how they will all come together is the process the film deals with . i'd imagine the concept to the film started out as the creators' testing themselves to see if they could actually pull it off and the outcome is a terrific achievement in filmmaking and the craft of fiction in general . the film starts out as anything else , with little indication of what's to come . we meet ronna ( polley ) , a depressed los angeles checkout girl who doesn't seem to have much desire to do anything except work just to pay her rent . she's not very charming , especially to her customers , but this is played mostly for laughs rather than characterization and it works . maybe this is because she's not a very afeminite character , but she's far from masculine - a creative character indeed . things start to progress when ronna reluctantly agrees to take the hours of the goofy , hyperactive , yet likable simon ( askew ) , an english teen into vices for the sake of the experiences . this agreement starts a three-pronged storyline as it allows simon to go to las vegas for the weekend with his friends and in turn drags ronna and her friends into buying and selling an experimental drug . the process of which will not only bring ronna close to being arrested but also to death . nearly the same can be said for two other characters , zack ( mohr ) and adam ( wolf ) , who we don't think much of when they first appear as supporting characters , but later will become major players to the film's makeup - another process used by the filmmakers to elaborate on the theory of how significant insignificant interaction might be . once the pace is picked up the film really begins to show its mettle . when the title screen `ronna' is flashed shortly after the aforementioned turning point scene , it's clear this film isn't going to employ the standard linear method of storytelling . considering how good it is up until that point , it's a long overdue change of pace needed in movies today . and so the film begins to take shape , first by following ronna and her friends on a one-night adventure that begins with a drug deal instigated by zack and adam ( who were actually looking for simon ) , which doesn't exactly go as planned , but that's what keeps it all so interesting . the second storyline starts at the same moment as ronna's story , but this time the camera chooses to follow simon instead . simon and his three friends head to ? vegas for a night on the town and in the process experience things they never would have imagined . the third arc , about zack and adam , again overlaps with ronna's story telling much of the same story but from a completely different angle . we're shown things we never would have expected were going on while following ronna . and many of the events that do happen to ronna because of zack and adam aren't even their fault - they just happened to be where they were when they were . i'd really like to dissect each of the three storylines and especially how the film wraps up in the end , but that would take up too much time and space and spoil everything for those who haven't seen the film . perhaps the greatest element to the film is its constant surprises and unpredictability , and not due to plot twists or a confusing screenplay , just through great filmmaking . still , i can list and analyze nearly everything the film does so well : ? direction : trying to piece together such a complex story is no easy task and for a rookie filmmaker such as liman , it's a great accomplishment . he doesn't just depict a story , he wraps us up in it all , pulling us into the fray so that we experience every high and low . ? screenplay : besides being chiseled with detail and creative in general , it's clear the script has been inspired by many sources , with both obvious and subtle references , yet it never screams `rip-off . ' ? tone/mood : where other hollywood films have failed to bring the charm of the independents to the mainstream , this one is able to create its own sense of the macabre . it's not overly-dark or twisted and the comedy isn't so satirical for it to be considered a black comedy , more like `macabre light . ' ? cinematography/art direction : able to photograph both the intense and the lighthearted in the same manner . ? characterization : for nearly every character introduced , no matter what role they play in the big picture , we're able to get a sense of who they are , what they're thinking and how they came to be in their situations . even when their actions are surprising , it never seems very out of synch . ? performances : every actor nails their role ( see above ) . ? theme/theory : the film doesn't seem to be concerned with conveying any kind of political or social messages , instead , it's more of a philosophical experiment . in fact , it might not have meant to do that intentionally , but there definitely is something existential to it all . . . . and to think that `go' is just a big comedy and adventure ! ( 4/23/99 ) [see also : `the big lebowski , ' `clerks , ' `jackie brown , ' `pulp fiction , ' `true romance ; ' also by liman : `swingers']
0	mugshot ( director/writer/cinematographer/editor : matt mahurin ; cast : belinda becker ( stella ) , michael williams ( rumor ) , robert knepper ( joe/chris ) , robert walker ( random ) , willie lassic ( young brother of rumor ) , maxine joiner ( rumor's mother ) ; runtime : 87 ; mortal films ; 1995 ) reviewed by dennis schwartz a bleak indie film about a stolen identity . there's not much more to this visually stylish film than what meets the eye , as it relies on shock to tell its story of a prolonged vicious mugging . it falls into the category of being a pretentious art-house film , leaving a bitter taste in one's mouth as it stereotypes its characters and unintentionally further inflames the racial issues . it tries to make a heavy-handed point about disenfranchised black youths trapped by their environment , with their only way out being crime . but the story is so filled with violence and its nyc setting looks like hell , that it's hard to enjoy this film and to follow what the logic in the story is supposed to mean . the relationship between the black mugger and his white victim is a cloudy one , which the film never determines what it wants to say about it . matt mahurin is virtual one-man crew in putting this film together ( director/writer /cinematographer/editor ) , who is a still photographer in his day job . the film works best as a visually challenging piece , as each shot looks like a photograph carefully telling the story unfolding . a white photographer ( robert knepper ) is mugged by a black gang while he's on a freelance assignment to take a photo shoot of harlem at night . he becomes a victim of amnesia and his head is bloodied as he's left in a deserted harlem building , as the gang leaves him for dead ; but , one of the muggers , rumor ( michael williams ) , comes back and pretends to help him . he's a would-be photographer , who keeps a scrapbook entitled mugshots in the project apartment he shares with his mother and younger brother . keeping his victim in the dark about who he is by calling him joe and not telling him what's happening , he becomes the photographer for a few days . he enters the photographer's stylish greenwich village apartment and steals his expensive camera , and decides to hold the mugging vic for ransom when he finds out he has a black girlfriend , stella ( belinda becker ) . she's the only one in the film who could act . the film is stuck with a clumsy dialogue and an overuse of symbolism , as it ends with nothing more to tell after the shock and the violent situation it created except to beat it into the ground . it could only be commended for how appealing the film looks , as if it's a scrapbook of still photos put together to celebrate a mugging .
1	in intolerance , d . w . griffith told four different historical stories at the same time , cutting from one to the other . each of the stories builds to a fast-paced climax . in magnolia , paul thomas anderson tells several stories each just tangentially connected to the others . yet the stories and where they are going are all independent . what is strange about these stories is that they are all synchronized . each story builds to a tense moment ( or what appears to be intended to be a tense moment ) but then lets the tension dissolve . while the tension dissipates one character starts singing a song and in each plotline the major characters sing along , even though they are not in the same scene . then toward the end the stories each build to a tense moment again . it is almost as if the characters are somehow psychically linked . this creates some strange effects . the stories are about empty desperate people with dysfunctional relationships . the strands have varying degrees of bizarre content . we have the story of a dying man earl partridge ( jason robards ) wanting to get in touch with his son and make amends . phil parma ( philip seymour hoffman ) is his nurse who is frantic to help partridge achieve his final goal . partridge's young wife linda ( julianne moore ) is getting more and more anxious as partridge dies , but for an unsuspected reason . frank mackey ( tom cruise ) runs the kinds of self-help seminar that businesses like so much , but he aims his at teaching disaffected men how to be real shit-heels in dealing with women in an angry backlash to women's lib . officer jim kurring ( john c . reilly ) is a patrolman who has a need to feel he is making the world a better place . jimmy gator ( philip baker hall ) hosts a popular children's tv quiz show that really exploits and destroys children as we see from the stories of current quiz kid stanley spector ( jeremy blackman ) and former quiz kid donnie smith ( william h . macy ) . the film juggles all these stories for over three hours , but even after all this time not one story is resolved satisfactorily . each story moves toward a single bizarre common climax , but it is not one that seems to do much but derail each story . the common climax itself is ambiguous in many ways and it fails to really tie up any of the stories . the film seems to be built around strange events and weird history , but it really has little to do with the content of the stories , though they all are connected in part by one weird event . magnolia will probably bring some much deserved attention to paul thomas anderson , though in my opinion his two previous films , hard eight and boogie nights were better told stories . it is interesting that one starts to look forward to actors from anderson's company . john c . reilly seems to be a standard fixture . particularly notable is philip baker hall who gave a mesmerizing performance from the first scene of hard eight . here he several of the characters are mesmerizing , but that characteristic is not really used . as studies of characters these stories are each worth following . as well-rounded stories with a beginning , middle and end , they leave something to be desired . but the film is willing to do the unexpected and that helps make the film worth sitting through . i rate it a 7 on the 0 to 10 scale and a low +2 on the -4 to +4 scale . heavy spoiler . . . heavy spoiler . . . heavy spoiler . . . heavy spoiler . . . during the strange climactic event of the film we get multiple messages from the filmmaker that the event we are seeing really does happen . and in actual fact , it does . since biblical times rains of frogs have been interpreted as signs of displeasure of the gods . it is , however , a perfectly natural , if somewhat unnerving , phenomenon . the cause is associated with whirlwinds . we know that tornadoes over land can rip up land and even objects of some size from the ground and hurl them into the air , holding them aloft . the reader may remember the unfortunate cow in twister . smaller objects can be hurled high into the atmosphere and then be kept aloft by the updrafts for surprisingly long periods of time much as hail and chunks of ice are . when the whirlwind is over water , animals near the surface , frequently fish and frogs , may suffer the same fate . essentially they are vacuumed up by the whirlwind , held aloft by updrafts , and finally dropped elsewhere . so while the rain is possible , some doubts do creep in . the rain of frogs depicted in this film may be of greater scale than i had pictured for a rain of frogs . it seems unlikely the frogs would still be alive when dropped . it is not clear that geographic conditions are right for los angeles to have this sort of phenomenon . ( frankly i have no idea on these points . ) otherwise the event was quite believable . what we see in this film is much more credible than the phenomena we saw in volcano . in the film it is left ambiguous if the rain is a sign from god since there are many references to exodus 8 : 2 . " and the frogs shall come up both on thee and upon thy people , and upon all thy servants . " however a rain of frogs , though it feels biblical , is most definitely not a biblical portent . note that the previous verse says " and the river shall bring forth frogs abundantly which shall go up . . . , " so the bible is referring not to a rain but to an infestation from the river . the only other reference to frogs in the bible is as a symbol for uncleanness in revelation 16 : 13 .
1	nosferatu the vampyre ( germany 1979 ) a film review by mike watson copyright 1999 mike watson this extraordinary re-telling of bram stoker's " dracula " by german filmmaker werner herzog deserves the most prominent of places in cinematic vampire lore . inspired by f . w . murnau's 1922 silent film of the same name , herzog's film is a work of exquisite bleakness , an oddly touching tragedy with a beautiful and uniquely haunting quality that lingers long afterwards . the original full-length english and german language versions of nosferatu have at last received a video release by u . s . distributor anchor bay entertainment , and in gorgeous widescreen prints . until now only a shortened english language version of the film was available on video , and only in europe . both of these re-releases restore the film to its full length , but viewers should still be wary of the english version due to its often stilted dialogue . apparently the english dialogue coach herzog had on the set during filming was incompetent , and some of the voices also seem to be dubbed . the german version with english subtitles remains the definitive one . everyone knows the story of dracula . or do they ? his story has been so bastardised on film over the years that a brief reminder of the basic plot certainly won't hurt . jonathan harker is a young lawyer sent to the gloomy castle dracula in transylvania to do business with a creepy count ( played by klaus kinski ) who wants to buy a house in harker's hometown . upon seeing a photo of harker's wife ( the radiant isabelle adjani ) he instantly falls in love with her . locking harker up in his castle , he sets off on a long journey to meet this woman whose beauty so bewitches him . upon divining his identity as a vampire , adjani seduces the count and lures him to his death one morning as the sun rises . that is a story familiar to millions , but herzog has elevated stoker's tale into the realm of - and i use this term a tad reluctantly - cinematic art . nosferatu is as much a meditation as it is a film , shot through blue-ish and white filters and peopled with characters who perform as if they were half hypnotised . the film's surreal , dream-like quality is utterly mesmerising . there is much to enjoy , but i'll limit my praise to a few key points . holding the film together is kinski's remarkable performance as count dracula . past screen portrayals , including bela lugosi's famous turn , have largely been one dimensional and tended towards camp . but kinski . . . oh boy , this is something far more compelling . aided by a startling make-up job , he portrays dracula's vampirism not simply as pure evil but as some sort of loathsome disease . this man is dreadfully lonely . he lives in utter solitude , shunned by the locals for his hideous appearance and reputation for bloodlust . kinski's portrayal of the count is both creepy and deeply affecting . when he dies , you almost feel as if this man's tortured soul has been freed at last . then there's the unforgettable soundtrack , largely composed by german group popul vuh . it is so eerily beautiful and evocative that it's quite impossible to imagine the film without it . popul vuh are longtime herzog collaborators and play an ancient-sounding kind of spacemusic using piano , chants , and exotic instruments . when i first saw this film some years ago i was so impressed i tracked down and bought a number of their albums . the one i still listen to the most is " tantric songs " , from which most of the music in nosferatu is taken . it's a testament to the music's depth that it is as powerful without the pictures as it is with them . the album is still available on the highly respected ambient and world music label celestial harmonies . this is a timely re-release by anchor bay . after francis ford coppola's unscary and woefully overblown version of bram stoker's tale in 1992 , it is a joy to go back to herzog's film and see the amazing things he has done with what is now a century-old story . to some aficionados , nosferatu is quite simply the greatest vampire film ever made . without a doubt , it is an unmistakable classic of the genre . don't miss it .
1	deep rising is one of " those " movies . the kind of movie which serves no purpose except to entertain us . it does not ask us to think about important questions like life on other planets or the possibility that there is no god . . . screw that , it says boldly , let's see some computer generated monsters rip into , decapitate and generally cause irreparable booboos to a bunch of little known actors . heh ! them wacky monsters , gotta love 'em . of course , since we can rent about a thousand b movies with the same kind of story , hollywood must give that little extra " oumph " to get people in theaters . that is where deep rising fails , which is a good thing . confused ? let me explain : despite all them flashy effects and big explosions , deep rising is still , at heart , a good 'ol b movie . luckily , it's a very good b movie . the worst cliches in movie history are a b movie's bread and butter . therefore , things that would destroy a serious movie actually help us have a good time while watching a movie of lower calibre . of course we know there's a big slimy creature behind that door , that one person will wander off to be picked off by said monster and we always know which persons or person will make it out alive . we just don't know when or how horrible it will be . i went to see deep rising with my expections low and my tolerance for bad dialogue high . imagine my surprise when i discover that deep rising is actually , well , pretty darn funny at times . a funny b movie ? well , that's new . these flicks are not supposed to make us laugh . ( except for a few unintended laughs once a while . ) and before you know it , treat williams , wes studi and famke jansen appear on the big screen . hey ! i know them guys ( and gal ) from a couple of other movies . cool . familiar faces . so far so good . our man treat is the hero , he'll live . wes is a staple of b movies , he is the token victim . we know he'll buy the farm but he will take a few creeps with him on the way out . famke is the babe , 'nuff said . there is also a guy with glasses ( the guy with glasses always dies ) a black person ( b movie buffs know that the black guy always dies , never fails ) and a very funny , nerdy guy . ( ah ! comic relief . how can we possibly explain having to kill him . . . let him live . ) after the first fifteen minutes i felt right at home . i know who to root for and who i need to boo too and a gum to chew . ( please kill me . ) suffice it to say that for the next hour and a half i jumped out of my seat a few times , went " ewwww " about a dozen times and nearly had an orgasm over all the explosions and firepower our heroes were packing . i'm a man , we nottice these things . all in all , i'd recommend deep rising if you are looking for a good time and care to leave your brain at the door . . . but bring your sense of humor and excitement in with you . the acting is decent , the effects top rate . how to best describe it ? put together the jet ski scene from hard rain , the bug attacks from starship troopers , a couple of james bond like stunts and all those scenes from friday the thirteenth and freddy where you keep screaming " don't go there , he's behind you " and you end up with deep rising . for creepy crawly goodness , tight t-shirts , major firepower and the need to go to the bathroom every fifteen minutes from seing all that water .
1	scream 2 isn't quite as clever as its predecessor , but it fills the gap with a cutting wit . death -- even gruesome , bloody death -- can be funny if handled the right way ( some will be offended by this statement , but you need look no further than pulp fiction for an example ) . and , while there's plenty of horror to go around in scream 2 , the latest '90s slasher flick incarnation , there are also a few laughs to be had . scream 2 is a slice-and-dice movie for those who don't take their horror too seriously . the success of the original scream took everyone in the industry by surprise . the unexpected blockbuster , whose gross soared over the $100 million mark during its six month release window , opened just about a year ago and turned into one of the most profitable horror films of all time . a sequel was inevitable ; fortunately , nearly the entire creative team has returned for scream 2 , including director wes craven , screenwriter kevin williamson , and actors neve campbell , courtney cox , david arquette , jamie kennedy , and liev schreiber . as stipulated by one of the " rules of sequels " uttered by a movie- obsessed character in the film , the body count in scream 2 is higher than that in the original . paradoxically , there's a lot less gore . there is blood , of course , but nothing excessive by slasher-movie standards , and there are no depictions of spilled entrails . craven has remembered that scares are more important that graphic displays of human insides and bodily fluids . a second strength of scream 2 is that it features a gallery of legitimate characters rather than a group of cardboard cut-out stereotypes lined up for slaughter . after all , we've known some of these people for two movies -- it's almost impossible not to care about them at least a little . scream 2 opens approximately two years after the original . as in the first picture , there's a slick , self-mocking prologue . this time , the victims are jada pinkett and omar epps , whose characters are visiting a local theater for a preview screening of the movie stab ( which is based on the " true life " events of scream ) . some of the smartest dialogue comes during this sequence as pinkett bemoans the lack of african american participation in horror films ( it's surely no coincidence that , in addition to pinkett and epps , scream 2 features two black characters ) . shortly thereafter , she and her boyfriend have been gutted , signaling the beginning of a series of copycat murders . craven lets loose a burst of tongue-in-cheek creativity for the " movie within a movie " sequences . they give him an opportunity to openly parody scream -- an act that he accomplishes with great panache . stab features heather graham in the " casey becker " role ( played in the original by drew barrymore ) and tori spelling as " sidney prescott " ( neve campbell ) . sadly , we only see a couple of scenes from stab . it would have been a little more fun , i think , had craven used joe dante's approach from matinee and shown lengthy excerpts from his satirical production . following the prologue , we are re-introduced to sidney prescott , who has left her sleepy hometown to go to windsor college . her friend randy ( jamie kennedy ) is a student there as well , and he's just as knowledgeable about horror films as ever . once the double murder at stab becomes big news , the media converges on windsor , looking to interview the original victim . at the head of the flock of vultures is gale weathers ( courtney cox ) , who has a little surprise for sidney . she has brought cotton weary ( liev schreiber ) , the man sidney falsely accused of murder , with her . also arriving at the college is deputy dewey ( david arquette ) , who is there to act as a big brother to sidney during this latest round of tribulations . in addition to the survivors from the original scream , the field of potential victims is well-populated . there's a blond co-ed named cece ( sarah michelle gellar , who has now appeared in two of williamson's movies -- this one and i know what you did last summer ) ; sidney's requisite boyfriend , derek ( jerry o'connell ) ; a local newswoman ( laurie metcalf ) ; gale's new cameraman ( duane martin ) ; a british drama teacher ( david warner ) ; and several sorority sisters and would-be sorority sisters ( portia de rossi , rebecca gayheart , elise neal , marisol nichols ) . ultimately , there are lots of attractive corpses . from the stab scenes to lines like " brothers don't last long in situations like this , " craven and williamson are clearly having a lot of fun with scream 2 , and the movie is enjoyable , if a little overlong ( the livelier first hour is better than the second ) . their resolution to the obligatory " whodunit ? " is less of a letdown than it could be , and knowingly offers a wink and nod at past unmasking scenes . ( " nice twist , " quips the killer . " didn't see it coming , didya ? " ) one senses , however , that , by the end of this picture , the overall concept of a hip , self-referential slasher film has been played out . supposedly , there's going to be a scream 3 , but , if the film makers don't come up with something radical , we could end up with a classic case of sequel overkill .
0	so , it's thirty years later , and oscar and felix are together again . that might have been an exciting notion if it wasn't for the fact that the " odd couple " of jack lemmon and walter matthau have been reunited in several recent movies : 1993's " grumpy old men , " 1995's " grumpier old men , " and 1997's " out to sea " ( i . e . " grumpiest old men " ) . so , " the odd couple ii " ( i . e . " the grumpiest old men of all , really " ) seems just another entry in a tired series . the plot is even similar to that of " grumpy old men " in that lemmon and matthau's mismatched characters are brought together by a romance between their children . oscar's son ( jonathan silverman ) and felix's daughter ( lisa waltz ) are getting married , and former roommates felix ungar ( lemmon ) and oscar madison ( matthau ) meet at the airport and decide to share a car . . . then hilarity ensues . well , a few chuckles ensue anyway . neil simon , the award-winning playwright who created oscar and felix , provides the screenplay , which is a shock , because the script is a piece of talentless hackwork from beginning to end . unlike the original play/movie , " odd couple ii " doesn't find its humor in the personality conflict of its characters . instead , it depends upon a series of humorous situations : oscar and felix lose the car over a cliff , are caught smuggling mexicans over the border , take up with two women on the run from their violent husbands ( the women are played by christine baranski of " cybill " and jean smart of " designing women " ) , and hitch a ride with a man who dies in the desert . the original 1968 movie " the odd couple " remains a classic comedy . it introduced the motif of roommate-as-spouse that has provided gags for movies and sitcoms ever since . it was the second outing for the lemmon/matthau team ( which debuted in 1966's " the fortune cookie " ) , and they made a couple more worthwhile comedies , " the front page " ( 1974 ) and " buddy buddy " ( 1981 ) , before going their separate ways . the reunion of lemmon and matthau in " grumpy old men " six years ago was delightful , and its sequel seemed appropriate because it tied up some loose ends from the first movie . but " out to sea " and " the odd couple ii " are just beating a grumpy old horse . ( you can add lemmon's " my fellow americans , " i . e . " grumpy old presidents , " to that list , too . ) let's hope that hollywood offers these two actors something fresh to do . let's hope also that we see neil simon's name on movies that do it justice ( this is his first since 1993's " lost in yonkers " ) .
0	" virus " is a monster movie without a monster . any movie with a hurdle that large to overcome had better be pretty damn good otherwise . sadly , " virus " does not deliver , on any level . the movie opens with the russian space station mir about to transmit something ( we never find out what ) to a big boat with lots of satellites on it . sudddenly , a wave of colorful lightning comes flying through space , and winds up destroying mir and using it to transmit itself to the aforementioned big boat . cut to seven days later , we meet donald sutherland and his band of seafaring vultures . see , they spend all their time sailing around looking for dead-in-the-water ships to rescue , and then collect the reward money . at least , i * think * that's what they do . along with many other things in the film , their reason for being out in the middle of the ocean isn't really explained . so , they stumble upon this big boat with lots of satellites on it , and decide to haul it back to russian waters . the only problem is , the crew starts disappearing one-by-one and turning into borg . yes , borg . complete with the red laser beam in place of an eye . apparently , this alien lifeform can only survive if inside something electrical . so , it creates make-shift machines and uses humans for " spare parts " . blah , blah , blah . i could go on forever describing the ludicrous so-called plot , but i won't . suffice it to say the most original thing about this movie is having donald sutherland play an irish man ( ! ) . everything else in this movie has been taken from other ( better ) movies . for example , many of the machines resemble those found in the little-seen japanese movie , " tetsuo-the iron man " . and the plot is right out of " aliens " . the funny thing is , i was actually expecting to enjoy this movie . i have a soft spot for cheesy monster movies , like last years under-appreciated " deep rising " . but " virus " , as i mentioned earlier , doesn't even have a monster . it just has a big pile of circuits and wires and expects the audience to fear this ridiculous looking contraption . " virus " is the type of movie that really makes you wonder what the screenwriter was thinking about when he wrote it . besides the lame " monster " , it's chock full of dialogue that no real person would ever say , and situations that no real person would ever allow themselves to get into . for example , there is a scene late in the movie in which one of the characters actually attempts to * negotiate * with the alien ! now , i don't know about you , but if i came upon a lifeform that viewed mankind as a virus to be eliminated , i doubt that i would attempt to reason with it . that makes about as much sense as a baby squirrel calmly asking a fierce predator to spare his life . finally , " virus " isn't scary . the least the filmmakers could have done was to make the movie just a little scary . as it is , it's about as frightening as a box of cookies . skip " virus " . if it's a cool monster movie you want , rent the far superior ( and the granddaddy of this genre ) " aliens " .
1	much ballyhoo has been made over this new version of " lolita , " made in a time when one would think that a faithful adaptation of the infamous novel could be made , over its use of pedophilia , and as such , it's important to address it straight-forwardly , before any other ideals such as goodness and themes can be discussed , as this film has been in film limbo for a number of years , lying around in vaults san a distributor , and having critics waiting to either hail it a masterpiece or call it anticlimactic horseshit . when seeing this film , after all the hoopla , keeping in mind that there are people , namely me , who are fans of the novel , who have been eagerly awaiting this flick since its creation . . . well , you just have to wonder why no one really picked it up for distribution . what's even worse is that seeing this " lolita , " especially the first time and if you're familiar with anything " lolita , " is admittingly very anticlimactic . this is a real pity because when you really sit down to watch this film , ignoring all the crap that has preceeded it , it's really quite a film , perhaps the best film by director adrian lyne ( although , really , look at its competition : " flashdance , " " fatal attraction , " and " indecent proposal " ) , at least besides " jacob's ladder . " i've seen this " lolita " twice : the first time , i wasn't so blown away . it seemed overly dramatic and surprisingly unaffecting . the second time , not really thinking about how i've waited for what seems like forever to see it and how i'm seeing it on a tv set on a premium cable channel and not a giant movie theatre , it really affected me emotionally . the story itself is a surprisingly heartbreaking one , which is why it's such a good novel , and why this is such a good film . the story of a pedophile obsessed with a young 14-year old girl named dolores a . k . a . lolita is great because it's not trash for the perverted but because it's about human obsession with things that are out of one's reach . its protagonist , the comically-named humbert humbert , is not your average pedophile , but a seriously wounded human being who embodies how we are all destroyed by our sick obsessions and idosyncrasies . the character of lolita is almost a symbol of the forbidden apple in christian mythology , something that will destroy us but that we can't live without . these ideas are all worked into this film nicely , but done in a way that is not heavy-handed at all , but instead lyrical and emotionally devastating . the focus of this film , and the reason for making it , it seems , was to really penetrate the emotional depths of the novel and bring them to life on the screen in beautifully dramatic images , and scenes which are blatantly over-stylized . the tone of the book is a comical one , but it's also a tragic one , and humbert , telling the story from his perspective , blows every single thing out of perspective . humbert exists in a fantsy world of his obsessions and desires , and this reflects the way the entire film has been designed . we get a sense that perhaps it's by doing this that humbert has really trapped himself into a fate that will ultimately leave him haggard and destroyed . he weeps uncontrollably and never lets himself get over his original 14-year-old love , and allows himself to embody her as lolita . he lets his feelings for her navigate all his decisions , and by the end , he has nothing but overly-dramatic feelings for her . the story recognizes the extreme of this , almost out of a test , seeing if the readers will really sympathize with someone who is socially deemed a pervert , and one almost wonders while reading the book if the author , vladimir nabokov , wrote the book as a means to bring into focus his own sick obsessions , and perhaps bring them to peace . the weirdest thing about this film is that by the end , when humbert has reached the finale of his obsessional journey , we can easily sympathize and even identify with him . the opening and final images of the film are the same , and who hasn't done a similar action , that is wandering about without any sense of reality or anything else but a deep sadness in us ? this is the second time the novel has been adapted for the screen , the first time being filmed in - shock - 1962 , by stanley kubrick , who couldn't possibly have brought the novel to the screen with as much faithfulness as lyne has been able to do , but did the next best thing : he economized for everything and came up with a droll black comedy about obsession in general . in that film , he used the traps of society as benefits . the studio demanded the final scene , that of a heinous murder , come first in the film so to portray humbert first as a murderer and second as a pedophile . . . and when you see it , it gives the film depth of a man trapped by obsession . the censors wouldn't allow anymore than a couple glances and subtle dialogue to show the , um , relationship between humbert and lolita , so kubrick decided to play it as comedy , but still allow the tragedy to seep through . looking at these two versions , especially after reading the novel ( and we all know that when we've read a novel and see a film adaptation , we are bound to be angered by any size differences ) , it's really impossible to compare them . they both go for different things , and one has a lot more room to be as sexually frank as the novel was . and although it's true that several scenes are similar , and are thus up for comparison , overall it's unfair to say which one is better and which one is worse . i have never been one for saying the level of greatness of a film adaptation of a novel is deemed by how faithful it is , and i won't say that here . however , this film is pretty amazing , mostly because hey , i loved the book , and this film nearly reminded me of it . it doesn't have nearly as much wit ( a couple comical scenes , and even a lot of good chuckles , but just not totally witty ) , but it does have the same emotional toll that the novel had . some of that is in the casting of the two leads . jeremy irons , with his deep , soft british voice and gentle look , is an amazing humbert . he's droll in a very unique way , and , well , no one can look distraught the way he does . he brings a wonderful sympathy to the role that goes beyond pathos and really comes up as being easy to identify with the audience . and when he looks at lolita with love , and she looks at him with lust , you know that he's her prisoner for as long as he lives . and dominique swain , who plays the title character , is rather incredible . she pulls off the tough role even better than sue lyon did in the original , wonderfully balancing the qualities of seduction , bratiness , and self-centeredness that marks the character . it's easy to see why she surrenders to humbert : she loves the attention , and knows that she can have her way with him at any time . when he denies her something , she blackmails him effortlessly ( a scene involving a rocking chair and a little foot action is damn near classic ) , and when he stands up to her , she weeps and runs away , leaving humbert to follow her . there are two other minor characters in the film , one who's a road block in the beginning , and the other who's a reappearing threat to the relationship . the former is charlotte , lolita's mother , played by melanie griffith . in the book , charlotte is a monster of a woman : overbearing , constantly scolding her child , overly-religious , and ultimately selfish . and she's the one obstacle humbert has to overcome to obtain his goal , at least in the beginning . as played by shelly winters in the original , she represented all these qualities ; as played by griffith here , she's about half of them . it's annoying to watch a film and play a game where you try to see who could have done the role way better than the one on screen without mentioning the actor who played them first . and even though griffith is not really bad , persay , she's nothing more . the other is clare quilty , the writer who is also trying to seduce lolita , and succeeds , but at a price . langella takes a totally different direction than the one peter sellars took in the original . quilty was a comic character in the original : a threat in the form of many forms , popping in states of rambling , german , proning , and eventually drunk . langella takes the other route , allowing all of the creepiness to be unearthed , and the result is a character who exists in shadows and low shots , and who meets a wonderfully ironic ending , the exact opposite of what we thought of him . as you can see , most of these are not improvements or mistakes done on the part of lyne and his screenwriter , stephen schiff , but just parts of a whole new look at the novel , at least cinema-wise . this version is beautiful , and perpetually saddening . the camera movements are stylized , and each shot is breathtakingly rich . the acting is for the most part wonderful , and when we watch it , we really get a sense that for humbert , who is telling the story , the only two people on earth most of the time were humbert and lolita . more importantly , it takes us right up the brink of emotion , then jumps right over it . by the end , with humbert sadly driving recklessly in his car , following what he says is the only part of his life he doesn't regret , we feel that we all lose to something we can never have .
1	director : penelope spheeris ( decline of western civilization ii - the : metal years , dudes , & suburbia ) cast : mike myers ( wayne campbell ) , dana carvey ( garth algar ) , : rob lowe ( benjamin oliver ) , tia carrere ( cassandra ) summary : wayne and garth have a public access show called " wayne's : world . " the show is a underground hit , until benjamin : oliver comes onto the scene . benjamin wants to turn the : show into a big hit nationwide , possibly destroying the : essence of " wayne's world " in the process . [expectations - medium] long review =========== i must admit being a bit reluctant going into this film . i didn't believe that they ( mike myers and dana carvey ) could hold it up for an hour and a half , i figured that perhaps the first half-hour would be great , and the rest would be " fluff . " however , i was really surprised about how well they were able to keep the laughs going for the virtually the whole film , with the exception of the ending . ( which i won't discuss for obvious reasons , but it's not * that * bad . ) story : the plot was quite thin , but it really wasn't that noticeable , because of the rapid-fire jokes that myers wrote in . alot of the jokes are very similar to hot shots ! , in being very " parodyish . " ( okay , bad term . ) extremely witty throughout , although ( as in hot shots ) it got a bit repetitive in the middle . acting : as in many comedies , the acting isn't really * that * important . however , myers turns in a good performance as wayne , playing the character perfectly , ( although i still liked him better back on much music , in a more " canadian " type of mode . ) carvey is okay as garth , but he lacks the spark myers puts into wayne . tia carrere is mediocre as cassandra , playing it very stilted . lowe is fine as ben oliver , but is nothing to write home about . without a doubt , this movie is mike myers all the way . direction : spheeris is a classic " music " movie director , making dudes , and decline of western civilization ii -- the metal years . ( she also directed the boys next door , which is different , to say the least . ) she is very capable , knows how direct a comedy , the correct camera movements it instill laughs , etc . one of the better jobs i can remember for a comedy . overall : i would suggest to anyone that likes snl's skits to go see this film in the theatres . however , my personal opinion , as in most comedies , is that they work just as well on video . you definately have to be fan of music , and all forms of media in general to enjoy this film . without a doubt , this is the best comedy so far this year . it'll make tons 'o' dough for everyone involved . let's just hope they make a thousand sequels . [sorry , i had to get the lame joke in . . . forgive me . ]
1	" if there's a beast in men , it meets its match in women , too . " starring sarah patterson , angela lansbury , tusse silberg , david warner directed by neil jordan written by jordan and angela carter , from a story by carter cinematography by bryan loftus in recent years , there has been a trend in the field of fantasy : writers have been revisiting the fertile world of myth and fairy tale and reclaiming that world , investing it with new life and energy . in modern times , fairy tales have become disneyfied and debased ; they have become trite adventures involving leering witches , friendly dwarves , and cuddly talking animals . but in their original forms , fairy tales have a dark , wicked edge . crows tear out the eyes of cinderella's sisters , a gorier fate then they receive in the animated version . hansel and gretel relish cooking the witch in her own oven . writers have become fascinated by the bloodier , morally ambivalent aspects of fairy tales , and are now modernizing the old stories while simultaneously going back to their roots . before this trend was in vogue , angela carter--whose stories always have a dark , wicked , subversive edge--had been reinventing fairy tales for years . in the company of wolves , she and neil jordan retell the story of red riding hood , enlivening it with werewolves , rolls royces , and a visit from satan . the story is structured as a dream , occurring in the mind of rosaleen ( sarah patterson ) , an adolescent girl about whose 'real' life we learn very little . within the dream , there are a number of inset stories , most told by dream-rosaleen's grandmother ( angela lansbury ) , and these tales gloss the central story in intriguing , suggestive ways . the result is a surprisingly successful example of a sinister , contemporary fairy tale . i say " surprisingly " because there are so many ways this film could have gone wrong . and there are ways in which it does . the performances are mediocre , except for lansbury's--she finds the right note for the prim , apple-cheeked granny , the wise and stern teller of cautionary tales . the soundtrack , synth-heavy , reminded me of bad 80s horror movies , as did the special effects in the shapechanging scenes . probably state-of-the-art at the time , they are now laughable . but jordan succeeds at what i consider the trickiest aspect of the film : he transcends the poor acting/music/effects and conveys a sense of the fantastic , of otherness . one of the problems in adapting full-blown fantasies is that fantasy is often best left to the imagination of the reader , rather than being subjected to the 'realism' of the screen . part of me would love to see an adaptation of 'the lord of the rings , ' but , on the other hand , i know that any filmmaker's recreation of ents , hobbits , and balrogs is inevitably going to be really lame compared to what i picture in my mind . this makes jordan's accomplishment here seem mighty impressive to me : he imbues the company of wolves with a genuine sense of magic and mystery . the somewhat ruritanian dreamworld becomes a kind of ur-reality . the sunshine is exceptionally warm and abundant . the nights are quiet and misty and eerie and ghostly . the peasant village is rustic and cozy , the woods old and hoary . this archetypal realm is the setting for a smart , subtle , literate script , a script which is as good as you'd expect from jordan ( himself an accomplished fiction writer ) and carter . for carter , the cauldron of story is a witches' brew , bubbling over with primal ingredients : mist-shrouded forests , ancient graveyards , virginal girls and wise women , wolves with glowing eyes . she adeptly blends them all together . there is a symbolic richness to the film ; everything is permeated with a sense of significance . the point of it all , i think , is to represent a girl's rites-of-passage on an unconscious , primordial level . a night-journey through the forest , from the village to the grandmother's home , is the crux of the company of wolves . " don't stray from the path , " rosaleen is told , again and again , and the path is both literal and figurative : the path through the forest and the path of life . staying on the path is the conventional approach suggested by rosaleen's elders . carter and jordan , never conventional , explore what goes on when you leave the path . those who stray will supposedly meet with a dark fate . this fate is literalized in the dream as werewolves , but the werewolves connote many things : death , sex , knowledge . if straying from the path leads to death , then it's not a good idea--but if that's what you have to risk to get sex and knowledge ( and therefore power ) , then maybe it's worth the risk . when you leave the path , the world becomes a dangerous , ambiguous place , but it's full of potential . and it's certainly more interesting than the disney version .
1	bowfinger is a good movie about the making of a very bad one . the screenplay , written by co-star steve martin , skewers everything in hollywood from cheesy science-fiction movies to chop-socky fight sequences , and all in a crafty and accomplished manner . anyone who knows of , or has had any association with movie-making should thoroughly enjoy this clever comedy for it's entire duration . the central premise behind the film is an inspired and promising one . bobby bowfinger ( martin ) , a cheapskate and small-time hollywood producer , has always dreamed of making a successful motion picture but has never attained the proper tools to do so . a new script , an alien invasion story entitled chubby rain , has caught bowfinger's eye . after confronting a big-name producer named jerry renfro ( robert downey jr . ) in a restaurant , an agreement is made to finance the movie . but first , bowfinger must get renowned action star kit ramsey ( eddie murphy ) to sign in on the project . kit turns the offer down immediately , but bowfinger still has the intent to shoot the film . after emptying out his life savings , the hapless producer tells the remaining cast and crew that ramsey is involved , and then prepares to film the movie without the star's knowledge . the actors confront ramsey on the street , saying their lines as hidden cameras peek through bushes to capture the footage . the unknowing star , who is terrified of aliens and being abducted , is brought to believe there is actually pod people after him . when the conditions become even more treacherous , bowfinger is forced to hire a kit ramsey look-alike named jiff ( also murphy ) , a sweet-natured dork who runs for coffee in-between shooting vital scenes . these include attempting a suicide run across an 8-lane freeway , and one of the `hot' scenes involving supporting actress daisy ( heather graham ) removing her blouse . bowfinger takes it's sweet time getting started , but when the plot switches into high gear , great things happen . certain scenes are so precisely executed , perfectly framing moments that are absolutely fall-down funny . no , hilarious . standouts include the chase through a parking garage in which ramsey , who's supposed to be being followed , keeps checking behind him to investigate a strange tapping noise ( it's actually bowfinger's dog in high heels ) . and just try not to laugh in the climactic kung-fu sequence , featuring jiff in an excerpt from another bowfinger classic entitled fake purse ninjas . while the entire 97-minutes of bowfinger isn't always on target , individual scenes may have you rolling in the aisles . masterful comedy director frank oz ( dirty rotten scoundrels , in and out ) , who has never made a bad movie , ensures a quality final product and is aided immensely by martin's sharp-edged script . however , the real on-screen star is eddie murphy . this is the actor's finest work since his breakthrough into the hollywood market in the early 80's . murphy excels at every corner , not only succeeding with presenting believable paranoia in the eyes of kit ramsey , but in creating a likable buffoon in jiff as well . these three talented comic minds have squeezed every morsel of potential out of this premise , and the reward is a virtually guaranteed helping of hearty laughs . steve martin generates the power behind bowfinger , but murphy fuels it . this is a summer-time comedy that , unlike something such as american pie and south park , doesn't break any rules . but it's still just as uproarious , or perhaps even more side-splitting than anything we've seen this season . the supporting cast , including christine baranski as a work-loving actress and jamie kennedy as the cameraman , all perform well within their limits . the only presence that demands real attention when placed next to martin or murphy is the beautiful heather graham , as the young film star who has plans to sleep her way to the top . graham , attempting to further her stardom after appearing as the new powers' girl in ap2 , displays a cheerful but naive persona that nicely corresponds with the wackiness of the screenplay . i wouldn't be caught dead buying a ticket for chubby rain , but watching how it all came about is certainly entertaining enough .
1	bruce willis and sixth sense director m . night shyamalan re-team to tell the story of david dunne ( willis ) , a stadium security guard who has been having some problems at home that are affecting his relationship with his wife and child . on a return trip from new york where he was trying to get a job , dunne is in a horrible train accident that he is the only survivor of . to make things even stranger , dunne has also escaped the accident completely unscathed . a comic book art dealer named elijah price ( samuel l . jackson ) , who was born with a degenerative bone disease that causes his bones to be so brittle that they break constantly , has been seeking out someone like dunne his entire life . price felt that there had to be someone exactly the opposite of him . . . someone whose bones would be so strong that they would never break . price contacts dunne and convinces him to come down to his gallery for a talk where he suggests that dunne could quite possibly be something akin to a superhero from the comic books price used to read when he was a child . dunne doesn't believe him at first , but price assists him in discovering his " powers " and helps him hone his craft until he discovers what his true calling really is . writer/director m . night shyamalan had a tough act to follow with his sleeper hit the sixth sense . how exactly does one follow up on one of the biggest and most popular thrillers in recent years ? for shyamalan , the answer must have come as easy to him as nuclear physics does to kindergartners . does this new film measure up to his breakthrough box office smash , though ? the answer to that question is not a very easy one , either . as far as pacing goes , the sixth sense seemed almost interminable . it wasn't until the surprise ending was revealed that i realized the film was actually intentionally ( and perfectly ) paced in order to give the audience ample time to re-connect all of the information they had seen once the climax had been reached . for unbreakable , shyamalan gave the film a much more satisfying pace which , in many ways , blows away the film that had come before . the story moves along at a steady pace and shyamalan's direction is excellent , with the camera almost constantly moving . there are tons of great shots in the film , not least of which is a conversation that opens the film between willis' character and another train passenger . the shot seems as though it were filmed like we were watching the two talk from between the train seats and the camera steadily glides back and forth between the two actors as they speak . also very impressive is the film's score by james newton howard ( who also scored shyamalan's sixth sense and the similar film stir of echoes , as well as this year's dinosaur ) . several of the scenes are driven by a very catchy beat and help to increase the tempo of the film . one of the best examples of this is a scene in which dunne goes into a train station to " exercise " his powers . the music , in combination with the stellar visuals , really go a long way towards making this an incredible movie . if there was any one soundtrack i would make a must purchase this year , this one would be it . the film also boasts some great performances , including a precocious child actor trying to vie for the oscar throne left vacant by haley joel osment . willis turns in a great performance as the sad sack dunne , who just can't seem to figure out why he's been depressed for the last few years . his character almost seems pathetic when we first meet him , but he eventually grows into his own under elijah's tutelage . jackson is one of the better actors of our time , and here he turns in yet another great performance as the ever injured elijah . though his hairstyle is absurd , jackson seems to infuse such a great deal of pain into his role that the mortar board hairdo can easily be overlooked . robin wright penn's role seems slightly underwritten , but she still manages to get across the intense hurt of her character's need for love from her husband and her desire to make things work again . spencer treat clark , as the dunne's young son jeremy , shows that shyamalan still has a knack for picking young actors , and he turns in one of the most competent performances in the film . out of all the characters , jeremy's is perhaps the most emotional , and clark does a great job with the role . where the film does lose points though , is during its " surprise " ending . shyamalan has said in interviews that he was going to do an ending that blew away the one presented by the sixth sense , but i found myself saying " that was it ? ! " when unbreakable revealed its own ending . it's not that the ending is bad , it's just that the ending doesn't quite have the emotional punch that the other film's did . plus , it almost seems like it sets itself up for sequels ( and i won't reveal the ending here , but you'll understand what i mean when you see it ) . essentially , what all of this means is that shyamalan has made another good film with unbreakable . the only real problem is that the ending doesn't quite fill the shadow left by its predecessor . as long as it isn't held to the standard that sixth sense set ( which it ultimately will be ) , it should be a remarkably well liked film . one thing seems clear , though . shyamalan definitely has an affinity for comic books that he would like to share with the world and many comic book fans will also delight the vision he presents in this film .
1	anna and the king strides onto the screen in full regalia , wearing a brilliant suit of sumptuous landscapes , deep , vibrant colors and an epic storyline . it's true beauty comes from it's subtle ruminations on the politics of power , whether it's between governments , or the interplay between a man and a woman . anna ( jodie foster ) is a widowed british schoolteacher with a touch of wanderlust trying to grasp her quicksilver feelings concerning the recent death of her husband . with son in tow , she takes the employ of king mongkut ( chow yun-fat ) to tutor his son in the english language . mongkut sees the strength of the british and correctly surmises that his country's future lies in opening itself up to the ways of the western world . anna function is to help provide that link . the core of the film , of course , deals with the blossoming love between anna and mongkut as it attempts to germinate in the unfriendly soil of a shifting political climate . foster plays anna with equal parts clenched jaw and wide-eyed wonder . she is assertive , yet , respectful of the king as she initially tries to impose her western sensibilities upon him . it is one of foster's strongest performances since silence of the lambs in a role she could not have played earlier in her career . she brings a mature self- awareness and determination that might not have come across from a younger foster . it's a joy to watch her cagily bargain for her own measure of influence within the realm of mongkut's monarchy . when she makes her entrance into a politically charged banquet mid-film , she exudes a hypnotic beauty that is deepened by her textured performance . chow-yun fat's king mongkut is every measure of foster's anna , perhaps even more so . this is the chow yun-fat that hong kong cinema has been in love with for nearly twenty years . he is imposing , yet vulnerable , playful , but stern . it is an impressively assured and nuanced performance . precious time is stolen from the movie's 155 minutes running time by an unengaging subplot involving one the king's concubines ( bai ling ) and her love of a commoner . it strikes with the subtlety of siam's fabled white elephant as it stomps through the leisurely paced story . some may be put off by the action filled climax of the movie . although a bit inconsistent in tone from the rest of the film , it fits within the established subplot of a perceived siege by neighboring burma , a country backed by the british . anna and the king transcends being a predictable , traditional love story by avoiding mawkishness . it shows a seduction of intelligence . ever mindful of each other's positions , anna and king mongkut negotiate a maze of social customs , conflicting world views and lost loved ones to connect on a level that ultimately proves deeply satisfying , if not achingly bittersweet .
0	ever watch a very young child try and tell a joke that is beyond his , or her , sophistication ? it's full of stops and starts and usually , the punch line is ruined . i felt the same way watching drowning mona . skip a stone across water and you approximate the depth of this attempt at an ensemble comedy . there are some slightly successful attempts at humor , but they only serve as window dressing . there is a running gag about the town , verplanck , n . y . , being a test town for the then new yugo . everyone drives a yugo , differentiating their cars with personalized license plates . even the police chief drives one . there is a certain sublimeness to the image of a lights and siren decked out yugo skittering its way through the town streets . there also is a running gag about one of the characters , jeff , missing a hand and how it occurred . it pokes gentle fun at the notion of urban legends . it turns out the truth is more horrifying than any legend . there are some sight gags that pop up as well , such as mona's tombstone , which reads " demoted " , instead of devoted . still , the core of the story maintains the flatness of a still pond . the lynchpin of the film falls on the redundant and sporadic scenes involving mona ( midler ) . each scene with her is the same : scream at someone , hit someone , then scream some more . there's no uniqueness or modulation to her or explanation for her meanness . anyone off the street could have played the role , such as it is . the other characters are walking cardboard cutouts . each one is defined by one trait and no further attempt is made at deeper characterization . there is a burly , female car mechanic , so of course , there is a forced lesbianism gag . mona's son , jeff ( marcus thomas ) is a simpleton , hence you can predict his dialogue before it even plods its way from his mouth . chief of police rash ( devito ) likes broadway musicals and loves his daughter . there's nothing more to him . elle , the chief's daughter ( campbell ) , is bland personified , a dutiful girl with no higher aspiration than to have a child and be married . mona's husband phil ( fichtner ) jeckle and hydes from shirking coward to reptilian letch . bob ( affleck ) , elle's betrothed , and business partner to jeff , is a mumbling , obvious dullard . there is no contrast to any of the characters . by having at least one character with some wit , or wits , to serve as counterpoint to the others , perhaps steinfeld's attempt at satirizing a small town infested with ambitionless people might have come off better . ostensibly a murder mystery , drowning mona gives you almost all the clues immediately , then lets you sit back and feel superior as you watch the cast of paper people fumble their way to finding the killer , who could be anyone due to mona's loving manner with everyone on town . even that aspect of the film fails , throwing in a convenient , ridiculous and unsatisfying wrap to things . it's been a while since i walked away from a movie theater in an angry mood . what makes it all the more remarkable is that i rarely remember a comedy making me so angry for wasting my time at it's ineptitude .
1	on seeing the outrageous previews for bulworth one wonders what plot could possibly allow beatty get away with making those statements ( in case you missed it , warren beatty plays a politician on the campaign trail . he says to a black congregation " . . . if you can't cut down on malt liquor and chicken wings and get behind someone other than a running back who stabs his wife , you're never gonna get rid of me . " ) well , there is such a plot , and it works very well in this comedy . beatty plays jay billington bulworth , a long-time democratic senator from california . the movie opens on a painfully repetitious montage of bulworth's latest commercials condemning affirmative action . the montage is ironically intercut with pictures of martin luther king and bulworth in his youth working with jack kennedy . when we finally lay eyes on bulworth he is morosely weeping in front of his tv , having gone without food or sleep for days . his campaign is entering the final weekend before the primaries but his depression has sunk in too far for him to care . first he calls a lobbyist from the insurance industry to get a bribe - a $10 million life insurance policy in his daughter's name . then he calls an associate to arrange for his own assassination . his assistant murphy ( oliver platt ) is oblivious to bulworth's suicidal state and drags him to his speaking engagements . bulworth halfheartedly reads his speech at an african-american church , then takes questions from the audience . he is hit hard with questions about his voting record . he had promised money to help rebuild the community after the riots , and it hasn't shown up . since he's a dead man anyway , he figures he'll answer truthfully : he and bill clinton and newt gingrich came to l . a . for the photo opportunity . they made some promises that improved their public image for a while , and then counted on the media and the public to eventually forget about the promises they made . the shock and outrage from the congregation grows , the questions keep coming , and he keeps shooting back honest , if ugly , answers . ( before i go further , i'd like to make a distinction that the denver post failed to make , and that is that characterizing african-americans as malt-liquor drinking o . j . fans is not part of bulworth's " truth . " that line is in the trailers but it should not be praised like the other political confessions he makes in the movie . when the critics praise beatty for speaking the truth about politics , this line is not what they're talking about . ) the experience is liberating . with nothing left to lose , bulworth is no longer restricted to burping generic platitudes out of both sides of his mouth . he can say whatever he wants because he's going to be dead anyway . why not tell the people the truth about being a sleazy politician - that he is bought and paid for by lobbyists , and that racism among the populace protects politicians from being the target of charges of classism ? bulworth's candor wins him three volunteers from the church , one of whom , nikki ( halle barry ) , he gets a crush on . he feels so good afterwards that he actually eats something . chicken wings , appropriately enough . bulworth shows up late for his meeting with some movie studio executives . when one of them asks where he stands on government regulation of movie and tv ratings , bulworth drifts to the topic of the quality of filmed entertainment . with so much money and so many talented people working so hard , he wonders , why can't hollywood make a quality product . ( you go , warren ! ) when they become indignant and ask why he's talking to them if he has such a low opinion of their product , he callously admits that it's because they are rich jews . that night he drops the three african-american volunteers at their nightclub , and he decides to go in with them . he stays up all night drinking , smoking pot , dancing , falling in love with nikki , and learning to scratch turntables and rap . the next day , he shuns his prepared speech and instead raps to the suit-and-tie fundraisers . from then on , at all of his political appearances , he raps his political truth . his rap is not bad for a middle-aged white guy . he's not very good , but it is his first try and at least he's not embarrassingly bad . his lobbyists are not amused , but the rest of his constituency seems to like the new bulworth . eventually , the movie's plot ( remember he hired a hit man ? ) overtakes the politics , which is too bad . screen time is spent with bulworth trying to cancel the request for his assassination while the hit man seems to be closing in on him . there are even a few gratuitous chase scenes , bulworth fleeing his killer . these scenes may have been necessary to keep the events of the film moving along , but it distracted and detracted from bulworth's political ranting , which was much more interesting than the ever-present , obvious-looking assassin . still , most of the movie is original and very enjoyable , and beatty deserves most of credit for bringing it to the screen . as the story and screen writer , he came up first with a good structure , then with good dialogue to back it up ( jeremy pikser co-wrote the screenplay ) . as an actor , he was able to convincingly portray bulworth's depression , then liberation and rebirth . as a producer ( there were four others ) he was able to keep the movie free from hollywood's indulgent formulas ( except for those inexcusable chase scenes ) . someone else probably could have directed , but since he was there anyway , what the heck . it's too bad that there aren't more movies like this around - movies that tackle political corruption in a way that challenges viewers to pay more attention to real politics . after all , much of the inspiration for bulworth is straight out of the news . just a little perception and insight and you could write your own bulworth rants . just don't expect to be popular with the insurance companies .
1	i think that any competent member of the human race who's ever seen a movie--any movie--could probably predict just about every turn in the wedding singer . even though i try very hard to not predict films as i'm watching them ( especially not romantic comedies ) , the plot of this particular film just advanced before me seconds , and sometimes minutes , before i actually saw it happen on screen . but i don't care . not even a little . my reasons for this are simple : 1 ) adam sandler is great . 2 ) drew barrymore is great . 3 ) the movie is so funny . there are parts that left me gasping for air because i was laughing so hard . i haven't laughed this hard in a movie since austin powers . sandler plays robby hart , a wedding singer who once had dreams of being in a rock band and writing his own music . in the opening scenes , he seems like a happy-go-lucky wedding singer , at least partially enjoying his profession and doing a rather good job of talking down a really drunk individual ( steve buscemi ) who decides that his brother's wedding is a good place to tell the whole world that his life , up to that point , was utter pointlessness . a week later , at his own wedding , he is left standing at the altar by his ex-fianc ? e , linda ( angela featherstone ) . with his life in complete disarray , he meets julia ( barrymore ) , a waitress . she is engaged to glenn ( matthew glave ) , and is to marry him in about three months . julia and robby become good friends when she enlists him to help with the wedding plans . soon ( and predictably ) it becomes pretty clear that glenn is a jerk , and that robby and julia really love each other . oh sure , it's trite . and if anyone making this film expected us to , like , feel suspense or something while watching the wedding singer , then they truly underestimated their audience . what makes the story bearable , aside from the terrific costumes and 80s music , are the performances . barrymore is simply adorable here ( i've never seen her look so close to the way she did in et ) . not only is she pleasant to look at , but her acting job here really is a good one--and it doesn't hurt that the character is likable and adequately well-written . and the jerk , played in full-force by graves , is just as despicable as any villain in any romantic comedy i've ever seen . naturally , the true star here is sandler . i think the guy is flat-out hilarious . he can say something that just isn't funny , and his delivery makes me laugh . his comedic performance here equals that of happy gilmore , but in this film he goes much further and proves to me that he can , indeed , hold his own as a leading man in a romantic comedy . whereas his roles in his previous films kind of had sandler playing sandler , the wedding singer gives him a character that , for the first time , he actually has to fit into . as far as i'm concerned he succeeded , and this film is testimony that he does , in fact , have some range in his talents . and the movie is just so funny . perhaps the best moment is when he sings a song for julia that he claims is a little uneven because he began writing it while in a good mood and finished it after his fianc ? e abandoned him . this is the part that literally had me groping for a breath of air . and while the film , like all romantic comedies , takes a hiatus from laughs towards the end because the plot has to finish up , there are more than enough truly hilarious moments in the first hour that make up for any slumps in progress during the second half . my formal complaints for the wedding singer aren't very important . the film is predicable , but who cares ? the characters are extremely likable , the movie is ridiculously funny , and the experience is simply enjoyable . in addition to this , i can't imagine anyone seeing the preview and not wanting to see the film . in that order , i conclude that it is pointless for me to even have written this review . i just want everyone to know that i laughed . a lot .
0	mr . nice guy is the latest jackie chan film , so you should know what to expect . a weak plot , terrible dialogue , very little acting ability , but some jaw-dropping action sequences that nearly make the rest of it worthwhile . however , mr . nice guy lacks the sparkle of jackie's best efforts , and its weaknesses are more glaring than ever . jackie chan plays , who else , jackie . this time out , he's a famous chef who hosts an australian cooking show . not that it ever makes a difference in the plot . there are only two scenes of him cooking . for the rest of the film , somehow he mutates into jackie chan , supercop . it never does explain why his character has such superb martial arts skills . . . perhaps he was in the same cooking class as steven seagal in under siege ? a tv newswoman , diana ( gabrielle fitzpatrick ) , covertly tapes a drug deal involving kingpin giancarlo ( richard norton ) and a local gang of toughs , the demons . although she only has one camcorder , somehow the result is full of close-ups and multiple angles . . . hmmm , shades of broadcast news ? ? ? anyway , the goons discover diana , and will do anything to recover the tape . here lies another crucial flaw in the story : doesn't anyone realize you can copy a tape ? oh well , no one ever said jackie chan movies had to make sense . as luck would have it , diana runs across jackie , and , wouldn't you know it , jackie accidentally ends up with the tape . this leads to countless chase and/or fight scenes which look like they could have been lifted from rumble in the bronx or nearly any other jackie chan movie . in a move apparently designed to woo american ( and other english-speaking ) audiences , the film uses english as its primary language . however , that doesn't mean an end to the atrocious dubbing that has afflicted jackie's recent americanized releases . strangely , many of the characters speaking english are overdubbed with english , and poorly too . whether this is just a very bad case of looping , an effort to minimize accents , or a simple case of nostalgia , it does achieve the same level of distraction present in all of jackie's dubbed films . the plot in mr . nice guy is negligible , merely an excuse to have jackie on the run from various goons . but even though plots have always been second to the action in jackie's films , it seems odd that the filmmakers have stuck us with this tired retread . look , if you have jackie chan playing a chef , why not use that to your advantage ? watching jackie doing his stuff in a kitchen , beating the bad guys with foodstuffs sounds like the perfect setup for innumerable comic stunts . the action is a mixed bag here . there's really only one no holds barred fight scenes that have become the trademark of jackie's films . it takes place in the arbitrary location of a construction site , apparently for the sole reason that there are lots of nifty things lying around that can be useful ala jackie chan . the action in the film is neither jackie's best nor worst , but you long for some more inspiration in the scenes . the film's gratuitous use of slow motion is distracting . once or twice , it may be useful to highlight a spectacular stunt sequence . but to slo-mo jackie running ? either this is a nod to the six-million dollar man , or a pathetic attempt to disguise the fact that jackie may be slowing down . if you've seen all of jackie's films and are in need of another fix , go ahead and see mr . nice guy . however , if you're just in the mood for some good action , you'd be better off hitting the video store for some of his better work , such as supercop .
0	lauded as a genius by many , stanley kubrick commands a superlative filmography that includes such critically-acclaimed films as " 2001 : a space odyssey , " " a clockwork orange , " " lolita , " and " dr . strangelove , or : how i learned to stop worrying and love the bomb . " now , sadly , he's added " eyes wide shut " to that impeccable body of work and his final film is the first and only blot on his near-flawless copybook . kubrick , alas , should have quit while he was ahead . this much-publicized psycho-sexual tease-a-thon , with its star billing of real-life marrieds tom cruise and nicole kidman , is nothing more than one long ( two-and-a-half hours long ) boring exercise that features kubrick operating with talent wide shut . kubrick , faithless to arthur schnitzler's 1926 novella " dream story , " has confused eroticism with nudity . he has confused intellectualism with talking slowly . he has confused profundity with pretentiousness . in addition , the director has made some strange casting choices , leaving sydney pollack in and leaving accomplished performers harvey keitel and jennifer jason leigh out . pollack , the director of such box-office hits as " tootsie " and " out of africa , " is normally solid in his occasional acting stints but here he's miserably out of his depth . . . and there isn't much depth to begin with ! unhappily , there's not likely to be a director's cut of this film to determine whether the decision to exorcise keitel and leigh was the right one . in fact , with the exception of the stark black-and-white credits , snatches of baroque music on the soundtrack , and many , many grainy tracking shots down lavishly-decorated corridors , there's none of kubrick's trademark brilliance in this film . it doesn't help that the story , as delivered , is ridiculous . cruise and kidman , who bring little more than marital torpor to the project , play well-to-do new yorkers bill and alice harford . he's a doctor and she's an unemployed art gallery director and they share a central park west address . at an opulent party hosted by their friend victor ziegler ( pollack ) , alice gets a little tipsy and starts dancing with a jeremy irons-like hungarian , who's singularly determined to get her in the sack . bill , too , is seen arm-in-arm with a couple of models before he's pulled away to deal with an overdoser . back home , bill and alice smoke a little pot before alice's aggressive jealousy kicks in . as retribution , she confesses to her husband that she once had deep feelings for a naval officer she eyeballed at a hotel where she and bill once stayed . this hurtful admission sends bill into a tailspin ; he pounds the streets of the village in his heavy black overcoat struggling with black-and-white images of alice in the grip of a horny midshipman . it's all way too much for him . for revenge , bill almost has sex with a hooker . he almost has feelings for a underage girl he sees in a costume store . then he almost does the hooker's roommate . and he's almost involved in an overblown rococo orgy when an old college chum of his tips him off to a mysterious , password-protected party where everyone wears masks and " the women are incredible " ( i . e . , naked ) . this " erotic " set piece , a cult-ish bacchanal complete with chanting , incense , and lots of strategically-placed partygoers covering up the dirty , might impress the likes of hugh hefner , but it's a lot less shocking than it's intended to be . what's the big deal ? bill doesn't exactly * do * anything ( other than throw his money and credentials around ) , and alice only ever lusted in her heart . whoop-dee-doo . still , they make up at the same agonizingly slow pace--was kubrick , notorious for multiple takes , paying them at an hourly rate ? even geniuses have their bad days . " eyes wide shut " just happens to be kubrick's bad day , an unerotic , disappointing , and altogether pointless end to an otherwise memorable career .
1	david cronenberg presents us with another strange tale crawling out of his impressively twisted head . it is one of many science fiction films , released during the last year of this millenium , that tackles issues that will play an important role in our future . the story unfolds in a near future , where the line between reality and virtual reality blurs . the world of the future is an unfriendly place , where the scared inhabitants are " hiding " in virtual reality fantasy games to escape the uncertainty of the real world . allegra geller ( jennifer jason leigh ) , the leading game designer in the world , is testing her new virtual reality game , existenz with a focus group . as they begin , she is attacked by a fanatic assassin employing a bizarre organic gun . she flees with a young marketing trainee , ted pikul ( jude law ) , who is suddenly assigned as her bodyguard . unfortunately , her pod , an organic gaming device that contains the only copy of the existenz game program , is damaged . to inspect it , she talks ted into accepting a gameport in his own body so he can play the game with her . the events leading up to this , and the resulting game lead the pair on a strange adventure in a world where individuality doesn't exist , as the " players " are forced to perform as characters in an unknown plot . here the reality and their actions are impossible to determine from either their own or the game's perspective . i don't intend to reveal more of the film's premise , which is structured as a computer game , with " tasks " that the characters must complete to win the game . released after " the matrix " and " dark city " , " existenz " has some similarities and parallels that connect it to these films . however , " existenz " is moving in a different direction , with a premise of its own . a combination of dazzling special effects , brilliantly coordinated action sequences and an intelligent and sophisticated plot , made " the matrix " a rare and entertaining science fiction experience , with some dark and frightening ideas hidden under its sparkling facade . " existenz " has a completely different atmosphere , resembling " dark city " , which is darker , more serious and less entertaining . " existenz " has the opportunities and potential , but the enormous possibilities are never quite explored . after the engaging beginning , it starts to falter . while i was watching the film , many left the theatre during the first hour . and indeed , " existenz " seemed as a complete failure : the actors seemed unreal , the plot and dialogue silly , unfinished relationships and unexplained events followed one after another . but the last fifteen minutes lifted the film on a complete different level , explaining all past events , the silly dialogue and the unreal performances within a few scenes . and jet the film fails on several issues . probably the best written character in the story is a game designer , who would rather spend the rest of her life in a virtual world , than face real life . this is a great possibility to create a magnificent character , and jennifer jason leigh stretches cronenberg's script to the limits , but fails because the advantages of virtual reality in comparison to the real world are never shown . existenz is not a world of which you might dream about in your fantasies . it is not a world worth sacrificing your life for . it's a cold , dark place where the " players " are forced to interrelate with unreal characters , eat mutated creatures and even murder against their own will . it doesn't look like a place worth even thinking about . david cronenberg has been the creator of " the fly " , " videodrome " and " the dead zone " , so it's not so hard to guess that " existenz " is a violent and gory film . besides the regular murders of innocent people , the audiences can enjoy an autopsy of a two-headed mutated amfibium . scenes like that have become a trademark for cronenberg and it seems that he can't make a film without flowing blood and foul creatures . the way i see it , this is the film's crucial failure . it is impossible for cronenbergto create a beautiful world where time , space and problems of our everyday life do not exist ; a place of blooming blossoms , green forests and clear waters ; a place really worth sacrificing your life for . because of its lack of three dimensionality , the film looses most of its possibilities , but stays afloat because of some interesting scenes , amusing performances ( especially by willem dafoe ) and one interesting and important thought , depicted in many different ways throughout the movie . during the film , the audience is as confused as the characters : detached from their everyday existence and no longer able to see the difference between the real world and the alternative reality that they have created . " the matrix " , despite of its many dark and disturbing thoughts , ends with a light at the end of the tunnel . " existenz " does not . it is a one time experience , ending in blood , gore and madness - a rather frightening forecast for tomorrow .
0	not a great twelve months for either of the principals from this movie . earlier this year , nora ephron wrote and produced one of the year's least likeable " comedies " called hanging up , featuring a bunch of annoying women ( ironically , lisa kudrow played one in that film as well ) who barely have time to care about anyone but themselves . ick . . . real sweet stuff . but her little unsuccessful project was nothing compared to what john travolta went through earlier this summer , with a film entitled battlefield earth . i seemed to be the only person on this planet who somehow appreciated the film , even if it was on a " cheese " factor , as everybody , and i mean everybody else , pretty much classified the movie as one of the worst disasters of all time . yipes . . . another beauty . so what happens when you put these two people in the same room and come out with a movie co-starring the ever-versatile lisa kudrow ? uhhhm , you guessed it . . . not much . plot : in order to escape major financial difficulties , a local weatherman hooks up with his ball-picking lotto girlfriend and rigs the state lottery . but as more and more people find out about their scheme , more and more people demand a part of their winnings , and more and more problems arise . critique : simply stated , i didn't laugh once during this entire picture . for a comedy , it offered me a few smiles , a bunch of nincompoops as characters , a miscast john travolta hamming it up and lisa kudrow , in what can only described as a " sluttier " version of her character of phoebe on tv's " friends " . this film was not as disastrous as i thought it would be , but it was pretty close . thankfully , the clips of travolta dressed up in goofy outfits , dancing as the weatherman were left in the film's trailer , and not in this final cut . and not unlike the worst movie of the year so far , beautiful , this film also managed to feature many unsympathetic , idiotic and just plain irritating characters in its cast . foremost was travolta's character , who declined to give us any reason to care for him once in the entire movie . and for me , the casting choice of john travolta for this role was just plain wrong . he didn't fit the part . i just saw him in get shorty the other day and thought about how perfect he was for that role . a cool , calculating roughneck with a certain hip , suave " je ne sais quoi " . in this film , he looks like he's trying to be funny , trying to be bad , trying to be good . we're not supposed to be able to notice that , and when we do , at least in my case , i consider it a wrong choice in casting . add that to lisa kudrow , boring us with yet another one of her patented " dumb blonde " routines , but this time , dressed in sexier outfits . michael rapaport , stretching one small acting muscle to play the guy who isn't quite up at the same speed level as everyone else . and a truckload of empty comedic bullet shells , and you've got yourself an extremely quiet audience anticipating punch lines that never quite materialize . the only real good thing that i could say about this film is that its story was actually half-interesting and never really bored me . i also liked michael moore's perverted cousin character , and i loved , and i say it again , loved the character that bill pullman played . give this dude his own movie ! he played a lazy cop , a man who tries everything not to do any real work . he fakes injuries to get off duty , tries to avoid arrest situations so that he won't have to fill out any forms . . . now there's a base of humor . sadly , the filmmakers decided to bring him into play with only about half an hour left in the film . and there's not much else i can say about this movie , folks . on the whole , it was lame , included a slew of unlikable characters fiddling around in a pool of unfunny lines , and very little of interest for any target audience . but get somebody to write up a movie featuring that lazy cop played by pullman and i'm there !
1	while screen adaptations of john irving's novels have been disappointingly uneven , the films have all shared one particular strength : key casting . who can forget john lithgow as roberta muldoon , the transsexual quarterback of " the world according to garp , " or nastassja kinski as susie the bear in " the hotel new hampshire " ? a lot of good casting decisions have gone into the making of " the cider house rules , " an adaptation of irving's poetic 1994 novel about a restless young man called homer wells . among those sound judgments was the decision to have the splendid tobey maguire assume the pivotal role ; the decision to cast michael caine as his mentor and father figure , dr . wilbur larch , the ether-addicted head obstetrician of the st . cloud's orphanage , maine ; and the decision to offer jane alexander and kathy baker supporting roles as his head nurses . then there are the brethren who populate the apple orchard where homer wells finds himself shortly after leaving st . cloud's , including delroy lindo , oscar ? -worthy as the foreman of the migrant work detail that drifts up and down the coast as the seasons take them . there's kate nelligan as the matriarch of the cider house , and charlize theron as candy , the lovely , lonely wife of a wwii bomber pilot ( paul rudd ) sent away on a mission overseas leaving candy to set lobster traps with homer wells , a man who's never seen the ocean before let alone a lobster . am i forgetting anyone ? yes . kieran culkin and paz de la huerta as dissolute orphanage residents who make you sit up and take notice every time they're on the screen . but with " the cider house rules , " the good people decisions don't end with the cast . irving has written his own screenplay in order to get it right this time ( last year's " simon birch , " loosely based on his " a prayer for owen meaney , " was a big-screen example of irving handled sub-standardly ) ; the author appears fleetingly as a stationmaster here . rachel portman , a composer of such sweet and lyrical tenderness , provides a score that's absolutely right for the project--sweet , lyrical , and tender . there's impressive new england photography by oliver stapleton too . last but by no means least is " my life as a dog " director lasse hallstr ? m , who shows enormous skill in pulling this collective together and helping bring irving's marvelously touching story to life . for the many beloved who pass away in " the cider house rules , " it's an extraordinarily life-affirming story . and now , thanks to these talented individuals , it's an extraordinarily life-affirming film .
0	this well-conceived but ultra sugary coming-of-age film is not for everyone , and i include myself as one of those who found it too sappy for my digestion . joseph cross ( joshua beal ) is a 10-year-old who is saddened by the recent loss of his grandfather ( loggia ) to bone marrow cancer . loggia is wonderful in relating to the child in such a wholesome manner , it almost saves this film from drowning in syrup . the beals are like a sitcom idyllic family , where everyone is just so nice and affluent , and properly religious without being fanatical . the beals , the father ( denis leary ) and his wife ( dana delany ) , are both successful doctors ; julia stiles plays joshua's older sister , needling her younger brother but also showing that she really cares about him . this is a family seemingly conceived in heaven , but living in south philadelphia , sending their children to a well-run catholic school . joshua , the protagonist and the narrator of this yarn , is a handsome , sweet , intelligent , friendly , and endearing child , who does well in school , relates to the nuns and priests , and talks politely to his well-meaning parents . all this mawkish interplay makes it almost too nauseating to watch . the plot arises when joseph has a problem coping with the death of his beloved grandfather , who promised to be with him forever . his answer is to search for god , pretty heady stuff for a youngster his age to do , but that's just the way it is , sometimes . this search for god takes us nowhere because , as his friend david ( reifsnyder ) says , where can you look for him if he doesn't exist . now , that's a smart kid . but joseph looks for him in the usual places , and what better place than to start in the parochial school he attends . one of his teachers is the kind-hearted sister terry ( rosie o'donnell ) , who wears a philly baseball hat and equates the jesus stories with baseball , making him the clean-up hitter , and in my opinion , if she wasn't a big tv star , would have a vocation as a parochial school teacher , she is that convincing . throughout the film , she is saved from answering any tough ( sic ! ) question about god by the bell , as it rings to end the class . nothing much happens in the search for god , there is no parody of the catholic school ; though a visiting cardinal is found by the boy not to be able to talk to god , but this is gentle stuff , no real criticism or search for god is attempted . what comes next into play is some hollywood hokum , which is designed not to upset anyone , as joseph has a reassuring encounter with a real , live angel , a blond little boy his own age and dressed like him in the catholic school uniform who wears the innocuous smile of a goody-goody . the film ends as this angel ( ! ! ! ) tells him his grandfather is all right . his quest is ended , as apparently angels don't have wings and are approachable ; and god , well , . . . maybe that's for another film down the road . this part of the film was the final straw for me , i couldn't swallow any more goo . as this film flopped commercially , his next one , the sixth sense , pared down the schmaltz and came up smelling like a rose . though if you look through the cleverness of both scripts , this director is loaded with hokum , all he has learned how to do , is hide the hokum better . well , god bless him , if he can do that . this is a nice family picture and there is room for it in hollywood . it's just too bad that it had nothing relevent or even truthful to say about death , children in a parochial elementary school , or for that matter , about god . and that family of his , they're too good for words . yet the film meant well and its benign message had its heart in the right place . for those who want to see something soft , without a bite to it , this is the one .
1	capsule : bleak and point-blank -- just the way it should be . makes its case with cold-blooded precision and intelligence . " serial killer chic " is a relatively new entry to the cultural vocabulary , and one of the more stomach-turning ones . i've never found someone automatically admirable or even interesting because they killed creatively or in great numbers , and because of that i had apprehensions about seeing henry . i wasn't sure i wanted to see the story of multiple murderer henry lee lucas portrayed as some kind of nihilistic hero/antihero . thankfully , that's not the way henry works . the director , john mcnaughton , took a small budget and a gallery of actor friends and created a chilling and intelligent piece of work . it doesn't provide cheap-jack explanations for henry's behavior : it shows him up for what he is , an unrepentant and un-idolizable man who killed when the mood struck him . at the film's opening , henry's friend ottis toole has a sister , who comes by to stay while she tries to find work in chicago . in a viciously riveting scene , he admits matter-of-factly to having murdered his own mother , and she covers his hand with hers . they are damned together from that moment on . henry and ottis eventually begin to kill for fun . the movie is especially good at showing how they seem to have drifted casually into it : there's a scene where the two go to buy a new tv . the pawnbroker they talk to goads henry with ugly words , and henry responds by stabbing the man to death with a soldering iron . no preface -- it smashes into us as suddenly as it does the broker . in a scene which many damned the movie for , unseen , they steal a video camera and film the murder of a whole household , playing it back over and over again for their own enjoyment . the movie itself , however , does not glorify the killings , but shows instead that henry feels no joy at his work , only irritation . henry succeeds thanks to excellent writing and direction as well as acting . michael rooker is credible as henry from the first frame , just standing there , and the rest of the cast works by being unaffected and casual as well . the producers had originally comissioned a slasher film from mcnaughton , but he decided to give them something more memorable , and consequently the film nearly didn't see release . the film does not glorify or justify -- it just shows us , with unflinching coldness , what henry was . i'm hard pressed to see how anyone can see this and consider henry any kind of " victim " or " hero " . then again , probably , so would henry .
1	a welcome cinematic trend over the past couple of years has been to make the works of shakespeare more accessible to the younger audiences who are the vast majority of moviegoers by contemporizing the bard and altering the settings to familiar surroundings . a prime example of this is 1999's 10 things i hate about you , which was basically the taming of the shrew in a high school . less successful was last year's adaptation of hamlet with ethan hawke as the heir apparent of the denmark corp . here the setting was the corporate world of new york . now comes o , a faithful retelling of one of the most tragic of shakespeare's tragedies . like 10 things i hate about you , the stage is a high school - a private prep school where odin james ( mekhi phifer ) is the on-court general , the basketball team's standout player . julia stiles , featured in 10 things i hate about you as well as performing ophelia in hawke's hamlet , plays desi brable , odin's girlfriend , whose father also happens to be dean of the institution . josh hartnett ( pearl harbor ) is on hand for the villainy , playing the scheming hugo , who sets the tragic wheels in motion . o was actually filmed a couple of years ago , but was shelved because of the columbine high school tragedy . the movie , directed by tim blake nelson - best known for his co-starring role in o brother , where art thou ? - and written by brad kaaya , is very grim . an air of tragedy weighs it down from the opening scene to the closing credits . and that is how it should be . of all of shakespeare's tragedies , othello is the most harrowing , not because of any body count , but because of the psychological havoc wreaked by iago , whose motivation in the sheer pleasure of his treachery . kaaya's profane-filled script - after all , these are high school kids - does offer hugo a subtle motive of sorts . the young man considers himself the basketball team's prime utility man who does a little bit of everything - pass , shoot , rebound - but is constantly in the shadow of odin . plus his father , the team's coach - played with a ferocious intensity by martin sheen - showers more love and concern on his star player than on his own flesh and blood . the script follows the familiar lines of the classic . hugo begins dropping hints to odin concerning desi's fidelity , eroding the star's confidence in those he considers closest to him , affecting both his relationships and his game . it all ends in blood , of course , which is why the movie was originally shelved . the performances in o vary . phifer is at first cocky and self-assured , emotions he handles with ease . he also does quite well displaying odin's darker side ; his defensive sensitivity about being the only black at the institution , his growing distrust of those he loved , his rage and the erosion of his belief system . hartnett is appropriately cool and machiavellian as he weaves his deadly web of lies and deceit , turning friend against friend , and lover against lover . stiles seems a bit stilted , but occasionally also rises to the occasion , moving from adoration to confusion to fear of her young knight . the film does contain a few missteps : a subplot involving hugo's theft of the school mascot is left hanging . also desi's actions concerning michael ( andrew keegan ) , odin's former teammate and best friend who was kicked off the team because of one of hugo's machinations , is puzzling . why she would continually be seen with michael - however innocent the circumstances - when she knows her man suspects the two of cheating behind his back . it is irrational . but these are minor carpings . overall , o is a stylish and faithful adaptation . if nothing else , it may encourage some people to read the original text , and that will counterbalance the severity of this feature .
0	because no one demanded it : david duchovny in a romantic comedy ! at last , both his romantic magnetism and his comedic brilliance are mined for all their resources ! the choice of duchovny may have something to do with the plot , which could be fodder for a valentine's day episode of " the x-files . " bob rueland ( david duchovny ) loses his wife elizabeth ( joely richardson ) in a car accident . at the same time , grace briggs ( minnie driver ) is in the hospital , waiting for a heart transplant . grace gets elizabeth's heart , and it leads her to bob . it's the romantic equivalent of all those horror films where someone gets a transplant from a serial killer and then is driven to slaughter people . four writers are credited with contributing to the story . that doesn't seem possible . despite being a solid two hours long , " return to me " adds little to the " boy meets girl / boy loses girl " formula and , as a result , is terribly tedious and slow-moving . duchovny and driver seem unable to generate any sparks , and i kept wishing for a fast-forward button to move their scenes along . since driver has managed to work well in romantic roles before , i blame duchovny . he's out of his element without the manufactured and static sexual tension of his tv series ( and i've always thought that the relationship between mulder and scully on " the x-files " comes off more sibling-like than hot-and-bothered ) . there's something about duchovny that makes me uneasy . regardless of the role he's playing , he comes off as a weirdo . the only redeeming quality of " return to me " is its hilarious supporting cast . the circle of friends and relatives around bob and grace is constantly playing matchmaker , and they generate the only laughs in the movie . carroll o'connor is grace's grandfather marty o'reilly . when bob comes into marty's restaurant after hours , marty immediately begins quizzing bob about his marital status . when marty discovers that bob is a widower , he invites bob to join his poker game and introduces him with the declaration , " this is bob ! his wife is dead ! " the poker buddies are just as desperate to find a mate for grace and greet bob enthusiastically when they hear the news . also funny : bonnie hunt as grace's best friend megan and james belushi as megan's husband joe . married with children , megan and joe provide a useful counterpoint by showing the mundane results of romance . although it's rare to see him in a movie that premieres in a theater , belushi delivers his lines with great comic skill . rounding out the impressive supporting cast are david alan grier as bob's best friend and robert loggia as marty's brother-in-law angelo . in only the lead actors lived up to the standards set by the rest of the cast . bottom line : if you are compelled to see this movie , watch it on video so you can fast-forward to scenes with carroll o'connor and james belushi .
1	john von neumann , progenitor of the computer age and critically important mathematician on the manhattan project , pointed out long ago that there is a great way to explore the cosmos , even without recourse to faster-than light travel . you send out self-replicating robot ships which explore and radio back information . it may take decades , centuries , or millennia , but it can be done with achievable technology , and doesn't require a magical faster-than-light drive . in the fifties , british astronomer fred hoyle improved on this plan by suggesting that it would be better to radio plans for a complex computer and a program for it ; any civilization capable of receiving the transmission could build the computer , which would then engage in a real-time dialog with the aliens , exchanging information and technologies , and hopefully arranging to send back what it had learned . about thirty-five years ago , the bbc contracted with astronomer/writer fred hoyle and writer frank elliot to create the scripts for a mini-series called a for andromeda . afa concerned the reception of a hoyle transmission , the construction of a huge computer , the computer's analysis of life on earth , and its creation of an apparently human intermediary to facilitate communication . she was played with ethereally inhuman perfection by the then-unknown julie christie . audience response was so strong that the bbc contracted for a sequel , andromeda breakthrough , which played to equally high ratings . dennis feldman , whose previous credits include the golden child , has never been noted for coherent , well-structured movie scripts ; they start out great , and then disintegrate into a morass of chase and action , mitigated only by the presence of the obligatory beautiful girl . feldman writes good scenes , but has no idea how to tell a story or write a movie , even with a previous version to use as a model . now , in species , we have a mundane retread of the andromeda plotline , derailed by a preoccupation with removing the clothes from the leading lady and further ruined by a mediocre attempt to emulate several recent horror films in terms of splatter , gore , and chases . species features ben kingsley , who is completely wasted in a badly-written portrayal of a feebly amoral scientist . forest whitaker and alfred molina are also served poorly by the script . the species story is relatively simple ; we have been radioing information about ourselves and our dna out into space since 1971 , and have been receiving answers for two years . ( note that , in the 1970's , we really didn't know diddly about the human genome structure , and were hardly in a position to radio out a set of blueprints for human beings . even today , all we can do is give information about dna and how it works , not a copy of human dna , because we don't have it analyzed yet . ) the answers we get from the unknown alien source are plans for recreating a member of the alien race , and doctor xavier finch , played by ben kingsley , is placed in charge of the attempt . the script begins to go off the deep end at this point , when the result is a beautiful young girl who can shape-shift into any of several ugly alien life forms . the first half of the film has something to offer , as " sil , " the alien girl , struggles with her multi-form existence , changing from beauty to lizard to giant cockroach and back again , all while trying to understand her own place in the cosmos . she seems oddly knowledgeable about human society , with glaring gaps where her social skills should be . her instincts are to mate and procreate , and some of the best scenes deal with her attempts in this area . escaping from her birth laboratory in utah , sil is pursued by a team of drafted civilians with orders to find her and kill her . she goes on an eating binge , spins herself a cocoon , and emerges as an adult , played by natasha henstridge , who goes a long way toward re-creating the sheerly inhuman beauty julie christie achieved in 1960 . the pursuers : michael madsen is an assassin/exterminator ; forrest whitaker is a convenient empath/psychic , just as though the u . s . government actually had such people on call . neither is able to do much with the writing and directing provided . whitaker's role seems to be aimed at making whitaker a male copy of star trek : the next generation's " counselor cleavage . " the other members of the strike team are played by marg helgenberger and alfred molina . kingsley and whitaker are both consummate professionals , too good to not work to the best of their abilities ; but the performances donaldson elicited from the rest of the cast are disappointing and bland , and it is apparent that the direction was a bit weak . h . r . giger's design for the main form of the alien creature is actually a bit boring when we finally get to see it , although previous digital effects were done quite smoothly . the main fault of species is lack of originality ; it starts out with a wonderful , albeit borrowed , premise , and then doesn't live up to it . all we get are chase scenes and a few nice sex scenes , with a few monsters tossed in . there is no buildup of tension and suspense , no climax worthy of the name ; species is just a sequence of " scare " scenes stuck together . the movie is carried by its chase and sex scenes , but not rescued by them . on the other hand , as an exercise in sci-fi action/ adventure , it certainly beats the ichor out of judge dredd . species earns an extra rating point or two for having ben kingsley and natasha henstridge on board , but by and large , it's fun only for those of us who really like this sort of thing . my personal rating is three stars , but knock one or two of those off if you don't enjoy pretty unclothed ladies and bloodthirsty alien monsters . mpaa classification : r ( violence , gore , nudity , sex , language ) stars : ben kingsley , michael madsen , forest whitaker , alfred molina , marg helgenberger , natasha henstridge directed by : roger donaldson produced by : frank mancuso jr . and dennis feldman typed by : dennis feldman cinematography : andrzej bartkowiak music : christopher young run time : 108 minutes aspect ratio : 2 . 35 : 1 from mgm , opens 7 july 1995
0	synopsis : when a meteorite crashlands in the arizona desert , community college professors ira kane ( duchovny ) and harry block ( jones ) are first on the scene . they discover that an alien lifeform has arisen from the rock and is evolving at an amazing rate . soon the army , advised by dr allison reed ( moore ) , moves in and forces kane and block out . but when the aliens begin to menace society , it may take the scientists' combined efforts to stop them before they terminate the evolution of another lifeform : humanity . review : " evolution " certainly has the ingredients for a decent comedy . it's directed by reitman , clearly trying to parlay his " ghostbusters " success into a twenty-first-century counterpart . it stars duchovny , and although one might question his judgment in lampooning his " x-files " character so soon after leaving the tv series , it should certainly provide him with plenty of ammunition . and then there's moore , who may not have much prior experience in comedy , but who has certainly proven her ability as an actress . a shame , then , that it all deteriorates into such a hopelessly unfunny morass . " evolution " is a movie more concerned with its special effects ( which are quite good ) than anything resembling a consistently funny script . it has its moments ( a scene in which jones' body is invaded by an alien is particularly entertaining ) , but there are embarrassingly long stretches that are utterly devoid of humour . moore is totally wasted , her clumsy shtick getting very old , very fast . duchovny has stunningly little in the way of material to work with . and the story is so formulaic , it could have been written by monkeys . part of what made " ghostbusters " so wonderful was a combination of a great script and characters the audience could root for . " evolution " is so mind-numbingly tedious that it's difficult not to start cheering for the aliens .
0	the above is dialogue from this film , taken almost completely in context , and not jazzed up a bit to make it more inept than it is . it is spoken between two of the protagonists somewhere in the film , and basically serves as a perfect example of what this film is about , especially if you realize that this exchange is meant to be taken seriously . mr . gregg " i'm-having-a-mid-life-crisis " araki , the writer and director of this film , wants to show how important teenagers are , and wants to show how they feel in such a horrible , horrible world . and how does he show it ? by really cheap surrealism , and moronic exchanges like this . oh , and it gets better . a similar bit of dialogue is said in the middle of , oh i dunno , the fiftieth sex scene in this film ( i'm not counting the several masturbation scenes ) . in it , one of the protagonists is humping away on top of another , and he says to her something along the lines of " do you ever wonder what life is all about ? " sorry , man : foreplay takes place before the act of coitus . of course , what do you expect : the film was written and directed by a guy who can't even spell his first name right ( yes , i know it's a cheap joke , but it had to be done ) . " the doom generation " is advertised as a road trip movie about people who go around killing others who attack them , and also as another " teen angst " film ( one of the slogans is " teen is a four-letter word " - hardy har har ) . it's a film about two angsty teens - amy blue ( rose macgowan , who would later play the buxom tatum in " scream " ) and jordon white ( james duval , who would go on to play randy quaid's son in " independence day " ) - who pick up an angsty homicidal maniac , xavier red ( jonathan schaech , who would go on to play the angsty lead guitarist in " that thing you do ! " - and by the way , do you get the symbolism ? red , white , and blue ? huh ? huh ? ) , and go on a road trip where three things happen , in no order : 1 ) they have sex ; 2 ) they run into weird people ; 3 ) they kill them . the film is basically a remix of a bunch of other far superior films . gregg araki obviously has seen such films as " easy rider , " " natural born killers , " and " kalifornia , " and tries to borrow elements from all these films and make something which is like a pop culture reference guide . but what he forgets is these films either represented something that this film does not , or that they dug deep into their subjects and brought something out of them to make them deeper . " the doom generation " doesn't want to do this ; it just wants to show everything in a surreal manner for the sole reason that araki does not want to deal with them on any kind of real level . he wants to show everything in a weird manner , and forgets what the scenes are supposed to be about . here's one scene , an earlier scene in the film : amy and jordan go into a quick-e mart type place to get food and other stuff . amy is smoking , and the clerk , an asian man mind you ( i love how racist this film is , i really do ) , tells her to put it out . she tells him to fuck off or something to that note . he points a shotgun at her , and she puts it out reluctantly . jordan makes two hot dogs , and takes them to the counter . the cash register rings up " 6 . 66 " ( oh , and this symbolism doesn't stop here ) . jordan checks for his wallet but it's really in the car . he asks amy for it , but she left her wallet in the car as well . the clerk brings out his shotgun again and asks for the money . they say they don't have it . he gets ready to kill them , but then xavier , who they ditched in the middle of nowhere a scene before , pops out of nowhere , fights with the clerk , and ends with him blowing the clerk's head clean off ( clean wound , mind you ) . the head is shown flying through the air , and lands in a fryer , where it begins to scream . i don't really object to this kind of sick violence , but this scene is in the film for one reason and one reason only : to gross you out . araki thinks that if he takes everything to the extreme , he'll make some kind of art . wrong . it takes a kind of resistance to make gore art . when george romero made " dawn of the dead , " a very gory flick even for today , he had control over everything and still was able to make everything sick . same goes for peter jackson's disgustingly gory " dead alive , " which features a 30 minute long fest of blood , guts , dismemberments , flesh chewing , and other assorted stuff , all ending with a guy with a lawn mower strapped to his body , taking out all sorts of zombies . it was sick , but it was also satirical , and controled . a scene like this has no purpose in the film , and it sticks out from everything else that happens . here's a couple other scenes : jordan and amy have sex in a bath tub and xavier watches , masturbates , and then licks the semen from his hand ; xavier and amy have sex and jordan watches from the window , masturbates , and falls backwards ; a man attacks the trio , and is stabbed in the crotch by a giant sword ( put there just so this could happen ) ; a fast food employee stalks the trio , and his arm is shot off by xavier ; and various other annoyances . also , look for about a million camoes from a wide assortment of people , who probably didn't really know what they were getting into when they signed up to do it ( just like peter o'toole , helen mirren , malcolm macdowell , and john gielgud probably didn't when they signed to be in " caligula " ) . people such as indie actors parker posey and nicky katt , alternative rock stars skinny puppy and perry farrel , hollywood madam heidi fleiss , christopher " peter brady " mcknight , amanda bearse , and margaret cho all grace the screen for a matter of seconds , then disappear so that we can return to the annoying main plot line . why are they here ? so that we can all point to them and say " hey , look it's ( fill in the blank ) ! wow ! " gimme a break . the film's meaning is pretty easy to detect : that , you know , teens are so precious , and the world is such a horrible place , that when the two entities collide , there's a giant explosion of horrific violence . otherwise defined as " teen angst , " or the belief that being a teenager is a horrible thing and that the world is too bad for you . look , i'm 19 years old . i went through a very brief teen angst thing which curiously lasted about as long as my taste in nirvana did . i've since moved on to " i don't really know what to do with my life " phase , but the teen angst phase is something which is so annoyingly sophomoric and ignorant that any film that thinks they're dealing with it on any kind of serious level is just beating the wrong horse . part of being a teen is experimenting , and testing the waters . it's not whining about how awful parents are , and purposely feeling dispondent . this is what the characters in this film do , and the film wants to show how they're these great people who are being punished by the world because they're teenagers , and how they try to defend themselves but can't totally overcome them . it's not their fault they kill people ; it's the world's ! what they really need is a reality check . the world is a bad place , and teenagers can be easily harmed because they are experimenting . but part of it is taking everything that happens to you and learning from it . the film thinks that teenagers are basically doomed , and there's nothing they can do about it . hence the title . not only does it have bad fallacy , but it can't even express this in an intelligent and coherent manner . everything's overly surreal , and all we get are scenes of graphic violence and graphic sex . how does xavier licking semen off his hand express teen angst ? how does a talking decapitated head show that teens are dispondent because the world makes them this way ? and why does the film constantly go back to the teen angst issue of the film ? if araki had any kind of competence in writing or direction , he'd show them for what they really are . and if he didn't want the satirical approach , he'd show the real problems with the world . and if you still don't think that " the doom generation " is incompetent on every single possible level it could be , take the acting . rose macgowan is horrible . yes , she proved herself talented in " scream , " but she's so bad in " the doom generation " that if i had not seen her in " scream , " i would have christened her one of the worst actresses working in films today . her entire performance is one-note ( bitchy ) , and the one scene where she cries over a dead animal is so forced that it's laughable . equally bad is jonathan schaech , who wants to be the slacker serial killer : someone who doesn't have any remorse because emotions cause some kind of strain . his performance is annoying as hell , and granted , he was better in " that thing you do ! " and then there's james duval . let's just say he makes keanu reeves look like brando . he has the same kind of slacker stuttering , only much much much worse , and every line he says is so bad that i have now deemed him " least talented actor in the world . " i have seen lots of bad actors , but james duval has got to be the worst . or at least somewhere up there . here's another example of a bad scene , if you're still not convinced : the film opens up in a club where they're playing nine inch nail's most banal song , " heresy " ( example of the lines : " god is dead/and no one cares/if there is a hell/i'll see you there " ) , and as the song plays , and red strobe lights show the patrons dancing , the film pans over to amy , just standing there , looking dispondent . the film closes in on her , she looks right at the camera and says " fuck . " no explanation of this should be necessary . and finally , a note to gregg : grow up . really . move out of your parent's basement , read something other than salinger , and get a day job . and don't quit it .
1	there are some works of art that are almost impossible to review , not because of their own complexity , but because of their legendary status which prevents the reviewer to say anything original . one of such masterpieces is casablanca , probably not the best film in the history of the seventh art , but definitely the most popular one . its popularity can be measured not in a multitude of more or less disguised remakes that were made in more than half a century since its premiere , but also in countless tributes and references that movie makers use in their works to this day . casablanca is also a movie that has the very rare virtue of both being praised by the critics and loved by general audience . one of the things that makes this film even more unique was the fact that it was doomed to fail , at least judging by conventional movie-making wisdom of its time . it was based on a broadway play so mediocre that it hadn't been produced on stage ; screenplay by three writers - julius g . epstein , philip j . epstein and howard koch - was beeing written as shooting went along ; the main actors were producers' second choice , and , finally , man behind camera , michael curtiz was considered to be capable , but not great director . however , the movie was commercially successful and earned three " oscars " , including the one for the best film . until this very day , it is considered to be the best example of hollywood film- making in its own golden age . the plot of the movie was heavily influenced by the needs of ww2 propaganda , yet it also used rather complicated and now almost forgotten political circumstances of that global conflict in order to make intriguing story . in december 1941 , casablanca , exotic port on the atlantic coast of north africa is controlled by officially neutral , yet nazi-collaborating french vichy government . thousands of refugees from war-torn europe are stuck there on the way to lisbon and safety of america , and ready to pay any price for precious exit visas . many shady characters thrive on their misery , including the corrupt police chief , captain renault ( rains ) . his best friend is rick blaine ( bogart ) , who used to be idealistic anti-fascist , and now owns popular night club in casablanca and lives by his own cynical philosophy of " sticking his neck for nobody " . however , everything changes when he gets in possession of two precious extra visas . this event coincides with the arrival of two new refugees to casablanca . one of them is victor laszlo ( henreid ) , czech resistance leader who escaped three times from nazi concentration camps and became the legend of enslaved europe . he is accompanied by his beautiful wife ilsa lund ( bergman ) , with whom rick had a stormy affair in the eve of nazi occupation of paris . the couple needs visas , especially because of the gestapo major strasser ( veidt ) being on their trail . rick is now forced to choose between love , wounded pride , self-preserving interest and his own hatred of fascism . the casting for this movie seems influenced by divine inspiration - humphrey bogart , most legendary actor in the history of cinema , is one of the rare character actors who elevated his persona to the star status . bogart's portrayal of rick as complicated man , torn between idealistic past and bitter present , was so perfect , that his icon would forever be connected with that character . another icon in his company is ingrid bergman , great actress of old hollywood , here in her artistic and visual prime . the cinematic coupling of bogart and bergman became one of the main symbols of that era of filmmaking - some happier times when the romance on the screen didn't look childish nor trite like in some more contemporary works . for many people , casablanca is probably the best romantic film ever made . but the reason for that isn't the romance itself - it's the realistic story of people forced to make tough , and often wrong choices in their life . the casting of casablanca was right on target not just in a case of main leads . the supporting actors also did a marvellous job . sidney longstreet and peter lorre were here mainly to give a mystic flavour spotted in a previous bogart classic - john huston's maltese falcon ; yet both of them managed to portray colourful and original characters . another shining example of good casting is now almost forgotten paul henreid as the weakest part of love triangle ; character of victor laszlo has believable charisma and looks like a somebody who could inspire millions of people to rise against nazi tiranny . unfortunately , the charisma that burdened laszlo , leaves little place for difficult choice , making his character forever overshadowed by rick/ilsa coupling . however , rick and ilsa actually have a serious competiton for most memorable character in casablanca . captain renault , brilliantly portrayed by claude rains in a role of a lifetime , was embodiment of perfect , almost unmatched balance between ethical corruption and physical charm . despite being the undoubtful villain in almost entire movie , rains managed to make renault sympathetic character , and his final conversion to the side of good , symbolized in not so subtle gesture at the end of movie looked unnecessary . rains also gave another dimension to the movie , making it even more ambiguous ; people who like to analyse movies to death discovered signs of homosexuality in renault's relationship towards rick , and rick's final words leave room for even more outrageous speculations . together with well-drawn characters and exciting story , the movie was good in creating his own atmosphere . professional nitpickers would probably have a field day in discovering numerous historical and geographical inaccuracies , but casablanca is still a shining example of hollywood ww2 movie that is beliavable , if not realistic . any way , even if we don't see it as a historical document , casablanca is movie that can be source of entertainment as well as infinite inspiration .
0	you don't need to have seen the original " species " to appreciate how utterly lousy " species ii " is . with few exceptions , sequels tend to be worse than the films that spawned them , but the fact that " species ii " is a follow-up isn't the only reason it's so miserable . it's the predictable storyline , the cardboard characters , the banal dialogue , the failed attempts at humor , the revolting special effects , the gratuitous nudity ( all female , of course ) , the bad acting , and the bland direction . the plot , simply geared at getting the alien species back on planet earth so that it can reak some more havoc , involves three astronauts landing on mars and inadvertently bringing some alien slime in a soil sample back aboard their shuttle . the slime , well , sort of jumps out at them and the screen turns black . that should have been the end of the movie right there . back on terra firma , at least one of the crew is now a carrier of alien dna and , as you'll remember if you saw the first movie , driven by a strong urge to procreate . on a parallel track , government scientists have cloned a version of sil from the first film ( now called eve , again " played " by natasha henstridge ) and are keeping her around for some testing . this , apparently , includes observing eve's reaction to " the dukes of hazzard " tv show , which she appears to enjoy . eve's bio-rhythms go off the scale each time one of her kinfolk " mates , " which we are forced to witness in gross-out detail , but otherwise there doesn't appear to be a whole lot of reason why henstridge is in this film , unless it was written into her contract ( let's hope it cited one sequel and one sequel only ) . eve finally breaks free of her confines--and her bra--for the finale , but the effects are so messy you can't really see what's going on . peter boyle is totally wasted as an institutionalized scientist who screams " i told 'em not to go ! " at the top of his lungs , referring to the mars mission but more likely aimed at the makers of this piffle . michael madsen reprises his role of press lennox ( so that he can enter high security areas , flash a badge and claim to be press , maybe ? ) , as does marg helgenberger as dr . laura baker , the one subjecting eve to the tv reruns . they're both unbelievably wooden . what's a talented filmmaker like peter medak ( " the ruling class , " " the krays , " " let him have it " ) doing directing this tripe , i wonder . it's an unfortunate trend , this : once-talented directors throwing in the towel and lending their names to unchallenging horror flicks like " species ii . " last year peter hyams gave us " the relic " ; no thanks necessary there . and the first " species " was helmed by roger donaldson who , although certainly no genius behind the camera , had demonstrated much better judgment with his previous choice of projects . is it just that there are no better offers out there ? " species ii " is worthless . worse than that , it's also exploitative , offensive , and insulting to the intelligence at every turn . it's not that there isn't anything positive to say about the film . there is . after 92 minutes , it ends .
0	plot : a rich guy who doesn't believe in love , orders a mail-order bride for himself . that very evening , the couple is married and fall madly in love soon thereafter . but what's this ? one of them might not be the person they are pretending to be ? wow . . . a sin , indeed . critique : easily one of the worst movies that i've seen all year . too long , too boring , too predictable and too ridiculous for anyone interested in watching a good movie . what the hell were they thinking when they made this thing ? ( it's no wonder that the film has been sitting on the racks for about a year ) this felt like a really bad tv movie of the week , with some nudity stuffed in from time to time , just to wake up the audience . have you ever switched channels and fallen upon one of those ridiculously melodramatic tv movies , one that you just couldn't help but switch back to from time to time , just to make sure that it wasn't part of some sick joke ? well , this movie is exactly like that , only it isn't a joke , it isn't on tv and you are asked to pay money to see it ! ! i say again . . . what the shite were they thinking ? okay , so where do i start ? first of all , the trailer of this film gives away the movie's main plot twist , the betrayal . so for the first half hour of the film , you're basically just sitting there , watching these two " lovers " go through the motions until the " betrayal " occurs . whoopee , big surprise . second of all , angelina jolie is horribly miscast in this part . why ? well , it's like this : not for one second do you ever believe that she is not a nasty backstabbing woman ! i mean , it's like all of those people who complained about jack nicholson being psycho from the start of the shining , well , the same goes here . every look in jolie's eyes screams " psycho " ! then of course , you have the case of the " patsy " husband , a man who just can't seem to figure out anything in time . i mean . . . how boring is that for the audience ? you're watching this guy screw up time after time after time , and somehow , we're supposed to feel sorry or care about this dude . no , thanks ! and if we don't care about him , and we really don't care about her ( she's a beeyatch and as confused as we are about her actual motivations in the film ) , who the hell are we supposed to care about in this film ? well , i'll tell you . the only thing that i was worrying about the whole way through this picture was whether or not i'd actually fall asleep before the end credits rolled . no suspense , no chemistry between the leads , no real love or passion , no sense of surprise , plenty of plot holes for everyone and an extra moronic ending . so why am i even giving this film a rating of three points ? well , it's actually pretty simple . i liked the locations in the movie and the groovy score , but my primary reason for slipping three notches onto this bedpost is for the gratuitous shots of jolie's boobies ( that's two points right there ! ) and another one for antonio's ass ( hairless , just for the record ) . everything else in this movie was pointless , boring and just plain stupid . try imagining a soft-porn movie . . . but without the plot ! that's pretty much what you've got here . a low point in the careers of both stars . oops , i almost forgot to mention the crappy dialogue . . . god oh mighty . . . make it stop ! ! where's joblo coming from ? american psycho ( 9/10 ) - cruel intentions ( 8/10 ) - eyes wide shut ( 6/10 ) - fatal attraction ( 8/10 ) - playing by heart ( 7/10 ) - under suspicion ( 7/10 ) - what lies beneath ( 8/10 ) - what women want ( 4/10 ) - whipped ( 7/10 )
0	director doug ellin's kissing a fool , released earlier this year , is an aptly titled comedy about two plastic couples housed in an artificial story . like a sitcom with jokes so lame that it would be impossible to overlay a laugh track on it , the movie meanders along insulting the viewers' intelligence in almost every frame . the script by james frey and the director is filled with vapid actors who read meaningless lines you've heard before . ( " i'm not wearing any underwear , " the bimbo tells the famous sportscaster , max , in what she assumes will be a sure-fire come-on line . ) max , chicago's biggest playboy , decides to get married after a whirlwind love affair with sam , short for samantha . max and sam possess two irritating personalities , and they hold little chemistry for each other or the audience . max is played without any style by david schwimmer . schwimmer , whose acting talent is playing characters devoid of personality , makes an unlikely lover . his costar , mili avital as sam , is cut from the same cloth , so they can be argued to be a matched pair . after all , people of the same intelligence are naturally drawn to each other , ditto for similar looks , so why shouldn't the personality-challenged be attracted ? the implausible plot has max asking his best friend , jay ( jason lee ) , to hit on sam as a test . jay is supposed to try to get her to sleep with him , but stop short of the actual act . max , being promiscuous by nature , worries that his future bride may have the same need to sleep around as he does . the idea of flirting with the beautiful sam makes jay so sick that he becomes unable to eat or work . neither the script nor the actors make this test believable . " the 64 , 000 question is : how do you know you're with the wrong person so you can avoid wreaking havoc on major parts of your life ? " jay asks in one of the unsuccessful attempts at adding some seriousness to the film . finally , there is the film's attempt at physical comedy . jay's ex-girlfriend natasha ( vanessa angel ) becomes infatuated with jay again once she thinks he is going out with someone else . natasha rips jay's shirt open after pushing him down onto the sofa . as she throws her hair on his bare chest , she demands he pull it . this is supposed to be funny ? most films have some saving grace . some bit part was done especially well or some scene managed to be funny even if the rest of the picture wasn't . kissing a fool , on the other hand , has nothing to recommend it . kissing a fool runs 1 : 45 . it is rated r for profanity and sexuality and would be acceptable for most teenagers .
1	the word 'rest' in the title should be stressed since this is a movie that lacks any action scenes at all . what does takes place is more based on character development . the film starts right in the middle of the lives of four people : nick , beth , carol and sid . what they have done earlier is for the most part only hinted at . nick and beth have a relationship and have decided to move from enfield , arizona to butte , montana . ( and i who thought that butte was pronounced slightly different . . . ) carol is nick's ex-girlfriend and beth's best friend , sid is a joint-smoking painter that comes to repaint their house before the new tenants move in . obviously based on a stage play , the problem with the movie is that there's a lot of things left out . it's not obvious that nick and beth are in love with each other , the reason why nick was fired from his job isn't mentioned . and why nick suddenly decide to go visit his parents remain a mystery , when he hasn't seen them for many years . set in a small ( fictional ? ) town in arizona was a good move , since this makes the film focus on the four characters and not on their surroundings . the name of the city is not important , this could take place anywhere with four young people in a house discussing life and the future . particularly impressive is bridget fonda as beth who end up in bed with sid when her fiance nick leaves her . not an actress that i have found interesting earlier or seen many pictures with , but i'll keep an eye on her in the future . interesting trivia : this was rated r in the us but rated 'barntill ? ten' in sweden wich means that anyone at any age can see it .
1	capsule : the world will come to an end at midnight . everyone knows it and must make a final peace with the last hours of their lives . this is an intelligent science fiction film with no special effects , just personalities and ideas . , high +2 ( -4 to +4 ) - it is the last night of the planet and several different people are reacting each in their own way to the end . the film covers 6 pm to midnight . the main character is patrick played by david mckellan who also wrote and directed . - reminiscent of on the beach . but much more so of a story richard matheson wrote , " the last day . " ( p . s . on rereading the 1953 matheson , this film is almost a loose adaptation of that story . the similarities may be mere coincidence , but they are numerous and they are very striking . ) - us release may be problematical . the title is lackluster and non-memorable , though very appropriate when you know about the film . also provincial americans may not care about the end of the world coming to toronto . they probably would feel it would not affect them . perhaps a pbs release would be possible . - patrick's family has declared it christmas and are hurt that the ( adult ) children will not spend the whole evening with them . - grocery stores mostly looted . it seems though that one of everything is left . - some people continue business as usual , some want sex , some react with religion , some riot . some people are in total denial . - much comedy , much drama . - very canadian cast . - it does not get dark . it is just always daytime . - radio playing " last night i didn't get to sleep at all . " how appropriate . - david cronenberg as a kind of bland functionary manager at the gas company . genvieve bujold as french teacher visiting former student . - science fiction film with no special effects , cost about two million dollars . - the person you have been thrown together with by chance becomes the most important person to you for the rest of your life . - why would it be so precisely at midnight ? what about other time zones ? what is the nature of what is destroying the world ?
1	sometimes you just have to tip your hat to a film . sometimes you just have to jump on the bandwagon and enjoy the ride . i saw the truman show with an audience full of teenagers , most of whom were no doubt drawn by ace ventura himself and hoping to see his latest take on fart jokes . surprised , they may have been , when they realized that this picture actually had something to say . but by the attentiveness of the crowd i'd say they were won over - as was i . i can't tell yet if truman really is that good , or if it only seems that good in comparison to the awful mountain of crap spewed forth from the bowls of hollywood so far this year . time alone will make that call . but by the end of the film we were all on truman burbank's side . we were concerned for his well-being , and wanted him to win . that we felt as we did is a tribute both to the film and to jim carrey , who has achieved legitimacy at last . the truman show is a film best viewed cold , with as little foreknowledge as possible about the plot . unless you're under a media blackout , however , you probably know the basics . carrey stars as truman burbank , a capra-esque everyman insurance agent living with his beautiful wife meryl ( laura linney ) in the south florida island town of seahaven , which looks like michael eisner's idea of the perfect american small town . truman would seem to live the perfect middle class lifestyle , complete with a working wife , a best bud , friendly neighbors and interesting co-workers . there is tragedy in his past - his father drowned in a horrible boating accident , leaving truman with a dreadful fear of water , and of travel in general - but overall , life is good . but then one day as truman leaves his house for work , a klieg light falls magically from the sky . this curious event may lead truman to discover what the rest of the world already knows : that he is a prisoner on the world's biggest soundstage , that his wife , friends and relatives are all actors paid to interact with him , and that his life has , for over 10 , 000 days , been broadcast as the world's most popular television program . what makes the first hour of truman so enjoyable to watch is the magical verisimilitude painstakingly constructed by niccol and weir . the soundstage , we're told , is " only the second man-made structure visible from space . " truman's movements are tracked ceaselessly by 5 , 000 cameras scattered throughout the town : button cams , dashboard cams , mirror cams , wife cams , big cams and small cams . weir cuts the film so we're never quite sure if we're watching truman through the camera of director weir or through the camera of the show's omnipotent creator christof ( ed harris ) who oversees the show from a control room built into the man-made moon in seahaven's sky . the second act offers a plethora of clues for truman as to the truth of his existence . his best friend marlon ( noah emmerich ) always has a six pack of beer with him . his wife seems to exist in an eternal commercial in which she is always endorsing the latest hot household product . he sees the same people walking in the same set patterns all over town . one wonders why he didn't pick up on any of this earlier , but christof has an answer for this : " people tend to accept the reality with which they're presented . " nevertheless , truman begins to grow restless , and dreams of escape to fiji , where an old college sweetheart ( natasha mcelhone ) supposedly lives . this convincing reality of television as progenitor of reality is a magical and provocative concept ; the best thing jim carrey does is stay out of its way . by underplaying truman , he allows the subtle manipulations of the film to take over . there is a particularly poignant scene in which truman confides his fears to marlon , and marlon answers with best-friend sincerity , " i'd gladly step in front of a bus for you . " but that line was fed to marlon through an earpiece by christof . the abject cruelty to which truman is subjected to hits home - and from that moment , we're on his side . the truman show derives much of its success from playing to our own secret paranoid fantasies - haven't we all , at least once , doubted our place in the world , doubted the sincerity of those closest to us ? ultimately , however , the picture rises above its own artifice to raise some real questions about the relationship of humankind and our creator . what does god really think of us ? does he resent our abandonment of paradise ? who exactly is watching us , up there in the sky ? if you enjoy the picture as much as i did , credit weir for allowing the magic of the screenplay to work . as for carrey - well , truman burbank is the kind of role that jimmy stewart was born to play . carrey is no jimmy stewart ; to his credit , he doesn't try to be . he just tries to feel the way you or i would , if we suddenly found out that the whole world was watching us .
0	the original _babe_ was my favorite movie of 1995 , a sleeper hit that transcended its target audience . being a surprise commercial and critical success , it had no marketing tie-ins , which limited its final take . thus , babe 2 arrives , with a budget greater than the money made in babe 1 . plush dolls , vending machines hawking t-shirts , and macy's thanksgiving day balloons arrive for holiday money-grubbing . too late . this is a sad review to write , because babe 2 not only does _not_ live up to the original , but it doesn't even come to a fraction of it . i shouldn't expect that sequels to modern fairy tales to match their predecessors' magic , but this film tries too hard , and loses its charm . consider a driver applying the accelerator with great intensity , unaware that his car is in neutral . imagine with me , if you will , _scream_'s jamie kennedy , explaining the " rules " for sequels like babe 2 . ( 1 ) there must be _more_ talking animals . ( 2 ) there must be _more_ slapstick comedy . ( 3 ) there must be _more_ songs for those mice to sing : that's cute . ( 4 ) keep the story cards to break up the action : that's cute too , even though " the pig gets wise " made no sense , given the context of that story partition . ( 5 ) there must be action , however illogical , that will conjure up pivotal scenes from the original : the trademark song that nobody remembers the words to , the baa-ram-ewe secret code , the " that'll do , pig . that'll do . " now throw in the limitations : ( a ) james cromwell , now a hot commodity , has limited time on the set ( or maybe he didn't approve of the script ) . ( b ) christine cavanaugh , the voice of the original babe , demands more money ( $200 , 000--paltry considering the $80 million budget ) . out . e . g . daily comes in with noticable results . ( c ) george miller , the director , is more well-known for his dark futuristic mad max films and his twilight zone segment , not for kiddie fare ( and no , he didn't direct that _andre_ film in '94 ) . ( d ) the special effects are impressive , _but limited_ . babe talks , but most of the time from a single shot , repeated over and over again . ( babe is center screen , looking straight into the camera , with a happy smirk--regardless of whether he's happy , or scared , or tired ) . season now with the " original " elements , which , as we will find out , are straight from the screenwriting-is-hell bin . ( i ) change the venue into " the big city " . this has been praised as wildly original . excuse me : didn't _home alone_ do this several years ago ? how about the muppets ? even _the bad news bears_ travelled to tokyo . sorry . no dice . side note : to give the city a fairy-tale look , george miller crafted a fantastical fantasyland that merges the landmarks of the world's great cities , and yes , it _is_ impressive . but this too is over-used , repeating the same view over and again on multiple occasions . and , for the most part , babe _remains in the hotel_ . ( ii ) given the limitations of cromwell , the human element is taken over by " the boss' wife " played by magda szubanski . s-t-r-e-t-c-h . she's not a lead actress-type , she's not funny enough in her physical comedy , and she's simply embarrassing in some of her pratfalls . ( have her arrested falsely on drug charges ! have her accidentally incite a riot with biker dudes and scantily clad babes ! have her bounce around on a bungee cord at a prestigious benefit dinner ! ) i was hoping for a little smirk during these scenes , but i felt sorry for the embarrassment that she put herself in . i am restraining myself from talking about the dark nature of the film , the violence , the scene where a pit bull dangles from the bridge , head submerged underwater . even the best fairy tales have a bit of the macabre in it , as the brothers grimm have demonstrated . no . . . my problem is with the story , or lack thereof . _babe_ is sent out to save the hoggett farm , but once in the city , that story is forgotten . being a good-natured pig in the midst of the cynicism of his environs is nice , but , other than rescue that aforementioned pit bull , what did babe actually _do_ ? without giving the ending away , the farm is saved from a left-field quirk that had nothing to do with the pig . speaking of " pig " , or , " pig-pig-pig-pig-pig ! " . the word " pig " is so overused , had they changed it to an expletive , and had the pig be al pacino , i could have been watching _scarface_ . this is screenwriting ? further , i cannot explain the deep gnaw at my gut in the many scenes where accidents happen to good people in fantastically elaborate setups . had it been a cartoon , and the victim be an equivalent of elmer fudd , maybe my reaction would have been softened . but to farmer hoggett ? his wife ? an elderly mickey rooney ? much too irreverent . ( " quick ! splice those singing mice into those scenes ! " ) . the film isn't a colossal failure . i did like glenne headley's schmoozy chimpanzee . i liked the pink poodle . the dog on the cart , who momentarily thinks he's in dog heaven . and a weird looking guy who may have been doubly-cast as an airport employee and a judge . but most of the time , i was looking down , in boredom , or in embarrassment over the hacked-up script . them singing mice , those chapter partitions , the proficient acting of the animals-- none of these can compensate for a story . let me spoil the final scene : farmer hoggett looks at pig , proud , says " that'll do , pig . that'll do . " that's it . hope i didn't ruin it for you . but tell me this : what the heck did that pig _do_ ?
1	mpaa : not rated ( though i feel it would likely be pg , for martial-arts violence . ) with three movies already ( re ) released theatrically in america , and at least three more on their way , jackie chan is one of the newest " hot properties " in action adventure stardom , and it's just about time . for over twenty-five years , jackie's been starring in martial arts and action movies in hong kong , thrilling audiences with both an incredible grasp of acrobatics and martial arts and a wonderful sense of comedy . " drunken master " has the distinction of being the first jackie chan movie to " make it big " --this is the movie that supposedly set jackie up for big stardom in hong kong . i'm not entirely sure why , exactly . in many ways , " drunken master " is similar to most of jackie's other early films , such as " fearless hyena " i and ii , " master with cracked fingers " , " half a loaf of kung fu " , " spiritual kung fu " , and others . in fact , looking at all these early films together , one gets the impression that they were stamped out , cookie-cutter style , at a rate of four to six per year , all using the same casts and telling very similar stories . to be honest , i think that early jackie chan movies are something of an acquired taste . they're quite different from action movies as we know them in america . these films tend to be set in the chinese countryside in an indeterminate period sometime in the distant past , with fairly slow plots that often meander far afield and sometimes seem to exist only for the intention of stringing comedy and fight scenes together . " drunken master " , though its plot is tighter than some , is no exception . ( as an aside , " drunken master " was the first jackie chan movie i ever saw , and i saw it the way it was meant to be seen . . . in a movie theater in seattle , as part of an asian film festival . at the time , i didn't really think it was anything special . . . but after having seen more films like it , it's kind of grown on me . ) " drunken master " 's storyline is very similar to that of other early jackie chan movies , such as " fearless hyena " i and ii and " master with cracked fingers " --slacker martial arts student is taught the martial arts by a harsh-seeming master , and has a big fight with an evil bad guy in the end ( a formula that has been " adapted , " to put it kindly , by american films such as karate kid ) . more specifically , jackie chan plays the part of wong fei-hong , aka " naughty panther , " a fun-loving , practical-joking kung fu student who is too good at kung fu for his own good , but not _quite_ good enough . after embarrassing his instructor's assistant by beating him roundly , then beating up a bully in a marketplace , wong fei-hong tries to hit on a pretty girl , but discovers that she , and her mother , can hit back , better than he can . . . and is further chagrinned to discover that the two women are his cousin and aunt , respectively . his father , wong kei-ying , is unhappy about this , and is further annoyed when the father and brother of the bully show up to sue for damages . kei-ying soon institutes a harsh regimen of punishment , which fei-hong does not like at all . while escaping from this punishment , fei-hong meets up with a drunken old man , who proceeds to thrash him soundly , then take him on as a student and thrash him some more . this turns out to be su hua-chi , a legendary master of drunken-style kung fu . he assigns fei-hong a series of bizarre tasks , such as filling jugs with water while hanging upside down from a frame , cracking walnuts with his hands , and other such exercises , that seem like more pointless cruelty but are actually strengthening him up . then , when he's ready , he teaches him the seven styles of drunken kung fu . unfortunately , the lazy fei-hong only practices six of them . . . " drunken master " features some wonderful martial arts sequences , with jackie winning some fights and losing others . it's been said before , but i'll say it again--these fights don't just _happen_ , they're as carefully choreographed as any ballet performance , and it shows . in his fights , jackie often makes use of objects found in his environment-- benches , jugs , cups , bowls , fruits and vegetables--often in new and surprising ways . the fight scenes , particularly those toward the end of the film , are unparallelled in most american films . whether jackie wins or loses , it's really something to see . . . and it's often as funny as anything , too . and funny is the other thing jackie chan is very , very good at . there's very little that's new in this movie--jackie winning fights , jackie getting beaten badly by a master , jackie going through punishment or training . . . these schticks have all been seen before , in any one of several dozen similar jackie movies from the seventies and early eighties . but they're still hilarious as ever . likewise , jackie has a _great_ supporting cast , many of whom were also in other early jackie films , and they're often the source of plenty of hilarity on their own . the really big thing about " drunken master " , though , that inspired several copycats ( including a couple starring jackie himself ) and a sequel fifteen years later , was the drunken-style kung fu . i'm not certain whether or not this is actually a genuine style of kung fu , but the principle behind it is to imitate the wobbly movements of a drunkard to lull the enemy into a false sense of security . . . and it apparently helps if you're drunk while you're doing it . genuine or not , i have to admit , there's just something incredibly fun about watching a fellow who looks utterly sloshed wading into a group of startled opponents and making mincemeat out of them before they even realize what's going on . come to think of it , perhaps this element is what accounts for this film's success over any of the other jackie films . . . it's not just martial arts , it's the kind of martial arts that makes you stop and go , " whoa . . . " on the negative side , the cinematography in this film is nothing special , the film stock is rather primitive , the plot is often rather slow , and the subtitles are sometimes extremely hard to read against the background . " gone with the wind " , this isn't . still , if you like martial arts films , or like what you've seen so far of jackie chan and want to see more , give it a shot . it's much more " real " than chuck norris or jean-claude van damme . you might very well like it . another interesting thing about " drunken master " has to do with its video availability in the us . " drunken master " is the only early jackie chan movie that i know of that you can find in its original , letterboxed , hong kong subtitled form , commercially available on vhs ( from magnum video , in a gold box , for about $10 ) . there are plenty of other early jackie films around , but these are typically either in dubbed , pan-and-scanned form or else import tapes priced for rental instead of purchase . thankfully , " drunken master " , at least , is available in the aspect ratio in which it was meant to be seen , at a very affordable price . if you like " drunken master " , take a look at the numerous other early jackie chan films that are out there ( even the dubbed ones aren't really _too_ bad . . . if nothing else , you can enjoy the martial arts choreography while making fun of the dialogue ) . i particularly recommend " spiritual kung fu " , " half a loaf of kung fu " , the " fearless hyena " movies , and " snake & crane arts of shaolin " . also , the mostly-unrelated-storywise sequel , " drunken master ii " , will hit theaters in american release sometime later this year ( though what its american-release title will be is still uncertain ) and comes _highly_ recommended by this reviewer . also , for a rather different interpretation of the character wong fei-hong ( who is in fact a popular figure from chinese folklore ) , i've been told to suggest the " once upon a time in china " series starring jet li ( though i haven't personally seen any of them yet ) . if you choose to watch " drunken master " , i really hope you enjoy it , and i hope it starts to open your eyes to the wonderful world of asian cinema that's out there . all in all , i give this film an .
0	so much for sweet returns . after smart horror films were starting to be made again after the exploitative 80's slasher movies , starting with 1996's " scream , " and followed by " scream 2 , " " urban legend , " and the original , " i know what you did last summer , " a film like , " i still know what you did last summer , " was bound to be made sooner or late . it is a perfect example of the exact reason why horror films temporarily burned out , and that is because they reached for the lowest-common-denominator in filmmaking , favoring non-stop deaths and gore for suspense , and trading in fleshed out , likable characters for one-dimensional nitwits . it has been exactly one year since julie james ( jennifer love hewitt ) suffered through the ordeal of being terrorized by ben willis , a psychopathic fisherman whom her friends and she accidentally hit in the middle of the road , and then , thinking he was dead , dumped him into the ocean . since then , julie has relocated to boston university , and although often paranoid and haunted by bad dreams , she has been able to put her life back together . when julie's friend , karla ( brandy ) , is called up by a radio station and answers correctly what the capital of brazil is , she wins a vacation to the bahamas for four people , which also includes karla's horny boyfriend , tyrell ( mekhi phifer ) , and will ( matthew settle ) , who karla sets julie up with after her own boyfriend , ray ( freddie prinze jr . , also returning from the original ) , doesn't show up . when they reach the secluded island , they discover it is the last day of the open season , and will be stranded there for the 4th of july weekend with a few employees to fend off a violent storm headed for them . of course , julie , her friends , and the workers aren't the only ones there , as the murderous ben willis , dressed in fisherman garb , returns to seek revenge on julie once and for all . it is a sad state of affairs when a movie like , " i still know what you did last summer , " is made . i am a very big fan of horror movies , and so it is especially disheartening to find out that this sequel to " ikwydls , " which i am a fan of , is almost an exact replica of a " friday the 13th " movie . while the original focused more on the story and characters , as well as genuinely suspenseful moments , thanks to the screenplay by kevin williamson ( who didn't return to write the sequel , and it shows ) , " i still know . . . " has no story to speak of , and is so vacuous of ideas , that the filmmakers , were forced to have a murder occur every five minutes just to keep the audience interested . also gone are any signs of character development , and since every single character died before i got to know them , all i was left with was to stare at the screen , indifferent to what was going on . while i cared about the fates of the characters in the original , it made no difference to me in this sequel who lived and died . they were all paper-thin and pointless , except to become victims to the lethal hook of the fisherman . another element that made the original so memorable were some superbly crafted set-pieces , like the store sequence with sarah michelle gellar , but there are none to speak of in this sequel ( although they do come close at one moment with brandy ) . since so many people were killed every couple minutes , the suspense and scares evaporated faster than salt in water . also of note is the mystery of the second killer , and accomplice to ben , but it is obvious from the first frame who it is , and so i couldn't even have fun at that , like i did in the " scream " movies and , " urban legend . " it figures that just as slasher films were starting to get some recognition again , a film would come along and ruin it for everyone else . maybe the people who made , " i still know what you did last summer , " should have realized that in order to make a good movie , you must have a screenplay---or at least one that isn't such a black hole for thoughts and ideas . the ending of the film inevitably leaves the door wide open for a third part , but judging from this amazingly lackluster first sequel , everyone involved should have quit while they were still ahead .
1	barely scrapping by playing at a nyc piano bar , timothy hutton returns to his massachusetts hometown for a couple of weeks . on the surface , he's coming home for a high school reunion , but since this is a movie , you know that he's really looking for some major life decisions . a fairly " small " film , this sports an impressive ensemble cast including uma thurman , rosie o'donnell and a bunch of actors that you've seen before but can't quite place . commendable jobs all around ; they seem like real people . hutton arrives at his past and is greeted by his spirit-dead father , terminally goony brother and old high school chums . all of his old buddies are engaged in the snow removal business and most are in the midst of a relationship crisis . the perfect stuff for a comedy about people in the twenties angst . he meets and falls for the new next door neighbor : a beautiful intelligent lively girl who is obviously taken with him . the problem is that she is only 13 . unconsummated ( no , it's not _that_ type of movie ) , their relationship builds and neither knows what to do with it . star-crossed lovers with no where to go . so hutton is gaga over a barely-teen , one of his buddies is two-timing his girlfriend with a married old flame , another's girlfriend is sleeping with a meat cutter ( " and she's a vegetarian ! " ) . things are a mess . enter uma thurman . the beautiful stranger in town for a few days is both a delight in the film and one of its minor downfalls . her character is fun to watch . even more entertaining is observing the guys falling over themselves trying to impress her . like the lone ranger , before she leaves , she solves most of the problems and sets everyone onward with their lives . the ending is a bit too pat . everything is tied up with a neat little bow . rosie o'donnell is a stand-out in her limited screen time with her brash personality and " tell it like it is " pronouncements . structured somewhat like a " diner , a few years later " , this feel-good story is a good time , but ends a little too nice .
0	one of the most blatantly obvious signs that often-acclaimed director sidney lumet's " gloria , " a remake of the 1980 john cassavetes film , had absolutely no effect on me occurred when i was driving home from the theatre . suddenly , i realized that since i had stood up from my theatre seat five minutes before , i had not thought once about the film i had just invested nearly two hours of my life in . when a movie is over , aren't we supposed to think about it for a while , and have a conversation about it with the acquaintances we have just watched it with ? i thought so , but , for one , i saw this particular picture by myself , and #2 , even if i had been with someone there wouldn't have been anything to talk about in the first place . to be sure , " gloria " begins with a stirring , rather poignant prologue in which a seven-year-old boy's family is brutally gunned down by mobsters , in search of a disc his father had with incriminating evidence on it . right before the men broke in , of course , his father gave him the disc to escape with . eventually , the boy , named nicky nunez ( jean-luke figueroa ) , is caught by the mobsters , and taken back to their apartment . meanwhile , gloria ( sharon stone ) has just gotten out of prison for a crime she didn't commit and returns to her ex-boyfriend ( jeremy northam ) to recieve the money he promised her for covering up his crime . when he refuses to give it to her , and then hears the group of men talking about killing nicky , she leaves with him in order to save his life , but not before holding the men at gunpoint , stealing all of their money , and forcing them to strip nude . gloria is the type of fast-talking , smart-mouthed new yorker who always seems to get involved with the wrong people , and she never expected to be stuck with a kid , but she has a heart of gold ( don't they always in this type of movie ) and is only trying to protect the boy , whom she quickly begins to form a close bond with . the previous incarnation of " gloria " by cassavetes and starring the luminous gena rowlands , remains unseen by me , but was no doubt superior , even though i can't really imagine how this considerably dull story could be transformed into an entertaining one , regardless of the director or stars . there is no doubt in my mind that director lumet has stuck closely to the original , but the film itself is simply lifeless , with only an occasional laugh popping up here and there so that it isn't completely unbearable to watch . i liked , for example , a very funny climactic sequence where gloria is deciding whether to leave the school she has left the boy at , and keeps turning the car around , then driving a little ways , then slamming on the brakes and turning around again . these bright moments , however , appear long and far between , and the majority of the film deals with the budding relationship between nicky and gloria , which is both painfully predictable and by-the-numbers . throughout , my mind was repeatedly asking the question , " who really cares ? " as gloria , sharon stone has adopted an over-the-top brooklyn accent that honestly doesn't sound realistic at all . in the beginning , in fact , i was amazed at how amateurish stone's performance was , but as the film progressed she got better . although not one of her better turns , stone does have a comic flare that refuses to be ignored . jean-luke figeroa was fine as nicky and a little more natural than the usual child actors who are so precocious they make you want to gag . all other actors who appeared were considerably wasted , none more than cathy moriarty , an entertaining actress in her own right , who is billed fourth and has all of one scene , as gloria's friend whom she turns to for help . sony , the studio that released " gloria , " obviously does not have any faith in the film , and i don't blame them . they declined to screen the picture for critics , which is never a good sign , particularly with the high-profile people involved . although how much money a movie makes does not determine how good it is ( just look at the spectacular " in dreams , " which failed to even make the top 10 last week ) , i have a suspicion " gloria " is going to vanish from theaters faster than " ishtar , " judging from the opening night 7 : 00 p . m . showing i saw it at , where there were about ten to fifteen people present , counting myself . although stone can be an impressive actress ( just watch her in 1995's " casino " or 1996's " last dance " if you don't believe me ) and sidney lumet can be a respectable director , there is no reasoning for why they thought the cliched story of " gloria " was worth remaking or , for that matter , why columbia pictures agreed to finance it when they could have been making a picture that actually looked like it might have an inkling of a chance to be successful .
1	susan granger's review of " the closet " ( miramax films ) in this hilarious french farce , a shy , boring accountant ( daniel auteil ) named francois pignon discovers he's going to be fired from his job at a condom factory . lonely and distraught , he contemplates suicide . but then he runs into belone ( michel aumont ) , an elderly homosexual neighbor , who suggests a " sex discrimination " lawsuit to intimidate management . as evidence , belone concocts provocative photographs of pignon locked in a leather-clad embrace with another man and mails them anonymously to pignon's boss . when the racy snapshots start circulating around the factory , not only does pignon get his job back but he suddenly finds himself the focus of attention as an openly gay man . his lusty supervisor ( michele laroque ) is so intrigued that she wonders if , perhaps , she could change his sexual preferences . even his ex-wife ( alexandra vandernoot ) and indifferent teenage son ( stanislas crevillen ) drop their disdain . but not everyone is enchanted . a mucho macho co-worker felix ( gerard depardieu ) , a self-righteous homophobe , is stunned and repulsed when he's forced by the pr director ( thierry lhermite ) to grovel and court pignon's friendship or risk losing his own job . writer/director francis verber artfully milks the farcical comedy as he dissects the hypocrisy of political correctness , veering off-track only occasionally into pedophilia . daniel auteuil ( " the widow of saint-pierre " ) is delightful - particularly with a blown-up condom perched on his head , riding on a float in a gay pride parade - and gerard depardieu delivers one of his most restrained , and effective , performances . on the granger movie gauge of 1 to 10 , " the closet " is a frankly sexual , adult 8 . it's so clever , in fact , that hollywood is already planning to re-make it in english , like " la cage aux folles . "
0	plot summary : the year is 2024 . the ozone layer has long since gone and the earth is now protected from radiation by a shield invented by connor mccleod . the shield , although saving lives , has made the atmosphere hot and humid . connor is a mortal and a tired old man who has given up hope . on returning from the opera one night connor is accosted by the leader of a " terrorist " organisation . they have tried to find out what the company that now runs the shield unit are covering up . connor is then attacked by two assassins sent by katana from the planet zeist ( like zeit--get it ? ) . they fail and connor becomes immortal again by chopping their heads off . he then brings ramirez back to life in glencoe in scotland . both ramirez and connor are rebel leaders back on zeist and have been sent to earth as punishment . connor now has the option to return being the last one but opts to stay with his new found immortality and fight to find out about the company and the shield . katana meanwhile , fearing connor would return , sets out himself to kill the highlander . if you have never seen it . being a fan of highlander and mr . connery , i was in the cinema as soon as i could to see highlander ii : the quickening . i wish it had been quicker . i feel whatever else you can say about a film ( bad script bad music , etc . ) if you sit just plain bored through most of it then nothing much else needs to be said . the film was short but in my opinion only twelve minutes or so ( the time mr . connery is on the screen for ) is worth watching . the plot sounds a little ridiculous but i was willing to give it a chance . maybe they could pull it off . instead , i find that the characters have completely changed from those in the first film . it's as if they are different people with the same names . witness connor jumping into bed with the leader of the resistance -- where is the attitude of " who wants to live forever , when love must die " gone to ? the love sub-plot * must * have had footage cut out . the highlander and ramirez both seemed aware of powers they had never mentioned before . putting our heroes in deadly situations and then having them walk away because of some new power is very annoying . i still want to know why connor's coat becomes flame proof when he is immortal ! we are not given enough time on zeist to believe in it , nor are we told why advanced aliens still use swords to kill . why not dynamite or laser saws or just plain bullets followed by a quick chop to the neck ? i know the head needs to come off but you could at least immobilise your opponent with laser rifles first . to be fair one assassin tried this but he must be the world's worst shot . meanwhile connor develops luke-skywalker-like powers of laser beam deflection . as for " bad guys , " we see a rebellion on zeist , crushed easier than a grape and then the rest of the plot depends on katana being obsessed with killing mccleod in case he returns to zeist . two assassins are sent , presumably they are meant to be good at killing but an aged connor kills them both with no problems . no more assassins are sent . katana , supposedly a very powerful man goes himself to kill connor . has he no more assassins ? has he no better ? why was the rebellion crushed so easily then ? michael ironside is totally unconvincing ( bring back the kurgan ) . he seems like a cartoon character and really isn't that evil , just stupid and violent . we see the hollywood trick of the chief nasty threatening a child again and killing lots of innocents . yet he still seems like no threat -- perhaps because he seems too stupid to threaten connor , or maybe because his two best assassins wouldn't have been amiss with larry , curly and mo . so much for plot and characters . the music is atrocious . it is at best intrusive and at worst annoying . bring back queen . there was an audible sigh ( of relief ? ) when connor played a queen track in a juke box . i believe this at least is to be corrected for the american release . the acting is at best flat , except for mr . connery . lambert is uninteresting and when he delivered " there can be only one " this time around it just made me wish there had only been one -- highlander . michael ironside is unconvincing ; sorry , michael , i usually like you and everyone else was incredibly forgetable . so why 2/10 ? visually the film is interesting at all times . it has a blade runner feel to it and some of the special effects are quite stunning . add to this an irrepressible sean connery who smiles throughout the whole film -- or is he smirking to himself ? his lines and delivery might make the film worthwhile had it not been so obvious that he cannot take the whole thing seriously at all but hey -- * i'd * have done it for 12 million . oh , and i agree with a previous reviewer , she * does * look like sharon stone but i believe it is her first film . incidentally there is a line producer credited and i hear rumours of highlander iii : the wizard .
0	" spice world " is just one long promotional film for the british girl band the spice girls . sure there's a hint of humor in there every once in a while . actually , there's a couple of pretty good jabs at the spice girls . but overall , who cares ? not me . if you don't know by now , the spice girls sing songs of love and friendship and responsibility and girl power , yet dress like streetwalkers from a lower middle class neighborhood . in " spice world " they ride around in their big tour bus , whining about having to do photo shoots and give interviews . amazingly , all the talk they do about keeping commitments and upholding responsibilities only really applies to fun things , things they want to do , not things they are required to do to keep earning money . and they keep babbling about " girl power " when they should really be talking about " cleavage power " . i mean , if all it takes is girl power , then why are they only one thread away from bursting out of their skimpy outfits ? the film is pg , but really with only some very minor dialogue changes and scene extentions , you'd have yourself one raunchy adult film . by the way , there's something in the opening credits which says " based on an idea by the spice girls " . wow , they got idea credit ! i certainly wish that was a new trend in hollywood . . . giving credit for simply having the thought " say girls , let's make a movie ! " the supporting cast fares well . roger moore ( the real james bond ) mockingly plays the cliche-spewing " chief " of the spice girls , and darn it all , he's fun to watch . mark mckenney also is good as a screenwriter trying to pitch film ideas to the band's manager ( richard e . grant ) . one question though : george wendt ? you'd think that " spice world " would envoke one of two reactions in people . if you like the spice girls , you'll like them even more afterwards . and if you can't stand them ( like me ) , then " spice world " will really make you sick . oddly , the audience i saw the film with , roughly 50 twelve year-old girls , sat in silence for the entire film . well , not the two who sat directly behind me . they kept muttering " this is stupid " over and over again . maybe there is hope for humanity after all . [pg]
0	what were they thinking ? nostalgia for the seventies is bad enough , but do we really need an eighties film ? robbie hart ( adam sandler ) used to want to be a rock and roll star , but in 1985 he's singing at weddings and having a good time . a romantic at heart , he loves weddings and is just about to get married to his high-school sweetie . when she leaves him waiting at the altar , his tune changes to " love stinks " . he meets waitress julia ( drew barrymore ) who is engaged to a junk-bonds salesman and you know that they are going to get together . in fact you know everything that is going to happen during this movie . sandler is somewhat adequate in his leading man role , but there is no spark . barrymore doesn't seem to be able to convey anything other than a pretty face with nothing behind it : beauty but no attitude . both characters are just there . bit parts by steve buscemi and jon lovitz steal the show . the eighties are shoved in our face . references to deloreans , madonna , " dallas " , ivana and donald , burt and loni and " miami vice " get old fast . the filmmakers must have realized that there wasn't much entertainment to the story and thought they could dazzle the audience with humorous period allusions . they're not funny and it doesn't work . with change on all fronts accelerating more and more , nostalgia appears to have a great appeal , but don't you think we could have more than 14 years before we yearn for the past . maybe we can look forward to a film next year waxing nostalgically about el nino . ( michael redman has written this column for over 23 years and he knows that nostalgia is not what it used to be . )
1	getting it right is a far far cry from the teenage sex comedy you might expect from a summer movie about male virginity . the film was directed by randal kleiser , who brought us such bubble-gum classics as grease and the blue lagoon . but thanks to kleiser's surprisingly good direction and an intelligent script , getting it right is a pleasantly quiet , moving , and memorable film--one geared strictly toward a sophisticated , adult audience . getting it right stars jesse birdsall ( emily lloyd's boyfriend in wish you were here ) as gavin , a painfully shy 31-year-old hairdresser who lives at home with his parents and who--gasp--is still a virgin . gavin has no problem whatsoever making small talk with the elderly women who clamor for his services at the hair salon , but expose him to a single 30-year-old beauty and he's a mess . much to gavin's surprise , the woman who finally brings him out of his shell and robs him of his virginity is joan ( lynn redgrave ) , a rich , married , and lonely 45-year-old . getting it right is the simple story of gavin's awkward and haphazard efforts to get it right ; that is , to find the right woman to fulfill his life . getting it right is one of those rare movies that devotes itself entirely to in-depth character development . gavin's self-conscious voice-over narration of his experiences firmly thrusts us into his psyche . we observe his fascinating metamorphosis from shy and passive introversion to assertive and self-confident maturity . birdsall's superb , understated performance as gavin is the real backbone of the film ; he seems convincing and authentic throughout . the charm of getting it right also lies in the wide array of people who inhabit or invade gavin's life . despite her limited screen time , redgrave makes quite a splash in the movie as gavin's middle-aged seducer . for a supporting character , joan is unusually and impressively complex , thanks in large part to redgrave's magnificent performance . gavin is also pursued , or perhaps plagued , by minnie , the totally neurotic daughter of a rich aristocrat . after minnie and gavin meet at a party , she takes great pleasure in disrupting his safe and simple life . helena bonham carter is delightfully pathetic and kooky in the role , and sir john gielgud , with his tongue in his cheek , embodies the height of arrogance as her father . gavin's eventual love-interest is jenny , the adorable twenty-year-old single mother who assists him at the beauty salon ; london stage actress jane horrocks' fine performance yields a touchingly sweet character . peter cook , the great british satirist , appears briefly in the film as gavin's uptight employer . the scenes of gavin's home life with his parents are also a treat . gavin's over-protective mother ( pat heywood ) , whom even woody allen would find overbearing , almost steals the movie . her life seems limited to just two activities : treating gavin like a 10-year-old and preparing exotic but inedible meals , such as scalding hot curry and baked chicken with chocolate sauce . gavin and his father's attempts to avoid eating her meals are extremely amusing . getting it right , for the most part , is very well-crafted , except for two minor shortcomings . first , the movie is about 15 minutes too long , and consequently it loses momentum at times . second , the film includes an altogether extraneous subplot about the domestic problems between gavin's best friend , harry , and his unfaithful lover , winthrop . overall , however , getting it right is quite memorable for its humor , depth , sophistication , and outstanding acting . director kleiser and screenwriter elizabeth jane howard ( adapting her own highly acclaimed novel ) deserve praise for finding just the right tone for this tale of growth , maturation , and self-discovery .
0	pre-review note : seeing as the only concern of body shots is " sex " , i will be forced to refer to that particular act innumerable times throughout the duration of this review . because of this , i will try to vary word descriptions of " sex " ( meaning if you are offended by pejorative terms , and \ or your name is jerry falwell , you are kindly invited to hit the x up on the left corner of your screen ) , so if there happens to be a word you come across and cannot comprehend , fret not , it's most likely just another way of referring to " sex " . i think we'd all agree that any word used incessantly becomes a bit monotonous so i hope you appreciate my attempt to liven up what could potentially be a very boring review . though not as boring as the movie which makes steve forbes flat tax plan seem as lively as watching a naked mathew mconaughy play the bongos while high on god knows what . body shots is a film so frightened of coitus that scenes of copulation are filmed ominously , in the way you'd normally expect to see a violent attack . it's about people who think about screwing , seek it out , and talk about it . these are things we all do , sometimes . the characters in this film spend every waking moment pondering the simplicities of sexual acts . their lives center around the next sexual encounter , but they seemed depressed . it's as if fucking is all they have to look forward to after a busy workweek . at its core body shots is a message movie , the kind of thing i could picture really progressive church groups showing to middle schoolers in order to turn them off coition . michael cristoffer ( who directed gia , another film that treated bumping uglies as if it where evil ) is a moralist with nothing new to say . his characters don't communicate anything of interest to each other , so cristoffer gives them an opportunity to let out their inner thoughts by speaking directly into the camera . they voice simplistic platitudes like " i like to come " or " sex without love equals violence " . huh ? and yes that is as complex as this movie's observations get . the characters are stupid and shallow , with not one registering as anything more . the plot concerns vapid over sexed twentysomethings on an all night hunt for carnal pleasure , then the after math ( the morning after ) of such events . we meet the characters as they speak directly to us , confiding in us with their idiotic ruminations on intimacy . i would normally go into the characters and the actors who play them , giving you the pros and cons , but for this film i cannot . i'm not trying to be clever or witty , but i honestly hardly remember anything that would set them apart from the others . with the exception of trent ( played by ron livingston as a bargain basement patrick bateman ) , the rest fade into each other-- a patchwork of fake breasts , defined abs , pearly white teeth , and creamy , flawless skin . i vaguely recall brad rowe as the sensitive one , only because his character gets the worst lines ( " sex without love equals violence " ) . in between all the confessionals , cristoffer films everything like a headache commercial , with blurry slo mos and dramatic head turning . the fact that this director at one point won a pulitzer prize completely baffles me . this film is made without one iota of intelligence or insight into the generation that its tag line claims to be defining . if body shots is meant to say that all twentysometyhings are idiotic and f * * k-obsessed , fine , i don't have any problem with a film that tries to persuade me to think a certain way , but cristoffer only gives us one side . additionally that one side isn't even entertaining ; the characters indulge in buggery without an ounce of sexiness . or realism . one sexual encounter takes place outside a club on a chain link fence between the two most sensitive characters . they suddenly have vigorous intercourse with each other for no apparent reason ( other than that they both happen to be standing next to each other ? ? ? alas , if it could only be that easy ? ? ? kidding of course ) , then , not only isn't it erotic , it isn't real . it doesn't feel like an authentic sexual encounter . every f * * k scene in this film ( and there are many ) is treated in the same unsexy manner . body shots makes fornication dirtier than the most scummy porno film . it shows us none of the pleasure that should go along with it , and most of all , it fails to show us why its characters love making it so much if they seem to hate the act of actually doing it . the resulting search for nookie ( and you can take that cookie ? ? ? ) over one night leaves us with several tedious plot lines to follow . the main concern is much ado over a rape that may or may not have occurred . the film shows us two separate versions of the possible rape ( one where it is consensual the other where it is not ) and in both versions the young actress playing the possible victim gets her shirt torn off . this is a topic that could be interestingly explored if done intelligently , and if memory serves me i can't think of one film that has done so , and yes i saw the accused which may be one of the most overrated movies of the 80's next to wall street . unfortunately nobody gives us reason to care , not the writer , the director or the actors nearly all of whom seem to have wandered off the set of a noxious 90210 spin off . paul thomas anderson approached boogie nights in a manner similar to what cristoffer does here , though boogie nights succeeded . it was similarly moralistic , but it gave us two different viewpoints ; it showed us how the lifestyle of porn enticed its characters , and it showed us the possible fall-out of such a decision . the characters in boogie nights were as idiotic as the characters are here , but anderson seemed to care about them . he gave them heart . cristoffer gives them nothing but raging hormones . he preaches to us , by using his characters to preach to us . this is not the way to get any message across . why not just direct a public service announcement on the perils of hittin' skins ? cristofer kind of does that , though without an ounce of insight , and with a helping of leering exploitation .
1	james jones , one of the major novelists from the middle of the twentieth century , has written a number of fictional works about the effects of war on the individual . a veteran of world war ii , and a witness to the pearl harbor bombings , his novels are not only grounded in realism but poetic in nature . they are reminiscent of stephen crane in their blunt eloquence , a trait which lends itself to razor-sharp focus . but perhaps none matches the scope of his autobiographical novel , the thin red line ; now a cinematic masterpiece from director terrence malick . the book's principal cast , some thirty characters , has been trimmed down for this rendition , but it still retains its most endearing value . each of the roles has an everyman quality , emphasizing jones' examination of world war ii on the american soldier . there's a definitive chain of command present , and this also plays on the motivations of the cast . but most importantly , and perhaps intrinsic to the novel but not to the movie , a dynamic and effective voice-over is used . malick has several characters relating their thoughts , giving the viewer a greater perspective of the issues at stake . the issues at stake are many and one . told from a limited third-person perspective ( as opposed to a top-down , omniscient view ) , the movie entails the struggle of an american infantry company ( " c-for-charlie " ) to take a hill during the conflict at guadalcanal . the south pacific island is seen by the top brass as the key position for american armed forces to hold if they want to win the war . and want to win the war they do . in an excellent performance , nick nolte plays c-for-charlie's commanding officer , lt . col . gordon tall . he's an aging soldier who embodies the win-at-all-costs mentality , if only to impress his superior ( john travolta , in a questionable cameo ) . this philosophy is opposite that of captain bugger staros ( elias koteas ) , who dearly values the life of each and every one of the men under his command . at the front are the privates and corporals ( adrien brody , james caviezel , ben chaplin , et al ) , lead by 1st sgt . welsh ( sean penn ) , who must actually execute the suicide orders handed down to them . the thin red line is filled with intense , visual poetry , but it's nearly three hours long . although the interest level is high throughout the first two hours , the climax comes forty-five minutes before the end of the movie ; it goes without saying that the movie drags on the back end . the thin red line will doubtless be compared to 1998's other masterpiece of war , saving private ryan a countless number of times . but to do so is to belittle both films , for although similarities abound , so do differences . director malick has a story to tell , and for those interested in listening , this can be a very outstanding movie .
0	synopsis : cro-magnon ayla loses her mother to an earthquake and escapes certain death by a lion . reluctantly rescued by a neanderthal clan who likes to have sex doggy-style , ayla grows up to become a blond , feminist supermodel who challenges the neanderthal patriarchy by throwing rocks and giving birth without a mate . comments : allow me to state for the record that i find daryl hannah an appealing presence in movies . she proved quite charming as the intelligent astronomer in the romantic comedy roxanne and equally creepy as pris in the sci-fi classic blade runner . the clan of the cave bear clearly tries to capitalize on hannah as a selling point : the poster art bears a striking closeup of hannah in tribal paint and the video box prominently features her name in lettering the same size as the title . not even her starring role in this turkey , unfortunately , can save it from being an unbelievable exercise in cheese . it's so uniquely bad ( a film dealing with prehistoric man that actually tries , and miserably fails , to be serious ) that it's oddly fascinating . the ridiculous attempt at drama here leaves the audience somehow transfixed , wanting to see how this dud plays out . the clan of the cave bear is based upon a popular novel by jean m . auel . to this day , the book possesses a loyal cult following . i remember a dear friend of mine had a dog-eared copy of the novel she had read as a child with all the so-called dirty parts blacked out with marker by her grandmother . i have never read this book , but i sure hope it's 10 , 000 times better than its film adaptation . if not , then i'm at a complete loss to explain its popularity . the clan of the cave bear immediately opens with a comically absurd scene . a young ayla , looking much like drew barrymore in e . t . , tramps about in the woods . with her cute little ponytails and fur wrapped about her , the audience's expectations of a convincing portrayal of prehistory are immediately shattered . what follows is a laughably choreographed sequence in which an earthquake swallows up ayla's mother ( a blonde with fur pants . . . er , leggings ) . tearful ayla looks on as the cameraman shakes the camera . . . well , as the earthquake slowly recedes . a hungry lion becomes interested in her for lunch , but the screaming six-year-old manages to outrun the king of the wild and find a safe haven . i won't detail the story any further ; this seems enough to illustrate my point . this movie is really stupid . it never even gives the audience a chance to suspend their disbelief . also , the obvious comparison between the appearance of cro-magnon man in prehistory and the rise of feminism in our century is about as subtle as burning a wonderbra in front of charlton heston . the movie doesn't just suggest this message ; it whacks the message into the audience with a two-by-four . a blond , gorgeous woman challenges the social laws of a bunch of people in gaudy brown wigs . she's of the " new people " ; they're of the " old people " with " the memories . " yep . we get it . we get it . the clan of the cave bear apparently received an academy award nomination for best make-up , which surprises me . the movie depends upon a lot of make-up obviously , but much of it is unconvincing . as stated before , daryl hannah is daryl hannah here ; she looks like she just stepped out of the shower all the time . the rest of the characters have dark make-up of some sort smeared over them to look like dirt . the face-painting that's occasionally seen is perhaps the only notable work here in my mind . this movie also suffers from its new age trappings . maybe the music sounded a lot more fresh or original during 1985 , but now it sounds dated and cliched , like poorly conceived elevator music . add to this the film's faux-mysticism , including spirit animals and dream visions , and a narrator who sounds like a psychic you'd expect to hear on a 1-900 number , and you get a movie that has serious problems being serious . the clan of the cave bear is rated r , though it's probably one of the most inoffensive offensive films i've seen in quite a while . it contains several scenes of sex sans nudity . the violence mostly consists of hunting scenes . the funniest moment of the movie occurs when a neanderthal in love with ayla attempts to rescue her from a ferocious bear . the bear bites his head off and the audience sees it rolling about . although this may sound gratuitous , i'm sure , it's so cheesy that it probably won't bother most people . the clan of the cave bear is a bad movie . however , as i wrote at the beginning of this review , it does have the distinction of originality . typically when i think of bottom-of-the-barrel films dealing with early man , fantasy movies involving dinosaurs ( who did not exist at the same time as man ) and raquel welch come to mind . the clan of the cave bear tries so hard to be serious that , though it's so bad , the audience is still interested by the unique setting and characters of the movie ( which is why i awarded this turkey two stars ) . i have to think that fans of the book would be disappointed with this film version ; however , i'm only basing this observation on the fact that the book is almost invariably better than the movie . i shudder to think that it could be otherwise . . .
0	well lets see . . . i'm not quite sure how to review this film , based on its laughter factor . well yeah i can , it's not funny . ok so i laughed one time which warranted the 1/2 star , but other than that i sat in my seat wondering when this pos would be over , ( which at a running time of 107 minutes seemed like forever ! ) . in fact , this could be the un-funniest movie i've seen in a long time , if not the un-funniest . let me be the first to say " ready to rumble " is a huge disappointment . long time wrestling lovers ( david and scott ) dream of making it to the wcw , and watching jimmy king wrestle . that is their hero of course , whom is kicked out of the wcw . well here is where the plot thickens ( lol ) : the two wish to rescue the king , and put him back into the wcw but not that easily , because they are being tampered with by many people who are out to get them , while david's father wants him to become a police officer , and scott is a loser who has to with the help of david clean out johnny on the spots . what a plot eh ? " ready to rumble " is one of those films that tries to be funny , but sadly fails miserably , everything in the film is imcomprehinsable , and even the trailer wasn't funny . the actors are dull , the script awful , and the plot which there isn't much of . . . . really annoying . i'm not quite sure how great actors like these , and very funny actors too , are given such a lame script , and directed in such a childish manner , that i wonder if hollywood is ever gonna make good films these days . this review isn't going to be very long because of the fact that there isn't much going for the film , if anything at all . only one big laugh is in the film , which isn't all that hilarious . i sat in my chair wondering with this 107 ( ! ! ! ! ! ) minute " comedy " was going to be over , and sadly it went on forever . i'm not sure if anything could have saved this film from being such a total waste , but believe me you , it is . reviewed by brandon herring 4/29/00 for more reviews please visit movie review central at http : //www . geocities . com/moviefan983/moviereviewcentral . html
1	luckily , some people got starship troopers . some people knew it was supposed to be silly . for those of you who didn't , how could you miss it ? from the very beginning , when we see an interactive internet-like promotional video for the armed forces of the future , it should be obvious this film is to be taken lightly . i guess without blatant one-liners and home alone style slapstick , some people just don't recognize such goofy humor . such a dry approach to such intentionally campy humor must have left some disillusioned . first thing to do before seeing this movie - lighten up . meet the equivalent of " beverly hills 90210 " meets " mighty morphin power rangers " . four close friends are now graduating high school and are ready to join the armed forces , which , in the future , means fighting for the whole galaxy and not just your country . johnny rico ( casper van dien ) is ready to join the infantry , mostly because his girlfriend carmen ibanez ( denise richards ) has enlisted to be a pilot . dizzy flores ( dina meyer ) has enlisted as a trooper , and it's possible she's joining merely to follow rico , whom she's always had eyes for . if you saw these three on the street , you'd automatically start searching for the fashion designers and photographers , for never has a movie's cast looked so much like the cut-out cover of " seventeen " magazine . the lone non-supermodel , carl jenkins ( played by doogie howser himself , neil patrick harris ) is the brainiac who gets into the military intelligence division , the top secret department that pretty much leaves doogie - er , carl out of the picture . ( good call - now we can put all our drooling efforts into only the most deserving of characters ) . right off the bat , rico becomes the star of the show , far surpassing all the other soldiers and becoming squadron leader in a short period of time . but a horrific accident during a standard training exercise ( which follows all to closely to his breakup with carmen ) leaves rico ready to call it quits . with his bags packed and his civilian clothes back on , johnny is ready to walk off base and catch the next flight home . well sorry , rico suave , but there's no place like home , especially after gigantic alien insects have destroyed it . that's right , the planet is being attacked by a colony of arachnid-like alien beings that a can of raid just isn't going to destroy . with a sudden change of heart ( and clothes ) , rico is back in the game , following his fellow starship troopers off to fight a mean group of daddy long legs . what starship troopers really is , is a spoof of all that it even remotely touches on - the soap opera like love affairs of high school , the love for sci-fi and thirst for gore shared by this same age group , etc . nothing is taken seriously . it's almost as much a satire on young adults as clueless , but with its sly and futuristic approach , it's not as recognizably so . it's a spoof so subtle that many won't recognize the spoofery . if you deem this as sci-fi/action , you're wrong . it's sci-fi/action/comedy , with the comedy being on the level of such cult favorites as evil dead 2 . starship troopers just may be on the road to cult status as well . gore is a factor heavily brought up in reviews of this film , but the gore , too , is meant to be cheesy . yes , it's graphic , but it's also brutally phony , and that's what makes it such great fun to watch . not since the old " mr . bill " skits on " saturday night live " has torture and mutilation been such a joy to watch . people were laughing out loud every time a body was severed in half or a head was viciously decapitated . perhaps it brings back fond memories of the severities we inflicted upon our sisters' barbie dolls as young children . with the actors resembling ken and barbie so closely , it's a good chance this is the case , whether we're fully aware of it or not . starship troopers has it's slow parts , but it's truly an alternative to your typical sci-fi/action flick or lame juvenile comedy . aside from the intentionally cheesy gore , the special effects are quite astounding . when the spaceship passes a meteor , it's quite an awesome spectacle , visually crisp and captivating . if you're looking for brainless fun , this is the epitome of your search . a beautiful cast , awesome special effects , fast-paced action , campy acting , and a whole lot of gore . this is brainless heaven . just remember not to think .
1	full metal jacket , very much like every other hard-hitting film about the vietnam war , is an shocking , emotional depiction of the war that effected almost everyone in america . this film is more like platoon than any other in the way that it chronicles the struggles of a young man ( private joker , played by matthew modine ) during his tour in the vietnam war . however , full metal jacket gives the audience an insight into combat life very rarely seen before : boot camp . these sequences are considered to be the best part in this three act film , even though i found the later portions to be equally stunning . as in platoon , full metal jacket gets off to a quick start . the opening sequence is the initiation for the recruits , which is getting their heads shaved . from there , they find themselves standing at attention and receiving their orders from the extremely hard and punishing sergeant hartman , played extremely well by the former drill instructor r . lee ermey . apparently , the solution was found for the perfect man to play a drill instructor in the movies , because ermey depicts his character extremely well and will make you thank whomever that you were never subjected to such horrible situations . private joker gets off on the wrong foot with the sergeant , as does the large bodied private leonard lawrence ( vincent d'onofrio ) , whom is dubbed 'gomer pyle' by sgt . hartman . the film is continually narrated by private joker , in which he explains his visions on what is going on . the entire corps , although repeatedly hammered by sgt . hartman , continues on . private pyle , however , seems to be the rag doll for the drill instructor . he continually absorbs the worst punishment and humiliation , and it basically does not stop . that is , until sgt . hartman comes up with a new plan . he will punish the rest of the soon-to-be-marines for pyle's goof-ups , even after joker was assigned to help him out in the best way he can . pyle then receives punishment from his fellow recruits , and things take a turn for the worst . pyle proves that not everyone is emotionally , physically , and mentally cut out for the life of a marine . after graduation , joker is sent over to the height of the action in order to document the war , which is his service . he is not a member of the infantry , and it is unclear if he will ever actually find himself in combat . when he sets out on a documenting mission , this question becomes very clear from the start . joker joins up with a platoon , along with his hometown friend cowboy ( arliss howard ) , and follows their everyday actions , interviewing and filmming them along the way . he also soon finds himself in a position in which he must fight , or die . again , as in the tradition of vietnam war films , full metal jacket can be debated as to whether it is an anti-war film or not . a few of the more powerful scenes toward the end will leave you to decide . full metal jacket succeeds extremely well in documenting the life of a young man in vietnam , as have others in the past . this film , in different ways , also can be viewed as more powerful than others . that , again , is up for debate and depends on your opinion . one thing is for sure , however ; no one ever wants to experience the absolute hell that these soldiers are subjected to . unfortunately , many did .
0	we could paraphrase michelle pfieffer's character in dangerous minds and say that beyond rangoon starts with an " a . " that's fair enough . all movies , like all school children , should be given the benefit of the doubt . the chance to succeed . after all , we like to think that the right combination of talent and effort can do wonders . mountains can be moved , and good movies can be made . yeah right . children fail , as do films . as does director john boorman's latest . the success of beyond rangoon hinges on the believability of patricia arquette ( ed wood , true romance ) as the busty westerner-in-peril wandering about 1988 burma without a passport . though we can stomach the mild plot contrivances that get her there , it's a tougher task to overlook the actress . she's a lightweight . as the first scene ( with narration ! ) demonstrates , she doesn't have * nearly * enough range for the emotions that her character--a mother fleeing the memories of a murdered husband and son--is supposed to show . she may give a stronger performance than , say , keanu reeves in a walk in the clouds , by not by much . beyond rangoon is a very physically appealing film , thanks to the practiced craftsmanship of john boorman ( deliverance , excalibur , hope and glory ) . he keeps the narrative moving , no matter how muddy the story--or the heroine--gets . why he chose arquette remains a mystery , though . maybe he was thinking that the dramatic weight of the story would overcome any casting deficiencies . but even after an hour of half-stated political statements and murky mass killings , we * still * don't know enough of what's happening in this country to feel distressed for the characters or their situations . empty exoticism . the technical credits in beyond rangoon are a curious mix , combining lush jungle photography with bad blue-screen work . also odd is the obvious dubbing . done to make some of the foreign characters sound less foreign ? and , is it my mistake , or do the same extras keep reappearing as different soldiers ? ? doo doo doo doo . [ " twilight zone " theme , or opinion of movie . you be the judge . ]
1	with storytelling this compelling , who needs books ? based on the book by author james ellroy , l . a . confidential is probably one of the best piece of work produced by hollywood in recent years . together with director curtis hanson ( the hand that rocks the cradle , the river wild ) whom ellroy corroborated closely throughout the shooting of the film , resulted in a movie with a plot and and script so tight , an atom would have to squeeze itself through . set in the 50s , the story revolves around 3 policemen of vivid personalities . jack vincennes ( spacey ) is the cop who is more concerned on busting with fame and stardom ala hollywood style , concentrating heavily on work which will attract him media attention . there is also the young hot-shot rookie , ed exley ( pearce ) , fresh out of the academy and all-out to carve a name for himself in the footsteps of his legendary cop father . the tough and unnerving bud white ( crowe ) , a cop who believes in justice , the swift and violent way . 3 policemen , distinct in their characters and paths but all of them working in a place where there is no real distinction between good and evil . when his partner is murdered on the day of his resignation , bud sets out to find the people responsible but unwittingly delved himself into something more than just a simple robbery murder . even after exley receives a promotion for his work on the murder case , happenings began to link itself to the murder . the 3 eventually reach a point of convergence when what actually began as a personal investigation turns out to be an uncovering of a complex web of organised-crime in hollywood . the last time i remember a film so clever and compelling was when i watched the usual suspects . in l . a . confidential , you do not get the shock and cleverness as the former but it has a lot more of `story' going for it . there is not a single moment in the film in which i felt was slow at all . surprisingly , though spacey did a very convincing job as the street-wise vincennes , the movie was carried mostly by the two rather `unknowns' , pearce and crowe . pearce's exley is cool and calculative in his actions and there is a slight hint of val kilmer in his appearance . crowe's bud white is the most impressive of all ; head-strong and temperamental , he should obtain some sort of recognition for his work here . superb acting . , wonderful storytelling and one of the best climaxing gunfights ever . easily the best hollywood piece for 1997 .
1	the happy bastard's 30-second review : american pie the summer of raunch continues to spread into theatres with this latest yuk fest , filled with sick jokes and teen dialogue aplenty . if you go expecting dawson's creek , you're in for a problem . if your expectations are lower ( and better , i might add ) , you will enjoy the hell out of american pie . the movie casts several unknowns , with the only real recognizable one being sctv's own eugene levy as a happy-go-lucky dad . the story revolves around four high school seniors who have one goal before the school year gets out- get laid . that's pretty much it . throughout the movie , little sick comic bits are sprinkled throughout , including a memorable scene involving an apple pie ( i won't give it away , but you probably know what it is ) and an internet broadcast gone horribly awry . of course , the movie has some slightly sentimental bits , but they don't drag the movie's humor content down that bad . most of the actors get their job done , but it's levy who's a hoot , a father who tries to talk sex with his son with the help of some curious " visual aids " . i couldn't stop laughing during this movie , and if you can stand all the raunch and the sex references , then american pie is for you . if you're one of those " conservative " types , well , i'll bet you're having fun at home while this , south park , and austin powers ii plays in theatres , now aren't you ?
0	i'm a dedicated fan of writer kevin williamson's work . he always finds a clever way to spice up old material with witty dialogue and fresh ideas that stem from his inventive brain . with teaching mrs . tingle , his directorial debut , williamson has reached the end of his rope . what used to be intelligent about his films is hopelessly stale here . the components are all there , including an encouraging premise that all high school students can relate to . but where are the thrills ? the laughs ? both are supposedly absent from this draggy exercise in elaborate revenge . and what a shame that is . i loved the scream films - heck , i even enjoyed the sci-fi goofiness of the faculty . kevin williamson was the reason horror films were such a big draw at the box office . teaching mrs . tingle , a black comedy that will leave a gaping void in his optimistic followers , may put an end to his reign . or perhaps it will encourage him to spend more time perfecting a script than to worry about his directing duties . i still have my faith , but i fear the name of kevin williamson may soon be a forgotten echo of the past . the title character of his pet project is a vicious , uncaring history teacher who is played deliciously over-the-top by british actress helen mirren . mrs . tingle is basically every student's worst nightmare : a heartless human being bent on distributing poor marks to even the most hard-working of her pupils . the principal ( michael mckean ) is horrified of her , and she is unanimously despised among her fellow staff members . i enjoyed the fact that everyone in the hallway quickly steers out of her way . mirren's performance is one of the very few delights in this distressingly hollow black comedy that goes down like a flat soft drink . in other words , it's a poor substitute for williamson's best work . the plot is a big problem here . material that could have been enjoyable is rendered totally ridiculous by poor handling on the part of the director . the likable katie holmes plays leigh ann , an over-achiever hoping to get a college scholarship . but typical mrs . tingle says her history project , which she worked on for countless hours , is laughable . later on while studying in the gymnasium , a classmate ( barry watson ) offers her a photo-copied duplicate of mrs . tingle's final exam . leigh ann's best friend ( marisa coughlan ) encourages her to use it . alas , the old hag herself finds the three scheming , and snatches the test , and prepares to talk to the principal in the morning . in the morning . . . how convenient ! the three students head to mrs . tingle's house , attempting to set the facts straight and clear leigh ann's name . things get out of hand , and the teacher gets knocked unconscious in a tussle . the plan is to tie her to a bed and try to get some reasoning out of her . of course , not everything goes entirely to plan . besides pointless sub-plots involving the football coach ( jeffrey tambor , horribly wasted ) , there is little by way of actual progress . there is no urgency to the situation ; little tension or laughs are involved . the humor is completely inconsistent . after many of the jokes , the theater was so silent i could have heard a fly sneeze . you continue to await some momentum in the story , something that could possibly revive the slow pace . a moment like that never arises . williamson also does a handsome job of wasting some of the key supporting players , including the talented mckean and larry sanders' vet tambor . and the beautiful vivica a . fox has one lifeless scene as a caring guidance counselor , and then williamson disposes of her character entirely . on the plus side , holmes and coughlan are admirable ( with the latter giving a frighteningly believable exorcism impression ) , and molly ringwald has an amusing cameo appearance as a substitute teacher . while everything is pretty lifeless , teaching mrs . tingle remains watchable . there are a few promising ideas that pop up now and again , but anything remotely interesting is squandered by the inane script . mirren is easily the best reason to keep watching . she is convincingly evil and fun to watch , but even her gifted delivery can't save individual scenes that flounder in boredom . if there is one word for the movie surrounding her , it would be `disappointing' . basically , kevin williamson is his worst enemy here . his uneventful direction prevents any aspects of his screenplay to be appreciated ( not that his writing here is especially good ) . we will see , when rookie screenwriter ehren kruger writes the third installment in the scream franchise this christmas , whether williamson is for real .
1	titanic is so close to being the perfect movie it's upsetting that it isn't . the film , which cost $200 million+ to make and could of put 20th century fox into a lot of finicial trouble if it 'sunk' ( pun intended ) is a labour of love for cameron , who wrote and directed the film . we all know that big budget dosen't mean great film ( see waterworld ( 1995 ) ) but titanic is far superior to kevin costners waterlogged epic . but sadly , titanic just misses the mark of masterpiece ( although it is one of cameron's best films ) the film starts with present day explorers searching the runied titanic . they find a safe , and inside a picture of a woman . the woman in the picture ( an old winslet ) tells the explorers that the picture is of her . the explorers invite her over , and she then tells her story of titanic . in the flashback , dicaprio plays poor boy jack dawson , who , after winning a poker game , wins two tickets to board the grand ship titanic , leaving liverpool to go to america . also boarding the ship is rich woman rose dewitt bukater ( winslet ) who is being forced into a marriage with a man she dosen't love at all , cal hockley ( zane ) so her family can remain rich . she nearly commits suicide on the ship , but jack comes to the rescue , saves rose , they fall in love , and cal gets jealous and eventually tries to kill them . oh yeah , and the ship sinks . and that is the main problem with the film , and which stops it from being a work of genius . the story and script ( both by cameron ) are both weak . the story is full of cliched characters , ( the creepy man who the nice girl has to marry , the poor boy with heart , the stuck-up mother ) and poor dialogue ( the script consists of lots of in-jokes of how the boat won't sink , and most of the dialogue is pretty basic ) it's a shame really , as the audience does have to sit through 3 hours of this film . without good dialogue , a film could become a very long , very boring film ( like camerons own terminator 2 , 1992 ) but , luckily , there are some redeeming features that make the story and dialogue problems just disappear . firstly , there's cameron's direction . there are some great sweeping shots of the titanic , and some clever fades between the flashback titanic and the ruined titanic . but the scenes cameron directs especially well are the disaster scenes at the end . there is a lot of mayhem and panic , all done very well by cameron . it's a scary sight , watching bodies fall from great heights into the watery depths below . thanks to cameron's direction , then , the audiences attention is held for the full 3 hours 15 minutes . to support the directing are the excellent cast , working very well with their underwritten characters . dicaprio is good , although he only looks 16-17 years old . his performance of a over excitiable , yet also well mannered boy is excellent , and he also has some funny lines . winslet is great also , and her transistion from a well mannered rich girl to a rebelous young adult is pretty smooth . zane is deliciously evil as cal , saying every line with a sneer and a flicker of the eye lash . the audience really does come to hate him . he may be playing the same character he plays in every film he's in ( like dead calm , 1988 ) but he does it really , really well . also worthy of note is kathy bates ( edward scissorhands , 1990 ) as a loud mouthed american . finally , the icing on the 'great things' cake are the special effects . cameron is a whiz with effects ( just watch aliens ( 1988 ) , terminator 2 and true lies , 1994 ) and they are used very well throughout . the sweeps of the ships are awesome , although digital domain , who did the effects , cannot animate human movement too well . the humans seem to move to 'smoothly' , there's just something odd about them . you can tell that they have been animated on a computer . of course , the ship sinking scenes are awesome , with bodies flying all over the place , and the scene where the ship splits in half has to be seen to be believed . titanic is one of the only films where effects have reinforced the film . titanic , then , is a wonder of directing , acting and cgi , but not writing and story . again , like most of camerons films , the editing is loose ( cameron edits himself ) , and the film could of come in under three hours with a few more cuts . titanic , then , although not the godfather of movies it could of been , is a wonderful attempt at creating a work of genius . enjoyable , scary , and even sad , titanic is a film cinema was invented for , filling the screen with incredible images , and assaulting the ears with awesome sound . a superb film , but sadly not perfect . overall rating= (
0	the last of vampire-films offers plenty of blood and gore , but beyond that - nothing . jack crow ( james woods ) is a professional vampire slayer that is secretly working for the vatican . his and his men's mission is to clean the earth from vampires . they have lost count of how many vampires they have slaughtered , but one has always escaped them . valek ( thomas ian griffith ) - the dark messias and ruler of the undead that is older than time itself . for all eternity the vampires have searched for their salvation - the black cross . with the cross in their possesion , the vampires will be able to walk in the sunlight . after that it is either the humans or the vampires who will dominate the earth . . . i have never liked john carpenter and his style . after seeing this film , my opinions have not changed . john carpenter remains john carpenter . however , because of the film's self-irony , black humour and fascinating cinematography , i would say that it is his greatest achievement in a long , long time . neither the synopses or carpenter's direction are original . but there are some things that are interesting . the director's negative view on the catholic church , for instance . at the end of the film it becomes clear that cardinal alba ( maximilian schell ) has simply used crow and his team to find valek , so that he would gain eternal life . otherwise the catholic priests are shown cool - drinking , smoking and breaking the rool of celibacy . carpenter has created an interesting atmosphere . set in new mexican dessert , he switches between bright golden sunrises and bloody sundowns , symbolically illustrating the good and the evil through light and darkness . more than anything in this film , this simple illustration shows the battle between good and evil . the cinematography by gary b . kibbe is probably the film's greatest achievement . music ( composed by john carpenter himself ) is at times effective , the special effects and makeup are likewise worth a notice . when it comes to the cast ( in an intellectual film like this casting is the last problem ; everyone can scream and swing the axe ! ) , but here james woods is suprisingly convincing . he is macho and cool as the dedicated hunter , who lost his family to the " breed of evil " . woods is constantly overacting , which really saves the film from falling into the trap of serious self importance . daniel baldwin is also entertaining as crow's loyal partner . the other cast members are struggling . because the film doesn't take itself too seriously , it stays afloat . still it is like most vampire-films - a mediocre experience .
0	what makes reindeer games even more disappointing than just a predictable , lifeless action flick is the cast and crew who signed onto the project . most of the people involved in reindeer games just came off terrible slumps with excellent comeback performances in their most recent films . john frankenheimer , who made the unforgettable cold war drama the manchurian candidate way back in the early 60's , recently showed critics and fans alike that he still had some magic left in his directorial skills when he created the brilliant car chase scenes in ronin . screenwriter ehren kruger gave a remarkable first impression when he wrote the script for the underrated arlington rd . ben affleck displayed his comedic talents in dogma and boiler room , and even on saturday night live directly after the horrible forces of nature and 200 cigarettes . even charlize theron , who i was convinced couldn't act , did a decent job in cider house rules . when all of these bright stars come together , one would assume that the movie will have great potential to be entertaining . after coming out of the theater showing reindeer games , disbelief was my first reaction ? then frustration . the movie could have premiered on cinemax at two in the morning starring an all-rookie cast and still would have been equally lacking in entertaining . the acting is so pitiful and the script so dull , i may have to rethink some of my opinions on how talented these actors actually are . it seemed like everyone was restricted to just the script and not given a fair amount of improvisational rights . we have all seen ben affleck have some fun on the set , it is so apparent in a number of scenes in good will hunting when he exchanges jokes with his friends at a bar . the actors in that movie were having fun and , from that , the audience had fun . reindeer games is the complete opposite ; the actors don't seem to want to be their characters ( even danny trejo , who will do practically anything , doesn't look like he is enjoying himself ) , causing the audience to quickly lose interest . evidence of public disapproval was noted when a woman behind me yelled " boy this movie is horrible ! " and when there were scattered giggles during the most dramatic moments . the story follows a man , rudy ( ben affleck ) , who is leaving prison in a few days along with his best friend and cellmate nick ( james frain ) . nick has been exchanging love letters with a beautiful woman , ashley ( charlize theron ) , and cannot wait to leave prison and meet her in person . when nick is killed in a prison riot , rudy decides to pretend to be nick and take ashley out on a date for the christmas holidays . unfortunately ashley's brother , gabriel ( gary sinise ) interferes with their relationship . thinking rudy is nick , he kidnaps rudy and threatens to kill him unless he helps rob a casino , which nick use to work at as a security guard . now rudy must pretend to be nick so he can protect ashley from her brother gabriel . confused ? the movie only gets more complex as it goes on , until it gets way , way too complex at its climax . but reindeer games makes its first serious mistake during the first half an hour . the hero commits a greedy , selfish act when he decides to pretend he is his dead cellmate in order to date ashley . some hero . the point of a hero is to do the morally correct thing , a person for the audience to relate to or admire . when rudy lies and cheats his way into trouble , instead of gathering support from me for him to ultimately succeed in getting the bad guys , i felt more like he was getting what he deserved and even wanted to see him fail at times . the most irritating part of the film ( besides the fact that this is a christmas movie released in february ) is the number of chances the bad guys get to kill rudy but fail or delay for some idiotic reason . the routine in which the bad guy must explain his genius plan to the hero before attempting to kill him with some elaborate machine is getting so tired nowadays , especially when i eagerly want to see the hero dead . the only saving grace keeping this movie from receiving zero stars is an amusing but pointless cameo from isaac hayes as a prisoner upset with his food . why he was in this movie for such a pointless role beats me . why any of these people had anything at all to do with this movie beats me .
1	in one of my many videos i have attained from the local library , casablanca was my third classic in some weeks . the others being citizen kane and vertigo ( yes , i am trying to see as many of afi's greatest movies ever made as i can ) . but , casablanca stood out from the rest for me : it was actually watchable . what most hail as the greatest american film ever , casablanca isn't so much a love story as a political frenzy with a love triangle thrown in . it seems that star humphry bogart spend about 85 percent of the movie with various leaders of the nation instead of with ingred bergman . that annoyed me , as did the ending . why didn't the plan turn around ? ! ? surprisingly , i enjoyed the film . i liked bogart's character and his acting ( not over the top as most actors in his era ) . i once read about if you had a choice to be in a movie , which one would it be , and a women said casablanca . at first i was thinking to myself " why ? " then , as i watched the film again , i understood why . the movie is very well done and the script top-notch , although i doubt i understood more than half of the political mumbo jumbo . casablanca is , in my mind , no classic ( like solaris ) , but it is a good film and stylishly shot . hey , hollywood , how about this : a remake with harrison ford and anne heche ? now that would be a classic .
1	note : some may consider portions of the following text to be spoilers . be forewarned . it's startling to consider that it was only a few years ago that film distributors would worriedly rearrange their summer release schedules in order to give the annual disney animated feature juggernaut a wide berth . the lion king had just cracked $300 million domestic in gross to become one of the most profitable ventures in film history , continuing to build on a sturdy base left by prior flicks aladdin and beauty and the beast . since then , though , disney's animated features have shown an unbroken string of diminishing returns , with pocahontas , the hunchback of notre dame , and this year's hercules successively proving less and less potent . with the once seemingly-impregnable disney stranglehold on the market share suddenly looking mighty vulnerable , and faced with their first serious competition in the animated film market from fox's anastasia , disney has brought xmas home early by dusting off the feature which sparked the modern revival of feature animation , the little mermaid . while the animation for the film is , as is typically the case for disney films , unquestionably top-notch , the magic in the little mermaid is not its animation , but the wonderful innocence of its story and its rousingly superb music . the film's storyline is fairly straightforward -- young teen falls for handsome man , father disapproves and assigns hapless chaperone to his daughter , teen disobeys father and goes to desperate lengths to win her man -- except in this case , the chaperone is a crab , the teen is a young mermaid , and the object of her desire is a human prince . what makes the little mermaid so affecting and so emotionally resonant is the richness and charm of its characters and the sheer clarity and honest simplicity of their emotions . from the moment mermaid ariel lays her eyes on prince eric , she's resolutely smitten , and she's such a pure and endearing character that one can't help but invest their heart with her . this simple but touching love story , coupled with a healthy dose of smart humour , makes the little mermaid a remarkably captivating picture . one of the interesting things about the little mermaid is something which now curiously dates it : the voices cast for its motley crew of characters . this film was produced just before the distracting concept of using celebrity voices became in vogue , which started to a certain degree with beauty and the beast and was irrevocably exacerbated by robin williams' much-heralded turn in aladdin ; by the release of the lion king and henceforth , the majority of characters in the animated films were voiced by celebrities . while it's understandable that animated features lacking the name-recognition or drawing power of disney ( say , balto's use of kevin bacon and bridget fonda , or even anastasia's showcasing of meg ryan and john cusack ) would be forced to turn to this strategy in order to hype their products , it's unfortunate that even disney has embraced this policy . do we really need to hear , say , demi moore as esmerelda in the hunchback of notre dame ? is the film's entertainment value really augmented by hearing a recognizable voice , rather than a voice which best suits the role ? ( i'm not exactly on the edge of my seat for eddie murphy in the upcoming mulan . ) fortunately , the performers who voice the characters in the little mermaid , although perhaps more obscure , are impeccably cast . chief among them is jodi benson , a 1992 tony nominee for her stage work in crazy for you , who voices the film's heroine ariel to perfection ; with a wonderfully expressive speaking voice full of youthful vigor , and gorgeous singing voice , ms . benson provides a most engaging anchor for the film . ( she's the only reason i'd even consider catching flubber . ) similarly , samuel e . wright is terrific in the showy role of sebastian , the weary guardian crab . he easily milks his lovable character's comic moments for all they're worth , and his rendering of two of the little mermaid's big tunes -- " under the sea " and " kiss the girl " -- have become the stuff of legend . pat carrol is deliciously villainous and vampy as the evil sea-witch ursula , while kenneth mars' booming voice conveys the stern yet affectionate authority of ariel's father , king triton . in large roles and small ( edie mcclurg as dotting busybody carlotta is ideal , and rene auberjonois has great fun with his exuberant french chef ) , the little mermaid is impeccably cast . of course , the little mermaid will probably be best remembered for its remarkable collection of songs composed by the songwriting team of alan menken ( music ) and howard ashman ( lyrics ) , who had created little shop of horrors and would go on to compose beauty and the beast and aladdin for disney before mr . ashman's untimely death . not only are mr . menken's tunes unbearably catchy , but mr . ashman's charming lyrics are fully integrated into the film's storyline so that the songs are a virtual extension of the character's dialogue , and consequently work wonderfully within the context of the film . mr . menken's score for the film is equally top-notch ; the sequence where eric ( voiced by christopher daniel barnes ) and ariel tour his kingdom in a horse-drawn carriage becomes magical and wondrous with mr . menken's fine score . it appears that most people prefer the delightfully colourful production number for the calypso-styled " under the sea " as joyfully crooned by mr . wright , which won the academy award and golden globe awards for best song -- indeed , one of the many little joys in screening the film during its re-release was listening to children scattered throughout the audience singing along with the tune -- but my favourite is ms . benson's heartfelt rendition of the ballad " part of your world " , an achingly beautiful tune of yearning and hope ( wonderfully lyricized by mr . ashman ) which , accompanied by the film's most dazzlingly polished animation sequence , packs an emotional wallop which literally brought tears to my eyes . during the song's reprise , which builds to a crescendo with ariel arching on a rock as a wave crashes in , the cumulative effect is nothing short of breathtaking , and one becomes acutely aware that this single instance is one of the finest in animation history . as of this writing , november 1997 has come to an end , as has disney's limited 17-day re-release of the little mermaid . there's no question that the primary motivation for , if not the film's reissue itself , at least its timing , was to reinforce disney's dominance in the animation market and provide direct competition to fox's costly new upstart animation division and their first major venture , anastasia . in every respect , the re-release of the little mermaid appears to be a success -- the film's 1997 grosses have pushed its cumulative domestic gross over the magic $100 million mark ; the little mermaid proved to have remarkably strong drawing power for a film initially released only eight years ago and in many homes on video , pulling in close to $10 million in its opening weekend ; and although nobody could possibly expect the little mermaid to possibly defeat the aggressively-marketed anastasia in head-to-head competition , it siphoned enough from the fox film's opening weekend totals to keep anastasia from the coveted weekend leader spot , allowing for disney's odious flubber to sweep in on the subsequent week and wrestle the family demographic market share away . but although disney's motives in the reissue of the little mermaid were self-serving and protectionist , the real winner is the public . any reason to put this film back into theatres is a good one , and it's a true joy to see this heartwarming gem back on the silver screen . the little mermaid is the best film to come out of the disney's modern animation renaissance , and one of the greatest animated films ever made .
0	for a film touted as exploring relationships and black sexuality , trois is surprisingly tame . despite it's lurid subject matter and it's passing nod to fatal attraction , it moves along with flat , uninspired dialogue as it sets up a surprising climax that tries mightily to overthrow the considerable dead weight of the rest of the film . freshly moved to atlanta , jermaine ( dourdan ) and his wife , jasmine ( moore ) , have the trappings of a perfect life . they have a beautiful house in suburbia . jermaine is a lawyer on the fast track at his firm . jasmine is his supportive wife , who is finishing up her college degree . in an opening montage via a home video of the pair , we see the unremarkable story of their marriage and early marital triumphs . this is a couple that has it all . into this eden slithers the lure of lust . despite his outward appearance , jermaine reveals himself as selfish and covetous of his wife more as a possession than a person . a glimmer of his true nature peeks out during an early sex scene with his wife as he goes about his business , oblivious to jasmine's concerns . we also find that he has been relentlessly asking jasmine to participate in a menage- a-trois , much to jasmine's dismay . as jermaine puts it , " don't you want to be sexually free ? " jermaine shares his desire with co-worker terrence ( smith ) , who obligingly sets jermaine up with a woman who might be interested in just such an encounter . the woman , jade ( palmer ) is a direct counterpoint to jasmine . jade , at one point was a college student , too . unlike jasmine , she found herself pregnant , dropped out of school and now struggles to make ends meet . to further reinforce their differences , it's revealed that jade is involved in a custody battle over her son . inevitably , through liquor and a touch of duplicity on jermaine's part , the forbidden act is consummated . the aftermath of the encounter sidesteps into fatal attraction territory as acts of violence are perpetrated upon jermaine's property with the hint that the violence may escalate . by this point , trois shows itself to be a soap opera without the requisite melodrama : a fatal attraction without the social significance . the exploration of relationships is strictly superficial and stereotypical . jermaine comes off as insincere , sexually driven and selfish . jasmine is bland and subservient . jade comes off a bit sympathetically , but that is negated by her moral bankruptcy . yet another tale of a sexually aggressive " dog " of a man who imposes his will upon his accommodating , innocent mate . the last 10 minutes will undoubtly throw you a curve , but by this point , will you even care ? if the rest of the movie was as dynamic as the ending , perhaps there could have been some freshness to it . as it stands , trois is pretty standard fare .
1	i've noticed something lately that i've never thought of before . pseudo- substance - hollywood faking deep meanings in their films . have you ever seen a movie that you really enjoyed , then when you look back , you realize there was something missing ? more and more , filmmakers seem to be putting out well rehearsed , melodramatic films that evoke strong connotations of being a great film , but if you step aside and reflect on your movie going experience , you may just discover nothing more than elegantly presented fluff . i'm not trying to say city of angels is that bad . it had a lot going for it , but somewhere along the way , it faltered . somehow , underneath the seemingly poetic beauty of it all , there was a gigantic hole somebody covered with iridescent performances and glossy cinematography . the predictable ending that shattered our hopes ( even though we saw it coming ) only added to the disappointment . but for over an hour , city of angels is well worth the time . nicolas cage is seth , a guardian angel who , like hundreds ( likely thousands or even millions ) of other angels , spends eternity watching over the citizens of mortality ; humans never aware of how much celestial intervention occurs in their life . meg ryan , in her most subdued performance yet , plays maggie , a doctor who begins to ponder exactly who it is we're fighting against when we fight to keep someone alive . after losing a patient on the surgery table , these questions envelope maggie , and seth , the angel who was there to oversee the patient's transition into the afterlife , is immediately captivated by the doctor . he begins following and observing maggie , falling more and more in love with her everyday . angels , who we quickly learn are not and never were humans , can not experience human sensations such as taste and touch , but they do have the ability to make themselves seen to anyone they desire . seth's adoration is too much to resist , and eventually he does appear to maggie , quite regularly , although such a thing seems taboo among the angelic community . the angels are interestingly presented , all of them dressed in black and more reminiscent of hitmen than traditional glowing white entities , but it's a nice touch that never seems like a mere attempt at uniqueness . cage is a wonderfully versatile actor ( think face/off , raising arizona , and it could happen to you - what a combo ! ) who slips into the role of a heavenly agent quite nicely but threatens sappiness more than once . it's nice to see ryan pick up roles like this and the one in courage under fire . the two aren't very comparable to each other , but they both deviate from her usual " intelligently ditzy " romantic comedy roles , and it's an impressive side of ryan movie goers rarely have the chance to enjoy . but even though the two leads do an impressive job , it is dennis franz who grabs us with his interpretation of a hospital patient who knows more than meets the eye . it's a shame that with so much going for it , city of angels falters so much in its final stages , leaving us with the realization that an emotionally incredible movie was out there , they just didn't know quite how to get to it . they struggle for an impacting conclusion and wind up with painful thud rather than an exhilarating high . filmmakers should know your final impression will be the one you linger on , remember , and convey to others thru word of mouth , so after telling us for 60+ minutes that this film is a glorious masterpiece , they sure leave us with a disheartening taste of mediocrity in our mouths . based on the german film wings of desire ( that being the english title , of course ) , city of angels is ninety percent success , enough to make most people forgive its shortcomings , even the devastatingly disappointing ending . most movie goers , the non-cynics anyway , will be too wrapped up in the surreal atmosphere to give criticism to that which needs to be criticized . nonetheless , city of angels is beautifully captivating , which is probably enough to satisfy those poetic viewers who will appreciate a delve into rich emotional territories .
0	for better or worse , the appearance of basic instinct in the movie marketplace gave the greenlight to a whole slew of overheated , oversexed , underwritten thrillers . apparently not having joe eszterhas as the writer doesn't change a thing , since body of evidence wasn't written by him , but has a puzzling eszterhas-ish presence all over it . in other words , it's a ) really dirty and b ) really , really stupid . madonna ( first warning sign ) stars in body of evidence as a woman who has piles of money and no apparent job ; she lives on a houseboat and likes to parade around semi-naked , presumably for the edification of the shrimp . she's been accused of having murdered an older man who was her lover . already two classic examples of hollywood sexism are in effect -- the first being that any woman in a movie cannot be sexual unless she's under thirty ( or at least looks it ) , and that they usually only exist for the sake of studs or filthy rich older men . what's worse is that the movie confirms all the above , and wallows in them as well . madonna's character is accused of forcing sex on the old goat when she knew darned well he had a heart condition . ( and yes , there are the obligatory cracks from the cops about how at least he died happy . this movie leave no scummy stone unturned . ) anyway . willem dafoe ( very good but completely wasted ) also stars as the lawyer who is doomed to run afoul of madonna's sexuality . how do we know this ? because his character is set up with the token wife and kids . how obvious is it that he's gonna cheat on her and have to fess everything up ? and get kicked out of the house ? and get welcomed back anyway ? don't skip to the end yet ; we're just getting warmed up . dafoe and madonna have a lot of sex in this movie . most of it is about as erotic as open-heart surgery , since it involves such goodies as hot candlewax ( always the kink of choice among screenwriters who don't know the first thing about * really * kinky sex ) and smashed light bulbs . don't ask . another thing that people are starting to realize about explicit sex in movies is that unless it is critically important to the story , it's insanely dull . what's worse is that body of evidence is dull * everywhere * , not just in the sex scenes . the stuff in the courtroom is recycled ninth-hand from other bad courtroom drama scenes . the thriller business itself is ridiculous -- it involves nasal spray bottles and drugs , and juergen prochnow as a surly doctor . and the ending -- another homage to eszterhas , maybe ? -- is one of those endings where you can almost see the exact * frame * where one of the five or six various endings to this mess was spliced in . the director is uli edel , all the more disappointing since he also directed the elegiac and powerful last exit to brooklyn and christiane f . everyone has to eat , i guess , but this isn't a meal ticket , it's leftovers .
1	" you leave little notes on my pillow . i told you a million times i can't stand little notes on my pillow . 'we are all out of corn flakes - f . u . ' it took me three hours to figure out that 'f . u . ' was felix unger . " --- a frustrated oscar madison ( walter matthau ) running down a list of his complaints against his roommate felix unger ( jack lemmon ) , in the odd couple . the classic neil simon comedy ( based on his own stage play ) about suicidal felix ( lemmon ) , who is persuaded by his poker friend oscar ( matthau ) to stay with him in his apartment after felix's wife throws him out and files for divorce . the hook : oscar is messy and likes his apartment that way , while felix is an obsessive/compulsive neat freak . the two men , despite their friendship , instantly clash . movies just aren't as delightfully funny as this one is . every line of neil simon's dialogue flows like comedic poetry , and all the actors are just perfect in their performances . lemmon is at his best as the anxiety ridden felix , but it's matthau who shines brightest as oscar , whose world is being invaded and rearranged , mostly against his wishes ( the type of character i always enjoy identifying with ) . and who can forget that catchy score by neal hefti ? the best thing about the film ( and this is a testament to the quality of the writing ) is that it's a comedy with substance . these two men , even while at each other's throats , genuinely care for one another as friends . when they clash , it isn't cartoonish hatred being displayed , but genuine frustration with the fact that they are such good friends but just cannot manage to co-exist . movies nowadays , take grumpy old men for example , just don't have that extra spark there . these days it's just animosity for the sake of comedy . a television series followed ( starring jack klugman and tony randall ) , which i'll admit i've never seen an episode of in its entirety , and neil simon even scripted the sequel , the odd couple ii , which was released in 1998 . neither of them compare to this comic masterpiece though . it's one of the best comedies of all time and easily earns its spot in my top ten favorite films .
0	it seems like i'm reviewing cheeseball horror movies on a monthly basis now . scream revitalized a genre the studios are now intent on burying into the ground again-the serial killers in these new slasher movies have nothing on sony and miramax in the " relentless " department . i still know what you did last summer is a terrible film in many respects , but in the wake of the stupefyingly bad urban legend , it's citizen hook . jennifer love-hewitt reprises her role as buxom teenager julie james-who apparently escaped certain doom at the end of the last movie by . . . waking up . she lives in fear of ben willis , the vengeful fisherman-victim of a hit and run by julie and her pals . paranoid and beat , she accepts a free trip to the bahamas from her friend karla ( norwood ) , winner of the local radio station's 4th of july getaway giveaway . bikini-ready julie invites boyfriend ray ( prinze , jr . ) , who-and here's the movie's biggest mystery-turns her down , but changes his mind and plans to surprise her before take-off . until he gets a roadside visit from captain hell-liner himself , that is . unaware of this and feeling shunned , julie goes on vacation , anyway , with karla , karla's boyfriend ( pfeiffer ) , and will ( matthew settle ) , a real boy-next-door type who's sweet on julie . to make a long story short-i can't believe it took a paragraph to describe the set-up for this gratuitous sequel-the trip is a disaster . not only is it storm season , not only is the desk clerk ( the frighteners' jeffrey combs ) a jerk , not only are the few island residents and our heroic vacationers getting picked off by the resourceful willis one-by-one , but the karaoke machine isn't working properly ! ( you think killing is hard ? try reprogramming a laserdisc so that gloria gaynor's " i will survive " now contains the lyric " i still know what you did last summer ! " ) all is not lost-ray is on his way to save the day , and a helpful witch doctor is saying little prayers for julie and co . this picture is really about breasts : two of them . julie , like a good horror heroine , never does up her shirt to the collar , always wears white in the rain , and keeps sexy underwear on in case of a sudden desire to tan . based on the hormonal charge i got out of the movie , i can't imagine what it was doing to the ten year old boy who sat next to me-he gets jennifer love-hewitt , and my generation got heather langenkamp ! lucky bastard . i didn't like i know what you did last summer and i can't say i liked this continuation any more or less . the pacing in both films is languid-how is it that so much time passes with neither murder nor character development ? i still know what you did last summer has a better sense of humour than the first one , though , and at least it explains away willis's random selection of victims . ( i don't think the hotel maid or the stoner dude had the slightest idea what julie did last summer . ) director cannon ( judge dredd ) is a competent filmmaker but not a particularly imaginative one-if there is a part three ( what on earth would they call it ? ) , and the fun denouement suggests there will be , here's my suggestion : hire a filmmaker with flair , someone who can really energize this stillborn series-someone who won't rely on so many shock notes . and let that person run wild with the camera . ( aside : if blandy [sic] must appear in the next one , try to keep the number of times she says " baby " to a minimum . thanks in advance . )
1	after watching the first ten minutes of this japanese film , you will never eat a bowl of ramen the same way again . there is a scene where an old man is teaching a young one how to eat the soupy bowl of noodles , as a master would teach an eager apprentice . " you caress the noodles with the chopsticks , " he says , " then put the roast pork on the side of the bowl and apologize to it by saying , 'see you soon . ' " of course , it's meant to be a parody , but there is an earnestness underneath the silliness that makes you take it with a certain degree of sobriety . you begin to appreciate the food as not merely something you eat , not something you like , not something you enjoy , but rather something you experience . experiencing it is a process which engages all of the senses , fulfilling each one on its own terms and weaving them so that the total is a pleasure that is more than the sum of its parts . trust me , you really want to go find a noodle shop at this point . juzo itami's tampopo brings the same sense of the serious parody of food to the forefront by making the story follow the pattern of an american western , set in modern day japan . a stranger , goro ( tsutomu yamazaki ) , comes into town and finds tampopo ( nobuko miyamoto ) , the proprietor of a small , hole-in-the-wall noodle shop , trying to fend off the insults of the local strongman , pisken ( rikiya yasuoka ) . goro , to defend the honor of this woman and her noodles , gets into a fight with the ringleader and his henchmen , emerging bloodied , but victorious . goro finds that tampopo's ambition is to have a shop that people would flock to from far away , just to eat a bowl of her ramen . the problem is , her fare is something less than popular , and less than appetizing . however , goro agrees to help tampopo in her quest , and in the process they seek the wisdom of an elderly noodle expert , enlist the aid of a wealthy patron , and make friends with the former enemy . this film is filled with many little scenes which are absolute gems . take , for example , when tampopo tries to buy the recipe for a delicious soup from another shop owner . the price is too high , but the owner of the store next door will secretly sell it to her for a more affordable sum . tampopo meets him at his store late at night , and he leads her to a back room . she protests , thinking that perhaps this man has ulterior motives , but he insists . just when she is about to bolt for the exit , he shows her a small gap in the wall adjoining his store with the noodle shop next door . she peers through and takes notes as she watches the cook make the soup for the next day , her face filled with a joy that can be felt by the audience . this scene , while comical , is very effective at filling the viewer with a sense of trepidation , then of relief and discovery . there's also an interesting scene where goro introduces tampopo and her son to a bunch of street people who , despite their economic trappings , are all gourmets and master sommeliers . we even watch as one of them sneaks into the kitchen of a restaurant and expertly prepares a french omelet . the scene is meant to bring a laugh , but it also says that no matter whether people are rich or poor , food is something which everyone has in common , and the enjoyment of food is an experience shared by all . there are also a number of unrelated vignettes appearing throughout the film , which help to illustrate and accentuate the role of food in people's lives . a particularly effective one involves a wife and mother being tended to in her home by a doctor . surrounded by her children , she is obviously in her last hours of life . her husband comes home , and seeing her worsened condition , demands that she get up and make dinner . the viewer knows the husband's intention is not to be mean ; he is desperate for the normalcy of which he and his family has obviously been deprived , and the wife making dinner is an essential part of this . in a near miracle , the wife drags herself to the kitchen and prepares a quick meal , then brings it to her awaiting family . as the family eats , she looks on them and smiles . preparing food for her family is a joy and a comfort to her , and for a brief moment , she too enjoys the normalcy . then she falls over , dead . for a moment , the family is stunned , but then the father yells at the children , " keep eating ! this is the last meal your mother ever made ! " crying as they do so , the family finishes the meal . the scene is comical , awkward , moving , and beautiful . by including the vignettes , itami ran the risk of creating a disjointed film , but surprisingly , they do not interrupt the pacing of the main storyline . instead , they even help contribute to the idea that tampopo's goal of being able to serve exceptional food is worthy and even noble . because the film parodies a western , the construction of the plot is fairly predictable , but is still enjoyable as we watch the familiar way in which the " good guys " come together for the final showdown . in this case , the showdown is against the ramen . if they eat tampopo's ramen , soup and all , tampopo knows she has succeeded . it's pretty obvious what the outcome will be , but when a film changes your whole perspective on something you consume every day of your life , you can afford to cut it a little slack .
1	as the small boats rock slowly toward the shore at omaha beach normandy on d-day , the weary , seasick soldiers take a deep breath and open the large protective shield at the back of the boat . they are unaware of exactly what is going to happen . one man kisses the crucifix that hangs around his neck . as the flap falls , the battle begins . they are trapped like rats in a cage and proceed to be blown to pieces in the wake of enemy gunfire . amid the chaos of this massacre , stands a shot that , at least for me , hangs in the air like the girl in the little red coat in schindler's list . a soldier , clearly missing an arm , wanders around the body-strewn beach like a lost puppy . we are not invited to know what he is searching for until he finds it himself . he bends over , picks up his arm and starts to carry it , probably not bothering to ask himself ; " what now ? " saving private ryan is a masterfully composed film . the direction is out of this world , surely the type of command that can win spielberg another directing oscar . the cinematography , by janusz kaminsky , is also astounding . but be forewarned , this is the most violent and graphic film i have ever seen . the articles you read and the warnings you see are justified ; saving private ryan is visually as disturbing as a film can get . the question is , " does the story and its realism justify the excessive use ? " the answer from my point of view is " no " . braveheart was a truly gritty , and , one would imagine , realistic battle film . ryan is ten times worse . expect disembowelments , sucked in skulls , heads blown to bits , arms and legs flying across the battlefield . many in the theater could not bear to watch . and it is a shame , too , because this is otherwise by far one of the standouts this year . but such graphic displays may turn away even the most loyal spielberg supporters ( and academy members ) . saving private ryan takes us from the attack at omaha beach on d-day , 1944 , through into the film's primary mission . captain miller ( hanks ) assembles an 8 man crew and sets off to find a missing solider , private ryan , whose three brothers have already been killed on the battlefield . the government goes to great lengths to make sure that mrs . ryan doesn't recieve a fourth letter of condolences about her sons , that no person should suffer such injustice . miller's crew is not in favor of the mission and they begin to harbor a secret hatred for ryan , though they don't yet know him . they resent having to trudge out to bring home one soldier who doesn't have any more or less right to live than any of them . this film manages to keep up a rapid pace and , though there is a lot of set up between battles , the story continues full speed to the end . the pacing and dramatism of the extremely well choreographed battle scenes is really in a league of it's own . spielberg , though not a student of the " quick cut " school of filmmaking , takes a stab at it here , and does it better than michael bay or any of his mtv counterparts could ever hope to do it . bay should pay close attention , take copious notes . if you want to jump cut every two seconds , do it the way spielberg does it in ryan . in the end , the extremity of the gory violence is not justified by the " importance " of the film . schindler's list taught many people the truth about the holocaust . it opened eyes , sparked debate and study . though the battle scenes in ryan have never been portrayed as realistically before , they don't amount to anything as serious or thought provoking as the schindler's list . overall , this is just the truest depiction of the old adage , " war is hell . " but braveheart-dosage would have fit this movie much more appropriately , and would have made the difference between me getting up the nerve to see it again some day and realizing that this is something i doubt i could endure again . masterful work marred only by excessive gore .
1	dreamworks pictures presents a jinks/ cohen company production kevin spacey annette bening " american beauty " thora birch allison janney peter gallagher mena suvari wes bentley and chris cooper co-producers stan wlodkowski alan ball music by thomas newman costume designer julie weiss film editor tariq anway chris greenbury production designer naomi shohan director of photography conrad l . hall , a . s . c . produced by bruce cohen & dan jinks written by alan ball directed by sam mendes " both my wife and daughter think i'm this gigantic loser . and they're right . i have lost something . i didn't always feel this sedated . " with that piece of dialogue , we are fully introduced to lester burnham ( kevin spacey ) , a 42 year old man trapped within his own life . lester works for an advertising agency . his growing dissatisfaction with his job is only one of the mid-life crisis he is suffering . estranged from both his wife and his daughter , lester starts to crack under the stress . his life becomes nothing more than a series of mastubatory fantasies , and sullen apathy . carolyn burnham ( annette bening ) , is the prototypical career woman/ homemaker . she carefully tends her rose garden , decorates her home with the best furnishings . but inside she is desperate . unsuccessful at her profession as a real estate agent , she drives herself into states of denial and self loathing that only feed her growing resentment towards her family . the third member of this anti-family is jane burnham ( thora birch ) , lester and carolyn's daughter . a young girl going through the typical stages of adolescence , but having to also come to terms with her families growing dysfunction . this funny ( and frightening ) slice of life is refreshingly simple . not one character is given less than is needed to identify him or her . some of the most telling characters are those that serve to highlight other characters . most notably is barbara fitts ( allison janney ) , the almost catatonic wife of retired marine colonel fitts . she has almost no dialogue , and seems to be either recovering from a stroke or suffering from one . colonel fitts ( chris cooper ) is an angry and frightened man . his rage directed almost singularly at his son , ricky ( wes bentley ) who has just moved with his family to the same neighborhood as the burnham's . in fact they are the next door neighbors . anymore detail into the personalities of these marvelously diverse characters would deprive one of the many pleasures and surprises to be had in " american beauty " . alan ball , who was the co-executive producer of the hit tv series " cybil " and creator of the new sitcom " oh grow up " , has fashioned one of the most insightful and expertly tuned screenplays to have hit the screen in the past ten years . not one character in this film rings falsely . and the depth of personality in each , is achingly honest and insightful . the plot detailing the last year in the life of a man as he tries to find his own self worth is so resoundingly cliched and at the same time original as to bring to mind such marvelous film work as " the graduate " or " lolita " . kevin spacey turns in one of this years most pragmatic performances . his lester burnham is an everyman caught up in the middle of a life that is spiraling into old age . finally unable to deal with the lost soul that he has become , lester tries to return to his youth . he quits his job ( actually blackmailing his employer for one year's salary ) , starts smoking pot , fantasizes about his daughter's girlfriend angela ( mena suvari , in a marvelous performance here ) , starts working out , and finally takes a job at the local fast food outlet . mr . spacey's performance is so remarkably subtle and ingenuous , that we can be certain that come oscar ? time , we can be assured to see him name among the five nominees . annette bening also turns in what may be the best performance of her career . carolyn burnham is a woman who has become so insecure as to be caught up in maintaining the facade of normalcy . unable to cope with her growing disillusionment , she forces herself to maintain her demeanor , driving her further and further into desperation , adultery and possibly murder . ms . bening makes the character of carolyn so compelling as to be identifiable to almost anyone . the slow and methodical turn from happy home maker to charnel house martha stewart is too frightening to express in words . thora birch holds her own against the talents cast with her . jane burnham is both an innocent girl caught up in what is a dysfunctional family , and a rebellious child ready to abandon them at any moment . her growing distrust and isolation from her family is something that many parents should view as a warning . she is the prototypical trophy child . when carolyn praises her daughter after a performance by her cheerleading team ( " i'm so proud of you , honey . you didn't screw up once ! " ) , the bitterness and resentment are palpable . thora birch is a young actress to watch . praise must also go to chris cooper who brings yet another angry father role to life with depth and resonance . colonel finn is a man in complete denial . his military upbringing masking a desire he is too repulsed to even comprehend . wes bentley as ricky finn is fine as the enigma . the boy next door who may be more foe than friend . a deceitful and calculating young man , whose voyeuristic proclivities mask a deeper and more profound understanding of life than any of the adults around him . mr . bentley's performance is the one troublesome note in the film . that is simply because the character is such a grand and complete liar , that one almost faults the performance for it . director sam mendes handles all of the particulars of the cast and the settings with a sure and composed style that is neither intrusive nor subtle . scenes of carolyn walking through the rain , carry an ominous fission that calls attention to the emotions of the character . the subtle cinematography by conrad hall is wonderful , capturing the season in all of it's harsh beauty ( fall has never looked so inviting , yet depressing ) . every nuance of " american beauty " begs it's audience to think and examine . it is a film that will be discussed and debated for years to come . and well it should , as it is simply one of this years best .
1	with the sudden liberal emergence of personal privacy abounding in the news lately , what with that whole clinton thing going on ( you know , 100 million bucks to discover the president got boinked by an intern - oh , please , government , waste my taxes just a bit more , would you ? ) , it's about time tony scott helmed the newest action pic disguised as an important if not slightly ignorant social statement . with this and " crimson tide , " he's created two successfully chilly films that are interesting , exciting , even pretty smart , but never totally riveting as cinema , and the problem i think with each of these films is that each film is too obsessed with its message to ever be really satisfying , and too obsessed with looking all cutting edge to ever be totally smart . that film dealt with a civil war inside a nuclear submarine over whether or not to follow rules or question them , and was appropriately scary and all , but never totally thrilling or overly brilliant . " enemy of the state " is the same way : it's engrossing for its entire running time , and it's scary the way that it shows a man's decent into kafkaism , but it's too technical . it's too cold and not as fascinating or exciting as it could be . it casts will smith , one of the better big budget leading men in movies these days because he's charming and witty and never uninteresting , and hopes that his charisma can make up for his character not being well developed enough to really be a person . i hate to do this , but last year's film " the game " got it damn perfect : it casts michael douglas as a deeply flawed human being , a man who is cold and has cut off everyone from his life , and then pulls everything he thought he had as a security blanket away from him and watched what happened . the result was not only a film that was exciting and chilling , but also the best mindfuck of the entire year . not that i want every kafkaesque film to be " the game " ( this year's " the spanish prisoner " succeeds with less thrills and chills ) , but it should be an example of what works and what doesn't . will smith's character is , frankly , too perfect , at least too movie perfect . he had an affair with another woman ( lisa bonet , ha ha ) , but his relationship with his wife ( regina king ) is basically fine regardless . he has a kid , and he's raking in money as a lawyer , albeit a very good and reasonably moral one . so he generally doesn't have any real problems as a human being , and is therefore boring . . . except that he is played by will smith , who embodies him with about as much will smith charm as he can without entering " id4 " / " men in black " territory . he's a good dramatic actor ( just see the first half hour of " six degrees of separation " for proof of this , not that he isn't great the whole time ) , and here , he makes his character likable and sympathetic without any real strain on his character , which makes the film lack any real deep interesting qualities . smith becomes involved in a mass conspiracy involving the assasination of a senator opposed to a government law that would create world surveillance , extinguishing privacy as we know it from the world , under the pretense that it would make crime easier to control , when he is passed a disk of the event caught on tape by an outside party ( a nature observer played by , uh , jason lee ) . the government wants the disk , and is prepared to destroy his life to get it . as smith's plight is dramatized , we are introduced to the masterminds who surveillance him , sitting in vans disguised as other businesses , staring at computers and pulling out tricks faster than a speeding bullet . these guys ( played by jack black , jamie kennedy , and seth green ) are the most interesting part of this film because they're , well , fascinating : they're doing their jobs , which are evil , but the film doesn't view them as such , and they almost become our friends . we like these guys for the sole reason that the film doesn't automatically judge them as the villains . they're also scary because we get the idea that they're not fully aware of the impact their jobs have on the world . it's as if they're obsessed with their jobs , not because they're evil , but because , hey , it's a fun job , and no one else can do it like them . unfortunately , this also backfires a bit on the film : instead of being the flashlight in the darkened room that " the game " was , you see everything , and are thus not as freaked out because you know what is going on . sure , you're chilled , but you're not exacty freaked out by what's going on . but what do you expect from tony scott , the man who never met a five-second piece of film he ever liked . he's a not-bad director because , hell , he is always interesting to watch ( if not occasionally moronic - exhibit a : " days of thunder " ) , but the reason he's not great is because he's too technical and calculated . his shots are perfectly executed , and leave nothing to the imagination , and they're always making sure you're paying attention . this is incredibly annoying , and it reduces " enemy of the state " to a mechanical mishmash of flashy images that never expand the mind at any great depths , but still manage to entertain without any real problems . despite never actually becoming great , it's never actually boring and it's always intriguing . watching the government set-up smith is endlessly fascinating , and since we care about smith's likeable protagonist , we are set-up for a good two hours worth of tom clancy-esque entertainment . add the best big cast this side of the annual woody allen film ( everyone from gabriel byrne to dan butler pop up for cameos ) , and you've got a good old fashioned escapist drama which does all the thinking for you so that you never have to actually question the debate over personal privacy and so you can follow will smith's plight without a minute's worth of boredom .
1	titantic , writer and director james cameron's much anticipated and sometimes ridiculed $200 , 000 , 000 epic , arrives shortly into the theaters so the question naturally arises , whether the film is worth it ? as a business proposition , it seems hard to see how it can ever break even , but as a movie it is nothing short of wonderful . if you've already neatly categorized it as yet another disaster movie a la volcano or the poseidon adventure , think again . the movie is both a great love story told with the disaster as a backdrop and a portrayal of one of the world's most memorable disasters made real and personal by seeing it through the eyes of two young lovers . in either case , it is filmmaking at its best . when we entered the press screening , my wife asked the publicity rep if there would be an intermission since the film runs three and a quarter hours long . he said no but that the time would go by so fast she'd never notice the length . amazingly , he was right . titanic is one of the few long films that doesn't suffer because of it . the lush picture , filmed by russell carpenter in 70mm , opens in the present with two diving subs exploring the wreck of the titanic on the bottom of the ocean . fortune hunter brock lovett ( bill paxton ) leads the expedition looking for the world's most valuable diamond necklace that went down with the ship , known back then as " the ship of dreams . " the necklace's hundred-year-old former owner , rose dewitt bukater ( gloria stuart ) , finds brock to tell him her story . although almost all of the movie happens in flashback , one of the engineers shows the elderly rose exactly how the ship was sunk . using a computer simulation , the movie takes the time to explain what will happen later , which adds immensely to making a lucid story out of what would have otherwise been hopelessly confusing . after twenty minutes , the story makes its jump to the past as the titanic leaves on her maiden voyage . in a classic movie theme , the two parts of the ship , first class and steerage ( third-class ) exist in sharp contrast . the strength of the script is the way it paints the differences between rich and poor without excessive moralizing . entering the ship on its day out is rose along with her millionaire fiance , cal hockley , played with perfect snobbishness by billy zane . and thanks to a last minute winning poker hand , an itinerant artist named jack dawson gets himself into a little shared cabin in third class . even with her own promenade deck , rose feels trapped on the ship , what with an upcoming marriage to a man she loathes . in contrast , jack can barely contain his euphoria at being on board . after jack saves rose from committing suicide , they start a brief but impassioned love affair . never tawdry and rarely explicit , their romance has the power to sweep the audience into the story . leonardo dicaprio in his best performance ever plays jack with confidence and charisma . in so many ways , small and large , he makes all the right decisions in his approach to the part . when he confronts cal , for example , he remains composed and polite and yet subtly undermines every one of cal's supercilious put-downs . kate winslet gives a wonderfully captivating performance as young rose . the chemistry between these two academy award nominees , him for what's eating gilbert grape and her for sense and sensibility , is nothing short of astonishing . from the scene where he embarrasses her by repeatedly asking if she loves her finace to the beautiful one of them hanging off the ship's bow to the one where she embarrasses him by asking him to paint her nude , they dazzle the screen with a pair of mesmerizing performances . if the film breaks after an hour and a half , which is how long cameron wisely waits to have the iceberg show up , you will still get one of the best films of the year . peter lamont's sets are more than authentic . one scene , for example , starts with the planning-to-retire captain , played with insouciance by bernard hill , having his tea on deck . it then shifts to the ship's massive gears and then to the bright-hot boiler room filled with sweating muscular men shoveling in the coals . the handsome interior common rooms of the ship resemble a palace more than an ocean liner . easily the most fascinating part of the story is what happens after the iceberg hits and before the battle with the water begins in earnest . at first , since the iceberg tears a series of little gashes in the hull , not some big gaping hole , the passengers view the hit as more of curiosity than anything else . what a lark . we've struck an iceberg . now let's get back to our brandy and cigars . the ship's musicians play like troopers through it all , even after the panic sets in . after all , they see it as their duty to calm the passengers . when the musicians are about to die , they politely thank each other for the pleasure of being able to play together , and they mean it . their civility borders on insanity , but it is touching nevertheless . the story is so rich that my description has merely touched the surface . there are more than enough characters to love and to hate , and all of the casting is dead-on . special effects work best when their presence becomes almost undetectable . in titanic , for which he created a nine-tenths scale model of the entire ship , cameron strove for accuracy at all costs . the most dramatic moment in the film happens when the ship breaks in two , and the front section becomes vertical in the water . people are flung like ants either into the water to be shortly frozen to death or into other parts of the ship to be crushed immediately . besides being romantic and dramatic , the script includes liberal doses of humor . from the many deliciously subtle verbal put-downs to the physical comedy , as when jack teaches rose to spit like a man , the show elicits laughter in addition to perhaps a few tears . " it's good-bye for a little while , " a less than confident father tells his little girl since it was indeed women and children first . " this boat's for mommies and children . there'll be a boat in a little while for daddies . " basically there was a design decision to have fewer than half of the necessary life boats -- it made the decks look too crowded otherwise . perhaps the sinking is best summarized by one of the guggenheim's on-board the ship . in the dining room with the lifeboats gone and the ship certain to sink , he is offered a life jacket by one of the crew . " no thanks , " the elegantly attired guggenheim replies . " we're dressed in our best and would prefer to go down like gentlemen . but we would like a brandy . " titanic runs 3 : 14 . it is rated pg-13 for tastefully and delicately presented sex and nudity and would be fine for kids twelve and up .
0	mulholland drive did very well at the cannes film festival . as you can see from the rating it did not do very well from me at the toronto international film festival . it may not be clear to the viewer why i am so negative on this film for most of the running time . in fact it is an interesting mystery story told on the backdrop of the hollywood film industry . toward the end of the film i think everything that has been built falls apart . the film was to be a pilot for a tv series but writer and director david lynch did not sell his tv pilot and i think he decided that he wanted to do something else with it . something else is what he did . the film opens with a woman ( played by laura harring ) about to be killed in a car when a car crash saves her life . she crawls away from the accident with a concussion and finds herself a bungalow with an unlocked door to sleep . meanwhile young vivacious betty ( naomi watts ) arrives in hollywood from canada . she wants to build a career as an actress . betty is a little surprised to find a woman sleeping in the borrowed bungalow . she does not know who the woman is . she is even more surprised when the woman awakes and does not herself know who she is . they fix on a name rita for her , but are not sure if this right or not . meanwhile local director adam kesher ( justin theroux ) has problems of his own . he is trying to cast one actress for his new film and is getting pressure from the producers and from crime figures to cast someone else , cammie rhodes ( melissa george ) . these two threads are joined by a third one in which there is a strange and comic murder that goes terribly wrong . there is also a strange character called the cowboy ( monty montgomery ) adding to the confusion . in what was probably intended for the television pilot the film opens with a great vibrancy showing dancing 60s style under the credits . a lot of mulholland drive starts out fun . lynch wants you to know he could make an enjoyable stylish film . he just chooses not to . as with any david lynch film there is strange material added for little reason . there are no earthworms , but there are some decidedly strange david lynch touches . the film is a little long for the subject matter . toward the end it gets into some heavier violence and sex scenes , clearly not intended for the tv pilot . unfortunately some of the most important comments to make about this film would be spoilers . i will not mention them in the main body of the review but i give mulholland drive a 4 on the 0 to 10 scale and a low 0 on the -4 to +4 scale . mulholland drive spoiler warning . i have rated this film fairly low . you should read this only after seeing the film or deciding that you will not see the film . david lynch is in large part a dark satirist . most of his work is done in familiar genres but in some way shows their underside . in mulholland drive i think he is having a laugh at the expense of the crime film genre . what he does with this film is ( are you sure you want to read this ? ) playing off the audience expectations that there will be a simple explanation for what is going on . the first 80% of the film he tells a simple multi-thread crime story with clues sprinkled throughout . then suddenly at the end he turns the story on its ear with a large number of clues that appear that they should add up to something . the audience expectation is that they will add up . but he has given clues that are self-contradictory . lynch wants the audience to argue about what they have seen afterward and come up with theories . in fact , the pointers are noticeably contradictory and until i hear a better explanation , i think lynch is merely playing a joke . there is a visual curiosity that was popular in the sixties . mad magazine called it a poiuyt . other sources called it a tri- pronged u-bar . look at small portions of it and makes sense . look at the whole figure and it does not . this film is , in my estimation , the cinematic equivalent of a tri-pronged u-bar .
1	robert redford's a river runs through it is not a film i watch often . it is a masterpiece -- one of the better films of recent years . until 1994 , it was my second favorite film of all time . the acting and direction is top-notch -- never sappy , always touching . a friend of mine once reported that he avoided it because " i was afraid it would just be really politically correct , and tick me off . " all i could do was tell him to go in unbiased , and enjoy . it is one of the few movies that has completely reduced me to tears . but certain memories should not often be rereleased -- in the last few shots , you have to cry . upon my first viewing i left bawling . it is not flawless -- but it is so very good , that you can't help but be effected . the opening is dangerously nolstalgic and sentimental -- watching these shots of people who have been dead so long , gives you a feeling of perspective and history observation that you will find in very few other films . martin scorsese once described the movies as a dream state -- like taking dope , and immersing yourself in an alternative world . that is what a river runs through it does . it exploits the unique power of cinema to engross you and help to forget your real self . both times i've seen it , its been hard ( again to quote scorsese ) waking up . but the dream is lovely .
1	" the fugitive " is probably one of the greatest thrillers ever made . it takes realistic , believable characters and tells an exciting story that's totally believable throughout . this isn't an over-the-top action flick for the sake of action , this is an intelligent adventure story with a real sense of mystery to it and it works perfectly . harrison ford stars as dr . richard kimble , a man who is wrongly accused and convicted of murdering his wife . the entire premise of the story revolves around this murder , but is not told in a straightforward manner . we constantly see flashbacks to the murder from kimble's perspective . hints are dropped from various times of the night kimble's wife , helen ( sela ward ) was murdered . we don't get to see who the killer is until much further into the story . in fact , we might even have a little doubt about kimble's innocence ourselves . the film doesn't spend much time on the details of kimble's trial and conviction as it is not the point of the story . one of the greatest action scenes ensues as we get a botched escape attempt by his fellow inmates which leads to a fantastic train wreck . but it does not at all seem gratuitous or formulated , it is actually suspenseful to watch . this movie is so incredible because it's able to take elements like these and make them wholly original and believable . tommy lee jones almost steals the show as deputy sam gerard , a u . s . marshall who is an expert in hunting fugitives . from the moment he appears we know a huge game of cat and mouse is about to occur . kimble and gerard are equally matched as there is no way to tell how one is going to outsmart the other . most of the film deals with richard's complex investigation as he tries to find the one-armed man who killed his wife . ford does not have a lot of lines here , so it is stuart and twohy's script and davis's outstanding direction that make the film as great as it is . just watching richard use his keen intelligence and wits , disguising himself , and doing his own detective work is very interesting . we know just as little as he does as to why his wife was killed , so as he learns more so do we . meanwhile gerard and his staff are using all their skills to hunt him down . at one point they run into each other and a great chase ensues , but richard is just too smart for them . he leaves clues for gerard to show his innocence and to help him solve the mystery . one of the greatest charms to the film is its sense of humor . there is a great sense of comradeship between gerard and his two closest deputies cosmo renfo ( pantoliano ) and biggs ( roebuck ) . they are trying to catch what they believe to be a dangerous murderer , yet they constantly start up small talk with each other , making funny wisecracks and one-liners , but not in any kind of distracting manner . the final act concludes with another terrific chase . richard figures out who the killer is and confronts him , and although we get a typical fight scene , the case is far from solved . the man who ordered the murder has been under our nose all along , and we don't realize this until the end when both richard and gerard put the pieces together . maybe the finally scene is a bit much , but it still has a believable atmosphere to it . we're so relieved when justice is served . it's not the plot is that makes " the fugitive " great , it's all the motions the characters go through to make for an intriguing story . watching a seemingly average man go through as much as this is what makes the movie so adventurous . if only hollywood could produce more movies like this . ( 10/31/96 ) ( 1/29/97 ) ( 6/13/97 ) [see also : " nick of time " ]
0	" gordy " is not a movie , it is a 90-minute-long " sesame street " skit , and a very bad one at that . this movie is so stupid and dumb that it's depressing to think that some hollywood executives actually gave this the green light , and even more surprising is the fact that this is a disney movie . i'm sure children are the target audience of this movie , but only kids under the age of five may be able to tolerate it . it is the story of a farm a piglet named gordy ( voiced by garms ) , whose family has been taken away to " up north , " which we know means death . of course we can hear the animals talk to each other , and they actually went to the trouble of attempting to sync the voices with their mouths but it comes out terrible . actually , it's almost funny in a way . the only remotely interesting and likable character soon appears , a little girl named jinnie sue macallister ( young ) who sees gordy on the back of a truck and essentially steals him . jinnie is a country singer and the film goes off on a huge tangent to show her little concert and the people dancing to it . what is the point of this ? maybe she is one of the producer's relatives and they wanted to show her on camera to promote her or something . we then cut to a huge social gathering and drop in on another young kid named hank royce ( roescher ) who is sad because his divorced mother is dating . he leaves the party and meets jinnie sue , but he accidentally falls in a pool ( probably because he was sitting on the diving board with a $200 suit on - nah , didn't see that one coming ! ) , starts to drown , and is miraculously saved as gordy pushes an inflatable float over to him and saves him . if this had not been insanely stupid already the story quickly changes when jinnie gives gordy to hank who then ends up becoming the ceo of a food processing corporation when hank's grandfather , the original ceo , dies and leaves his fortune to hank . . . and gordy ! of course there must be a villain , but even this villain ( donadio as sipes ) isn't that evil . he never raises his voice or becomes angry , and of course he has the typical idiot goons kidnap gordy but this is just so beyond stupid and cartoony we are constantly two steps ahead of the story . it's hard to tell whether the overall corniness and cheesiness to the movie is intentional because it is a family film , or if the filmmaker's are just this untalented and stupid . at times " gordy " is tolerable to watch , thus earning it one star and not the dreaded " z- . " but it's just so unbelievably boring , cliche , dumb , unfunny , corny , and just plain bad it may scare children , it certainly disturbed me . ( 4/21/96 ) ( 1/29/97 ) ( 6/13/97 ) [see also : " babe " ]
0	synopsis : the president of a company wants to test his self-appointed successor , who's psychotic , and thinks it's a great idea to spend a week with him and their wives in an isolated cabin a hundred miles from civilization with no dependable transportation or means of communication after a heavy snowfall . comments : tracks of a killer had a couple of strikes against it before i even began watching it . strike one was the fact that someone had scrawled the word garbage on the videotape's sticker in black marker ( not typically a good sign when you rent a film ) . strike two came while the previews played . did you ever get a sinking premonition about a movie's quality ( or lack thereof ) while watching the trailers that come before it ? well , the cheesy films being advertised before tracks of a killer were films that no one has ever heard of starring people no one knows , and they all looked bad ( definately not a good sign ) . tracks of a killer itself completed the strikeout . about the only positive thing this film had going for it was the fact that it sports some nice scenery . to be fair , the first half-hour or so promises at least a watchable thriller . wolf larson , who bears more than a passing resemblance to hugh grant , adequately plays the underling obviously set up as the killer of the film's title . james brolin and kelly lebrock seem equally adequate as the loving couple larson will later threaten . brolin's character , for some inexplicable reason , thinks its a great idea to spend some time in a cabin , practically isolated , with lebrock and larson , whom he's decided to test for the week before giving him full control of his company . by the time the characters arrive at the cabin , this film begins to become tedious . apparently , brolin's successor's test involves chopping wood for the fireplace and skiing , which don't seem like attributes necessary to run a business in the city . but , then again , what do i know about business ? i do think , though , that they should have invested in some better furniture for the cabin ; its beds and closets have a habit of just breaking at the slightest touch . larson's character accidently kills his own wife rather than the couple he wants to kill . this leaves the movie with an hour to go and only three characters , which really isn't enough to sustain it . the film's writer must have taken a cue from stephen king , as scenes from tracks of a killer seem lifted out of misery and gerald's game . larson and lebrock fight and torture each other ( the tables get turned a couple of times ) while brolin tramps around in the snow looking for help . some old guy's around too , just so the killer can add to his body count without killing the couple , who everyone knows will be alive at the end of the film . the old guy , however , miraculously survives his first death and appears later to be killed again by the killer in a scene so ludicrous it's worthy of a chuckle or two . outside of that chuckle , unfortunately , tracks of a killer will just bore you as the obvious plot is drawn out ad infinitum and the actors , for some reason , become increasing obnoxious . if you're in a video store and thinking about renting this turkey , don't . make tracks to a far superior suspense film , like misery .
0	the tagline on random hearts reads " in a perfect world , they never would have met . " in a perfect world , i never would have seen this movie . the biggest flaw is that 20 minutes into this film , kay chandler ( kristin scott thomas ) and dutch van den broeck ( harrison ford ) are the only two major characters alive ; resulting in little doubt that they will end up together at some point during the laborious two-hours-and-then-some production . dutch is a sergeant in internal affairs at the district of columbia police department . kay is a congresswoman from new hampshire . although they both think they are happily married , their spouses are cheating with each other behind their backs . dutch and kay are soon widowed when a plane goes down carrying their partners ; they subsequently discover the affair . the rest of the film is the pointless , unrealistic and often-times boring story of their researching the sexual relationship that they were blind to , and getting to know each other in the process . two sub plots are of little help to the already problematic film . dutch is trying to arrest a fellow officer , a task that seems rather ordinary for hollywood fare . all the great stereotypes get pulled , including my personal favorite of the key witness that makes bail and is murdered soon thereafter . kay's distraction from the film's primary focus is her campaign for re-election and attempts to shield her 15 year old daughter from the truth about the father she put on a pedestal . these sub plots could have made for semi-interesting points , but the film seems afraid to explore politics or mother-daughter relations in depth , and consequently suffers . random hearts' two primary characters seem to live in shells . although both kay and dutch are given their own sub plots , they seem to never deal with anyone other than themselves or each other . there is plenty of opportunity , dutch having a partner and kay having close friends and her daughter , but the movie shies away from exploring these relationships . veteran actor and director of this film sydney pollack , and critically acclaimed up-and-comer dylan baker both have cameo roles , but be careful not to blink too much or you will miss them both . other than its weak plot , it is hard to criticize random hearts . however , it is also hard to compliment it . had the film taken some small risks and more fully explored its extra characters and plots it may have tasted more like a well frosted cake , rather than the dry one that equates to be .
0	and i thought " stigmata " would be the worst religiously-oriented thriller released this year . turns out i was wrong , because while " stigmata " was merely boring and self-important , " end of days " is completely inept on all fronts . it's a silly , incomprehensible , endlessly stupid mess . for a guy like me who grew up watching arnold schwarzenegger at his best , it's extremely disconcerting to see where the big man has ended up . for the first time in recent memory , an arnold action movie ( and " batman & robin " doesn't count ) is no fun at all . " end of days " is a major stinker . the movie opens in vatican city , 1979 . some catholic priests have observed an ancient prophecy , which says that a girl will be born on that night that satan will have targeted for impregnation . if he impregnates her between 11 and midnight on december 31 , 1999 , the world will be destroyed . the pope orders protection of this girl , though some priests believe she ought to be killed . in new york , that very night , a girl is born to fulfill the prophecy . twenty years later , we meet jericho cane ( schwarzenegger ) , a suicidal ex-cop with a drinking problem . now working as a security guard for hire , he is protecting a local businessman ( gabriel byrne ) , who is actually possessed by the devil . an assassination attempt on the businessman by a crazed former priest leads him to the girl satan is after , christine york ( robin tunney ) . recognizing elements of his own murdered daughter in christine ( including ownership of the same music box , apparently ) , jericho swears to protect her against the devil and the faction of priests looking to kill her . there are so many problems with this film it's hard to know where to begin , but how about starting with the concept ? casting arnold in a role like this was a mistake to begin with . schwarzenegger is a persona , not an actor , so putting him in a role that contradicts his usual strong personality is a bad idea . arnold has neither the dramatic range nor the speaking ability to pull off a character tormented by conflicting emotions . in other words , trying to give him dimension was a mistake . harrison ford , mel gibson , or even bruce willis could have played this role ( they've all played noble and flawed heroes ) , but not schwarzenegger . there are several scenes that attempt to establish jericho's character ; one has him contemplating suicide , another crying over the loss of his wife and daughter , and even one in which the devil tries to tempt him into revealing christine's location by offering him his old life back . none of these scenes really work , because arnie isn't up to the task . the filmmakers would have been better off making jericho a strong , confident character ( like the terminator , for example ) , the likes of which schwarzenegger has excelled in before . this one isn't at all believable the way arnold plays him . the supporting cast tries their hardest , and only gabriel byrne makes any impact at all . as the prince of darkness , he's suave and confident . he acts like one would expect the devil to act . the problem is that the script has him doing things that make no sense ( more on that later ) and that undermines him as a powerful villain . byrne out-performs arnold in every scene they have together ( including the aforementioned temptation bit ) , but this is problematic when it causes the audience to start doing the unthinkable : root for the devil . byrne's speech about the bible being " overrated " actually starts to make sense , mainly because arnold's attempts at refuting it ( mostly of the " 'tis not ! " variety ) are feeble at best . the only problem is , arnold has to win , so in the end , nobody really cares . kevin pollack plays jericho's security guard sidekick and tries to liven things up with some comic asides , but like most bad action movie sidekicks , he disappears after about an hour . robin tunney isn't given much to do except look scared . in fact , all of the supporting players are good actors , but none , save for byrne , is given anything interesting to do . performances aside , it would be really hard to enjoy this film no matter who starred in it . this being an action blockbuster , it's no surprise that the worst thing about it is the script , which starts off totally confusing , and when some of it is explained ( and not much of it is ) , it's utterly ridiculous . why is the devil coming on new year's eve , 1999 ? because it's exactly 1000 years after the year of the devil , which isn't 666 , it turns out . some nutty priest accidentally read it upside down , so the real year is 999 , so just add a 1 to the beginning , and you've got 1999 ! if you don't buy this explanation , you're not alone . it's convoluted and silly at the same time . the method by which jericho locates christine york is equally ludicrous ( she's christine , see , and she lives in new york , see . . . ) , and if that weren't bad enough , there's plenty of bothersome stuff in this film that isn't explained at all . why can satan kill everyone he passes on the street , but when it comes to snuffing out one drunk ex-cop , he's powerless ? is he impervious to only one kind of bullet ? how come he can't control jericho or christine ? and how did those gregorian monks deal with time zones in their prophecies ? a clumsy attempt at a joke is made about this , but it's never actually explained . usually , this sort of thing wouldn't matter in a schwarzenegger flick ( i mean , don't get me started on the time paradoxes offered up by the terminator movies ) , but this time the plot inconsistencies stand out even more than usual because the action is rarely exciting . there are several predictable horror film clich ? s present in " end of days , " complete with the old " black cat hiding in a cabinet " bit , not that we ever find out what the cat was doing in there . it gets so formulaic that it's possible for those uninterested in being scared to close their eyes at the precise moment a " boo " will come . their predictions will rarely be wrong . the more grandiose action sequences are utterly charmless , partially because we don't care about these characters ( due to the script's pathetic attempts at characterization and setup ) , and also because they , too , don't make any sense . there's a scene where schwarzenegger gets thrown around a room by a little old lady . it's good for a few chuckles , but not much else . supposedly we're to believe she now has super strength by virtue of being controlled by satan , but the script never sets that up , so the scene is merely silly . none of this is terribly exciting , because all the action sequences are so badly framed that it's often hard to tell why it's happening in the first place , not to mention that they're edited in full-on incomprehensible mtv quick-cut style . most of them had me scratching my head , rather than saying , " wow , cool ! " " end of days " is not only silly and confusing , but it's also distinctly unpleasant to watch . the devil apparently doesn't operate in the more subtle , i'll-convince-people-to-kill-each-other fashion outlined in the bible , but instead enjoys killing people gruesomely in broad daylight . this doesn't only make him an awfully predictable sort , but it also means that not a single scene in " end of days " goes by without unnecessarily graphic violence , or the odd kinky sexual encounter ( yet another bit that had me scratching my head ) . if violence is supposed to be shocking , it's not a good idea to throw so much of it into a movie that the audience goes numb . scenes aren't connected through any reasonable means , so a lot of the time , stuff gets blown up , or people get killed , and i had no idea why . reasons ? to hell with reasons ! let's just blow stuff up ! isn't it cool ? nope , not by a long shot . this film is thoroughly unwatchable . it's dull , interminable , and unrelenting in its stupidity . perhaps arnold needs to make some movies with james cameron to revive his career , because it's not happening with hack peter hyams here . " end of days " might have had camp value , if only it didn't top itself off with an overly pious ending that nobody's going to buy . if the movie is going to be serious , the filmmakers should have come up with a decent script . if it's going to be campy , arnold shouldn't be taking himself so damn seriously ( i didn't actually see him put up on a cross , did i ? ) , and his character shouldn't be such a sad sack . as it stands , " end of days " is just a bad movie , and an awfully gloomy one at that .
1	corey yuen's latest film , " hero " is notable on two fronts . first this is the film to bring back the shaw brothers studio back to the forefront of film production . secondly , the film is the re-discovery of yuen biao . the film opens around the end of the qin dynasty , when many immigrants were making their way to shanghai . poverty and crime rule most of china . a young man , ma wing jing and his brother enter the fabled city and become laborers at the pier . tam see is the most powerful gangster in town , having control of the center of the city and having an alliance with the british army . wing jing and see become friends during a confrontation . their friendship grows as both men start to realize their dreams , wing jing's to be a powerful and wealthy man , and see to settle down with a woman he can truly love . wing jing meets the singer at the club ( jessica hester ) and falls in love with her , not realizing that she is the star attraction . after stealing her picture from a display , wing jing and his brother plot to impress her . first they rob two foreigner's of their money and cloths , and set up a midnight rendezvous . unfortunately , wing jing has run afoul of a rival gangster , yeung seung who has bribed the police in an effort to gain control of see's night club . the two bothers are arrested and held until they manage to escape just before dawn . jessica , having waited outside in the cold with her manager all night , gives up and returns home . see decides to retire , he gives the night club to wing jing , as repayment for saving his life during an attempted murder . see arranges the trade and ask his lover ( valerie chow ) to take care of wing jing . unfortunately , she has sided with yeung seung . the performances in the film are all top notch , with fine turns by takeshi kaneshiro as ma wing jing and jessica hester and valerie chow . the comic turn by yuen wah , previously known as the mad vietnamese in samo hung's " eastern condors " , is a marvelous surprise . his gift for comedy is marvelously understated and hilarious . the stand-out is by yuen biao who returns to the screen after a string of disappointments , with a stellar performance . his tam see is a triad boss who knows that his time is coming to an end but still has the cunning and craft to uphold his pride . his gangster is almost non-violent , in that he only retaliates , never instigates violence . but when the time comes to fight , yuen biao has never looked better . corey yuen directs the film with a maturity and a sense of pacing that has been lacking in hong kong movies as of late . the lighting , cinematography and staging of the film are beautiful to watch . the action scenes do not disappoint either . this is the most aggressive and inventive martial art choreography i've seen in some time , actually surpassing jackie chan's work in both 'rumble in the bronx' and 'first strike' . the special effects team deserves praise for a fantastic job of making the impossible look possible . an early fight between takeshi kaneshiro and yuen biao on the back of a horse is to be seen to be believed . also noteworthy is the score for the film , done in a marvelously lush orchestral style , not representative of most hong kong fare . i would dare to say it ranks as high as the scores for both " titanic " and " rosewood " as best of the year . all in all , " hero " marks a grand return to filmmaking for shaw brothers . this is the film that gives us faith that hong kong cinema is alive and flourishing .
1	you've got mail is a timely romance for this impersonal , computer-driven decade . two people who've never met confide in each other via e-mail without revealing their true identities . nora ephron's contemporary update of the shop around the corner retains the basic plot : two people who despise each other unwittingly become enamored with each other through their anonymous correspondence . ephron , who co-wrote the film with her sister , delia , as well as directed it , knew what she was doing by reteaming tom hanks and meg ryan as the at-odds couple . ryan is kathleen kelly , owner of a small children's bookstore , while hanks is joe fox , who heads up a chain of mega bookstores ( think barnes & noble ) . their charm and chemistry are the glue that binds this film , even through some of the script's rough spots . for the ephrons invested so much effort in their protagonists that they give short shrift to the talented supporting cast , including parker posey , greg kinnear , jean stapleton and steve zahn . yet no one is really going to complain because the ephrons know their audience - and what the paying public wants is hanks and ryan . and the two are kept busy . one , the other or both are in nearly every scene . hanks has his decent guy routine down pat , yet each time he does it , it seems effortless , spontaneous and fresh . ryan smoothly moves between spunky and vulnerable , with a sexy touch of winsomeness added to the brew . their scenes together sparkle , even though they lack the nostalgic romanticism of sleepless in seattle . and the shadow of that earlier hit hangs over you've got mail like dried-up mistletoe . the sparks created by the earlier movie are , by necessity , not evident here . true , these are two people seeking true love , but you've got mail is more comic and less poignant than its predecessor . the ephrons' script is witty and sharp . however , as a director nora ephron is a bit uneven . some scenes drag , while others , especially when hanks and ryan are revealing their souls via e-mail , are crisp and tidy . also , the script gets sloppy toward the end with characters merely disappearing from the story . a nice , romantic soundtrack adds to this date-night special . overall , you've got mail is a lush and cute outing , taking advantage of the star appeal of its two leads . it's a nice holiday movie , one for holding hands and snuggling . committed to lifelong learning through effective communication
0	" easely one of the worst films of the year . . " with the millenium just around the corner , hollywood is playing with our insecurities concerning the biggest event of this century . this time it is arnold schwartzenegger against the powers of evil . the result is somewhat predictable . i didn't have high hopes about arnold's " much anticipated " return to the big screen . schwarzenegger fans will probably be pleased , action lovers won't be bored , and the catholic league will be angry . everyone else will see 'end of days' for what it is : a deliciously bad motion picture . think of it as hollywood's own y2k bug . did you know that if you turn the three diabolical numbers 666 you'll get 999 , as in 1999 ? yes , you better believe it . . satan is here on earth , working on his latest project -- the end of days . this time it is gabriel burne who gets the privilege to play lucifer and , although not al pacino , he is fun to behold . he coolly strolls through manhattan in the borrowed body of an investment banker , wreaking , as they say , havoc . the way it works is he smirks and something explodes . before the stroke of the new millennium he's got to find and impregnate a certain woman in order to climb out from under a heavenly curse as spelled out in the book of revelations . only schwarzenegger's cop attached to an anti-terrorist unit can stop him . films like this has one serious weakness -- logic . no matter how you twist the " plot " , you'll find it incredibly stupid ( even for a schwartzenegger movie ! ) . the incredible fact is that such directors never learn . after thousands of headless productions , this theme has become one big clich ? . here the devil looks more like a sex addicted maniac that has just got out of a mental institution . he is walking around n . y . , blowing everything up and killing everyone that gets in a 5 meter radius . all he wants is the girl , that is somehow special . but schwartzenegger is more clever than he looks , he has hidden her in a church , where satan dare not enter . so the evil one is forced to seduce the good cop in order to get the valuable information : " you can have your wife and daughter back . . i can give you happiness that you can only dream of . . just give me the address . . " indeed with a script like that , you could make a wonderful parody , but unfortunately the director is taking this subject very seriously , attempting to create a provoking an dramatic thriller . and for you who have awaited arnold swartzenegger's comeback , will not be very satisfied . we've not seen him in a while . that's because he didn't have a worthy opponent . he has battled nuclear terrorists on earth and power mad conspirators on mars . he has taken on alien predators in the darkest reaches of the jungle and morphing cyberkillers that seemingly nothing can stop . so , after all those fights , what's left for arnold schwarzenegger ? how about satan ? in my opinion , he has never quite overcome his first role as the deadly robot in cameron's " terminator " . and that is schwartzenegger's strength -- muscles and no emotions . here he tries to achieve an artistic level , moving towards the oscar . this is called " an adult turn " if successful and " a flop " if unsuccessful . make a wild guess ! his character has lost his wife and daughter and has serious drinking problems . this requires at least some acting skills . regrettably , the only thing convincing about old arnold is his muscles . the rest of the cast are struggling with their so called characters . the movie is otherwise technically impressive , with a solid cinematography and fine lighting . but the movie doesn't serve neither as a serious thriller ( because of its stupidity ) nor as comic entertainment ( because of its serious tone ) . the only real comic relief in this film is when swartzenegger tries to cry . the action sequences are all recycled and the effects are everything but spectacular . so i really have a hard time recommending this film to somebody . unless you are a die-hard schwartzenegger fan , stay away . as for schwarzenegger , he'll be back .
1	by now i figured i'd seen every alfred hitchcock film at least a half-dozen times -- not that i'm complaining . to call him the " master of suspense " is an understatement . the paradine case ( 1947 ) , admittedly one of hitchcock's lesser movies , turned out to be one i'd missed . this one , like all hitchcock films , is well worth savoring . the story opens with the rich mrs . maddalena anna paradine being arrested in her home for poisoning her blind husband . as mrs . paradine , alida valli plays an aloof but alluring woman of the world . to franz waxman's stark and moody music , we see the prison guards divesting her of her luxurious garments and jewels . stripped of her fine raiment , she becomes a commoner again , which , as it turns out , was what she was before she met her husband . " a brief skirmish , and you'll be lunching at the savoy again , " anthony keane , her ultraconfident attorney tells her in their first meeting , predicting a fast and easy trial . gregory peck plays the successful and debonair barrister . " she's no murderess , " he argues simplistically , smitten by her beauty . " she's too fine a woman . " his attitude upsets his beautiful and increasing jealous wife , gay ( ann todd ) . unlike most hitchcock movies , which are centered on the thriller and the mystery , this one is more a romantic melodrama . typical is the scene in which gay flings her head back and shakes her hair while bathed in light . she deflects her husband's affections as she fears that he is beginning to fall in love with his client . the dramatic music then comes up high as the camera dwells on mrs . paradine's portrait nearby . in the relatively unsatisfying first half , little happens other than domestic squabbles and overtones of intense adulterous desires . to the sound of sweeping violins gay tells anthony that he must get mrs . paradine acquitted because , if mrs . paradine dies , his heart will go with her . if she is freed , he will be able to forget her . as part of the soap opera , a mysterious louis jordan plays mr . paradine's valet , who has had some not to be discussed relationships . charles coburn plays anthony's legal partner , sir simon flaquer . and charles laughton , who looks like coburn , is judge lord horfield . this being proper british society , they will all dine together at the judge's house not long before the case begins . court tv junkies will probably pick up the many differences , some subtle and others not , between the american and the british judicial systems . one , for example , of which i was not aware is that the barrister cannot speak to his own client during the recess if she is the process of testifying . one sometimes wonders what the academy is thinking when they make their oscar nominations . as the judge's wife , lady sophie horfield , ethel barrymore got a nomination for best supporting actress -- the film's only nomination -- for an inconsequential part with which she did little of merit . ( so the big question is when does hitchcock make his obligatory walk-on ? at 37 minutes into the film , he leaves a train station carrying a large musical instrument case . don't miss it . ) in the second half the story finally comes alive when it gets into the courtroom . the great master shows his hand there as the tensions build as rapidly in the second part as they lay fallow in the first . watch how the camera angles are sometimes from the back and other times from way on high to set the exact tone for the trial's action . as anthony explains it , the simple case has only 3 possibilities : mr . paradine poisoned himself , mrs . paradine did it , or the valet did it . the end includes many devastating revelations and some nice twists so it is too bad the first half is so languid . the paradine case runs 1 : 53 . the picture is in black and white . it is not rated but would be pg for mature themes and would be fine for kids around nine and up if they are interested .
0	don't let this movie fool you into believing the romantic noirs of william shakespeare . no one will truly understand the heart and soul of this man except through his work , and this movie makes a vain attempt at that . any moves to ? glamorise' his life , which hollywood has an annoying tendency to do , will only subtract from his achievement rather than expound on his greatness . this movie about his life , although well written , puts too much make-up on a man whose life was probably more pork and potatoes , rather than lobster and champagne . oh well , let's fantasise onwards an assume that he was a bit of a flirtatious play-write , who falls in love with a beautiful woman ( gwyneth paltrow ) and from her inspiration , several plays develop - ? romeo and juliet' , and ? the twelfth night' . it is easier for me to believe that he had a wet dream and that's how all his plays develop , but please spare me all of this unnecessary melodrama . but i guess my version probably wouldn't draw a crowd or make a dollar on screen . so is there any justification in romanticising the man shakespeare , when all we need to do is read his work in order to find his soul . i think not . as for the oscars were they deserved by this movie ? i think not . in many aspects ? private ryan' and ? life is beautiful' were far superior movies , but one should never assume that this should be a criteria for winning an oscar , as time and again , for reasons unexplained , an undeserving movie will win the accolade . another sore point is the fact that gwyneth won the best female lead , over a more polished cate , but i guess if you go on enough about your grandfather dying and your nephew being hospitalised - people will start feeling sorry for you .
1	i had lost all faith in pg-13 movies that are intended for teenagers and adults . the last dozen or so that i have seen have all felt incomplete , as if the most crucial scene was deleted in order to obtain a more lucrative rating . however , after seeing the creative frequency last week and now the exciting u-571 , my bias is beginning to go away . both films are as innocuous for younger viewers as they are intellectual for older viewers . even better , i didn't think either one of these films would be any good from first instincts . everyone loves surprises . u-571 looked like another action film using an actual war as an excuse to shoot torpedoes and bullets . this may be true , but the action is so extraordinary that it is clear director/co-writer jonathan mostow completed his ultimate goal ; to blow the audience's socks off . set during the early stages of world war 2 when the united states struggled to break the codes of the technologically advanced german u-boats , u-571 follows a small crew of american men who swipe the typewriter necessary to solve the enigma from an enemy ship . there's only one problem : the american ship they came from and hoped to return to has been shot down stranding the men on a german submarine known as ( you guessed it ) u-571 . it is now up to the mostly young and inexperienced sailors , led by an interim captain named tyler ( matthew mcconaughey ) , to return the typewriter to america without getting sunk by far superior german ships . the film starts off very slowly with a somewhat weak opening action sequence and another uneventful half an hour to introduce several of the sailors ( most of whom die when the mission goes awry or just inexplicably disappear ) . once the crew gets on the u-boat , the movie shifts to another level and never leaves this high energy level until the ending credits roll down . as soon as the action starts , it does not stop and luckily , because it is so exciting , i didn't want it to stop . this is not a movie for those wanting to avoid loud noises , from the wonderful , heart-pounding score to the constant yelling of panicking men , make sure you see this at a theater with surround-sound ? otherwise , do not see it all . the best parts of u-571 are when tyler is forced to make impromptu decisions on how to escape seemingly impossible situations . throughout the movie , several morals or characters are introduced to make tyler's job as stressful as possible . germans gun down their own men , tyler's mentor captain dahlgren warns him that a captain has to be prepared to sacrifice even the most beloved soldiers for a victory , another sailor ( erik palladino ) threatens mutiny . all of these examples , and several others , increase the chaotic atmosphere and the importance of tyler's every move . they also make u-571 one of the most exhilarating movies i have seen in a while .
1	errol morris , critically acclaimed director of the 1997 documentary fast , cheap and out of control , vaults to new heights with mr . death . this film , an examination of the life and work of controversial execution equipment designer and revisionist historian fred a . leuchter , jr . , is sure to draw audiences out of their malaise , stunning even the more jaded minds among us . don't let the film's cheesy dissuade you . following this sideshow of horror-lab special effects we are plunged quickly into a non-stop exploration of the weirdness that is leuchter's life and mind . morris follows the trail of leuchter's madness with appalling lucidity , revealing in a surprising and frightening way what most of us could have guessed to begin with : this leuchter guy is seriously messed up . virtually raised within the american penal system by a father who worked within prison walls , leuchter seems to have come somewhat naturally into his profession ; designing and maintaining execution equipment for state penitentiaries , in spite of his lack of credentials . after a moderately successful career making electric chairs and designing gas chambers and gallows , leuchter came to the attention of neo-nazi and revisionist historian ernst zundel , who was facing criminal charges in germany for publishing his `theory' that the holocaust never happened . morris's interviews are surprisingly congenial , drawing the subjects into a carefree banter that gives them more than enough rope with which to hang themselves . zundel speaks to the camera as though it were his mensch . leuchter seems completely at ease , sometimes jovial . part of this effect may be due to morris's new interviewing machine , called the interrotron , which is responsible for creating eye contact between the subject and the interviewer . this was the first time morris had used the device , and the results are startling . combine the irony of these interviews with leuchter's reenactments and reels of creepy stock footage of his trip to auschwitz and birkenau , not to mention a haunting clip of thomas edison electrocuting an elephant , and you've got one compelling and disturbing documentary . while this film isn't for the feeble-minded or weak-hearted , it is a valuable addition to the cultural landscape . aside from a few dragging minutes toward the end of the piece , morris has given us a fresh look at a dismal subject and i , for one , feel bettered by the experience .
1	the most amazing thing about paul cox's innocence is how unlike a movie it is . i mean that as the highest compliment . if most studios were to profile an elderly couple who rekindle a 40-year-old romance , i'd want to run and hide . the sex scenes would be handled as a farce , producers would shed 20 years off the characters' ages ( so susan sarandon and harrison ford could star ) and true love would shine through any obstacle without explanation and consequence . along with a charming romantic story , the australian/belgian innocence shows how an increasing sense of mortality combined with revisiting the past while being entrenched in the present can make something that seems so right seem downright questionable . the romance gets started when former musician andreas ( charles " bud " tingwell ) , learns that his true love , claire ( julia blake ) , lives nearby . they decide to catch up on old times , but soon find themselves in a reinvigorating affair . complicating matters is andreas' frail health , and claire's longtime husband ( terry norris ) , who can't understand why he's suddenly become obsolete . in my mind , the movie is less about the relationship between andreas and claire , than the feelings of everyone involved . john , claire's husband , endlessly questions what he did wrong . claire initially insists she's a grown-up , but admittedly behaves like a child , a prospect that thrills and disappoints her . andreas , an agnostic , begins to question his fate , a message cox delivers in a memorable dream sequence . cox litters the movie with flashbacks , including the repeated vision of a roaring train . it's a reminder of andreas and claire's past love ( as young lovers , they met by train ) , but as it recurs , we get the feeling that the past and the present have clashed . a pall is cast on the whole affair . a master of the understated , cox strings together a series of memorable moments . in andreas' dream sequence , amidst the roar of the train and conversations , we get the whole picture of andreas and claire's love . we also get glimpses into john and claire's relationship . during a silent candlelit dinner shortly afterward , claire admits to john about her indiscretion , telling more than any monologue could . all that's heard is the scraping of forks against plates . the characters are unlike anything i've seen -- they're people . so many times , movies and especially television portray senior citizens as gratingly spunky . or they're reduced to comedic buffoons . ordinary people with a pile of emotions , claire and andreas aren't sure what the next step is . they do want to be happy , which consists of an entirely different set of conditions than what they've known throughout their adult lives . bravo to cox , who wrote the script , for not making john a monster , so that claire's affair is automatically justified . norris is so effective as john that he makes andreas and claire's love difficult to accept . we feel for him . he's a decent man . sure , he may have become complacent , but he never expected this , especially now . with so much presented to the audience , it's only expected that the material gets a little drawn out and repetitive , which it does . however , in bringing up tough questions and not offering easy answers , cox displays a skill and ? lan isn't likely to be surpassed by anyone anytime soon .
1	the central focus of michael winterbottom's " welcome to sarajevo " is sarajevo itself , the city under siege , and its different effect on the characters unfortunate enough to be stuck there . it proves the backdrop for a stunningly realized story which refreshingly strays from mythic portents ( " platoon " ) , racial tumultuosness ( the risible " the walking dead " ) or a tinge of schmaltziness ( " schindler's list " ) . the two leads , stephen dillane as a reporter and emira nusevic as an orphan with a plight few can identify with , are extremely believable ; not one moment with them involved rings false . the question is not what went right . the question is what went wrong . for one , the film fails to provide a political overview of the war as it progresses ( the dillane characters reports an american plane departing from sarajevo as it departs , and that's about it . ) . the assortment of high-profile supporting actors , ranging from woody harrelson as a yankee reporter " into " liquor and cigarrettes to marisa tomei as a huggable children's aid or somesuch are incapable of rising above the sketchiness of their characters , albeit they strive . the interrupted use of authentic war footage somewhat hampers the rest of the film , it makes the fictional characters seem powerless by comparison . still , winterbottom eschews mawkishness through flashy , frantic editing and imaginative use of music . and it's a plus , because he doesn't toy with our emotions with sentimental blandness . he wants us to know that in war , no one is victorious . the sweet hereafter starring ian holm , sarah polley , bruce greenwood , tom mccamus , gabrielle rose , arsinee khanjian , alberta watson , maury chaykin , caerthan banks . produced by atom egoyan and camelia frieberg . script by atom egoyan ( based on the novel by russell banks ) . directed by atom egoyan . running time : 110 mins . rated r . __________________________________________________________ atom egoyan's powerfully meditative " the sweet hereafter " is as anything as haunting and transcendental as i've seen this year . it not only explores the aftermaths of a terrible tragedy with magnificent subtlety , with cold , and stunning shots of the backdrop of this mistfortune but also by telegraphing the sense of devastation that has permeated the small town with an enormous amount of dignity and respect for each and every soul affected . ian holm as the somber , lonely lawyer seeking compensation for the townspeople , has a decency and a restraint uncommon with lawyers , he's a lion for the wrong reasons : the pain for having lost his daughter ( she's a druggie who frequently calls him begging for money ) is reflected on the town . and in some mesmerizing flashbacks , we witness how she lost her purity . it's one of the most strikingly breathtaking takes on the loss of innocence i've ever seen . but the most astounding part goes to sarah polly , the peaceful , benevolent girl who , in contrast to the other characters , remains the most mentally stable during past , present or future . her ability to convey concealed pain and unconditional love is the opposite , yet near-revolutionary role that won emily watson an oscar nomination for " breaking the waves " . both women are torn apart by an extraordinary incident but it is only then that we truly see , truly feel , their wordless , omnipotent love . " the sweet hereafter " though , is atom egoyan's movie and as of now , he is emerging as the definite face of independent cinema . after surging to worldwide recognition with 1994's " exotica " , " the sweet hereafter " makes him something few people in this industry can call themselves : an artist . he interweaves time with a delicacy and sees a soul with a purity that is just not common .
1	the happy bastard's 30-second review notting hill a cute romantic comedy from the writer of the hit comedy four weddings and a funeral , notting hill stars julia roberts as anna scott , a very popular actress with a $15 million asking price for movies . one day she wanders into a travel book store owned by a simple london resident ( played by hugh grant ) , and sparks somehow begin to fly . sure , there are points of turmoil , such as putting up with grant's slightly disgusting ( but very hilarious ) roommate spike , anna's pesky ex-boyfriend ( alec baldwin in a humorous cameo ) , and , on top of all that , those damn press . it's a fresh sort of complexity to see in a romantic comedy , very different from , say , a stubborn father or " not the right time " like as seen in usual flicks . roberts is terrific as the astonishingly beautiful actress , and grant is surprisingly good as the straightforward guy still trying to get a hold of what has actually happened with this girl . in short , a sweet romantic comedy that has a lot of good laughs , particularly provided by spike . one tee-shirt really says it all about him . in an attempt to turn on a woman , he shows the front of the shirt , which says : " you are the most beautiful woman in the world . " on the back ? " fancy a f * * k ? "
1	a miracle of filmmaking , " some like it hot " is a brilliant film , and maybe the foremost example of slapstick comedy brought to screen with clever sight gags and plot twists . it is the pinnacle of writer-director billy wilder's career , a stunning feat considering the vast catalogue of films he had helped make . jerry ( lemmon ) and joe ( curtis ) are two stage musicians who go from gig to gig , trying to earn enough money to feed themselves . one night , as they're playing at a banned prohibition speakeasy , the place is raided . as it turns out , the owner , spats columbo ( george raft ) was ratted out by toothpick charlie ( george e . stone ) . several weeks later , on valentine's day , jerry and joe go to a garage to pick up a car and end up witnessing a gangland murder of charlie by columbo in a parking garage . eager to escape , the duo are forced to take a job in florida with all expenses paid . the only catch . . its a girls band . so josephine ( curtis ) and daphne ( lemmon ) , make their way onto the train and go to florida . on the way there , they meet sugar kane ( monroe ) , a bombshell singer who is looking for love . jerry and joe immediately fall for the singer , but there's two problems : 1 ) they're in drag , and 2 ) millionaire osgood fielding ( joe e . brown ) falls madly in love with daphne . what follows in pure hysteria , still complicated further by the arrival of spats columbo to florida for the " italian opera lovers festival " . tony curtis is hysterical as joe/josephine , especially in his preposterous attempts to woo sugar . marilyn monroe , in a wonderfully comic performance , is sugar , providing incredible timing and sex appeal , along with true sincerity . the scenes , however , are all stolen by either brown or lemmon . lemmon is hysterical as daphne . cast as the less rational one , lemmon's performance is ridiculously crazy , it is disorder in the style all billy wilder's . brown is particularly hilarious as osgood , as we are treated to the finest kind of comedic irony . he manages to use lemmon's ingenious performance as a springboard for an even loonier performance as a completely eccentric millionaire . every set-piece is flawless , as wilder brilliantly changes settings constantly , and uses every comic trick in the book to make his picture . wilder's script is stunning , as he carefully combines gangsters , cross-dressing , romance , sex , music , gender roles , and social taboos in a riotous blend of wit and oddball craziness . wilder manages to create scenes of utter hysteria , so pitch-perfect that the audience is dying of laughter with the last comic piece , the final line of this absolutely incredible film . wilder's is dead wrong when he says nobody's perfect : billy wilder is , especially when he makes something this disastrously funny . nobody's perfect but billy wilder .
0	it used to be that not just anyone could become a vampire . usually , you had to be an aristocrat - a count such as dracula or karnstein . to qualify , you'd have to have a modicum of sophistication , so you'd at least look cool - or suave - when biting into some young damsel's throat . but today , in our overly politically correct world , any scuzzy-looking , long-haired , unshaven lout or any spiked-haired harridans can put the bite on you . by the same token , to be a vampire hunter , one had to have some sort of medical training and knowledge of the occult or maybe perhaps be some sort of professional soldier , or at least one who retired with honors . not in these times . all you need are some sharp weapons , some bullets forged from silver and any yahoo can be a buffy - or a blade . without sounding elitist , the fear of vampires has greatly diminished because of this lack of exclusivity . which brings us to blade , the latest in a long line of vampire movies in which , it seems , half the population is putting the bite on the other half . not only are there thousands of vampires , but they seem to move from city to city , pay off police departments and , most importantly , establish their own exclusive after-hours raves in which the highlight is the sprinkler system going off and dousing all the occupants in a blood shower . with all that blood , you wonder why they have to hunt for victims . you also wonder when they get the time to get their clothes dry-cleaned and why no cleaner ever complains about all the bloodstains . blade , which is based on a marvel comic book character , is , like a comic book , all visual . the plot is basically blade repetitiously slashing his way through the vampire army seeking their leader , deacon frost . it's all hokum and nonsense , of course . but the filmmakers play it straight . unfortunately , at least at the advance screening i attended , the audience didn't see it that way and laughed through much of the proceedings . you know a movie is in trouble when the scenes of blood and gore that should elicit screams of fright instead evoke peels of laughter . another tell-tale sign is when the audience seems to be admiring the hero's costume more than the hero . also it seems it's not enough for today's vampire merely to have fangs . he must also be proficient in the martial arts . why a supernatural being , one of the undead , needs such skills is beyond me . ( of course , this concept dates to the 1974 hammer films-run run shaw production of legend of the seven golden vampires , in which dracula is defeated by seven karate-chopping siblings . ) wesley snipes is buff as blade . he growls his lines -the few he has - and spends most of the time glowering - as if he was suffering from indigestion or having second thoughts about starring in and co-producing this turkey . blade is just another example of how the vampire film , a once honorable member of the horror family , has gone downhill . this dud mostly makes you yearn for those quaint old days when christopher lee could be stopped just by dangling a crucifix in his face . today's vampires lack the panache , the style of a bela lugosi or a christopher lee . they are not even worthy enough to carry those great bloodsuckers' capes . they are more farcical than frightful . this whole enterprise is one dull blade that could have used lots of sharpening .
0	wolfgang petersen's latest , the perfect storm , is like a pineapple . it only tastes good after arduous peeling and digging - if you try to eat the fruit , spikes and all , it's going to hurt ? quite a bit . ok , maybe that was a confusing analogy , so here's my main complaint about the latest man battles nature flick : there isn't really much of a story to tell . basically , a massachusetts fishing crew goes out to sea on a small boat , called the andrea gail , and gets stuck in the middle of " the storm of the century . " how much time does it take for petersen to tell this story ? not nearly enough . so he spends the majority of the film developing pointless side stories which all eventually become superfluous . audiences want to see the storm , they want to see a fight for survival but what they get is a lot of cliched , maudlin drivel . the last quarter of the perfect storm is utterly perfect in every aspect , but just try lasting the first three-quarters . i have yet to read sebastian junger's the perfect storm , but from what i have heard it is an unforgettable tale . based on a true story , the book must have found some other way to introduce the characters because in the movie version , the approach is weak . using a wonderfully patriotic score by james horner , petersen almost hides the in-your-face banality . right away the central characters are introduced : the gritty , determined captain ( george clooney ) , the ingenue ( mark wahlberg ) torn between his job and his girlfriend ( diane lane ) , the loving father ( john c . reilly ) , the comic relief who's always trying to get laid ( john hawkes ) , the new guy ( william fichtner ) who immediately antagonizes a crewmate and the quiet , french guy ( allen payne ) . so many problems strike the opening segment of the film that the remaining portions directly suffer . it is not the all-star cast's fault , just the characters designed for their portrayal . allen payne's character never speaks in the entire movie , not because he is mute , but because he's never given any lines ! are we supposed to root for a guy whose face and voice we are never given a chance to interact with ? fichtner's character is terribly underdeveloped - we don't know what he's doing there , where he's from , or who he's supposed to be . the remaining four fishermen are all cardboard stereotypes ( hawkes says to a female stranger in one scene " you know what would look good on you ? me ! " ooooh real creative ) . as the script advances and the andrea gail floats farther out into the waters , the crew continues to not feel human . only when the storm takes center stage does the movie jump out of its sleepwalk . the computer-generated images of gigantic waves crashing against a helpless boat are thunderously real . i can only imagine if this was an imax film , this city kid would surely never go in the water again . this is loud , jolting entertainment - adjectives that completely negate the rest of the film . the perfect storm was unfortunately a disappointment . the maelstrom lived up to its potential but everything else failed to do so . i guess i'll stick to that other survival spectacle ? you know the one on cbs ?
1	jack nicholson has a funny way of playing characters with very few redeeming qualities , but whom you end up liking anyway . in as good as it gets , the character in question is melvin udall , a successful novelist with obsessive-compulsive disorder who seems bent on having as little contact with people around him as possible , except when he feels like being a royal pain in the you-know-where . he's mean . i mean really mean . the opening scene shows him shoving a little dog down the trash chute of his manhattan condominium . every day , melvin eats at the same cafe , sits at the same table , and gets served by the same waitress . you can tell that this is his favorite place to be a vicious nuisance , when his waitress carol ( helen hunt ) tells him he can just go sit in another section , and all the other waitresses just cringe . one day , melvin makes a comment that goes to far , and carol , genuinely hurt , comes down on him like a ton of bricks . at that point we find that she is not only the only person who can put up with him as a matter of course , but is also the only person who can get to him , too . another person who often crosses melvin's sights is simon ( greg kinnear ) , an artist who lives on melvin's floor . aside from the fact that he lives near the terror of the city , simon has the added benefit of being gay , making him a prime target . simon's friend frank ( cuba gooding , jr . ) , also gay , does not fare much better . when simon walks in on a pair of men robbing his apartment , he is brutally beaten and sent to the hospital , and frank , who has grown tired of seeing his friend take the verbal abuse dished out by his neighbor , intimidates melvin into watching after simon's dog while he convalesces . this is the same dog melvin had earlier shoved down the garbage . an interesting thing happens when melvin takes this dog in : melvin gets to like the dog , and the two develop an attachment which is the catalyst to melvin's softening up to the world around him . it doesn't happen overnight , but throughout the film , he bites his tongue here , cares a little there , and most miraculously , falls in love . one of the best elements of this film is watching melvin try to express feelings which are not the usual negative ones he so often shares with others . he's traveling terra incognita here , and it shows . good performances are turned in by all principal players in this film , especially by nicholson and hunt . they play well off of each other and have a genuine chemistry which makes it a pleasure to watch them on screen . greg kinnear , who is becoming known for his supporting film roles , is also very good at playing the vulnerable simon . he gives a short monologue about what it means for him to be an artist , and delivers it with such inspiration and conviction that you actually get to feel some of what he feels . cuba gooding jr . performs with a hyped-up level of energy which contrasts nicely with that of kinnear , and comes through with a near constant comic performance . the screenplay , by mark andrus and james l . brooks , is clever , touching , and funny . the best part about it , however , is that it is filled with characters we care about because they are actually interesting . melvin is a man we can't quite figure out , but whose mannerisms and quirky qualities capture our attention . carol is a working woman living with her mother , trying to take care of a child with a debilitating respiratory problem . simon is a man who is a success in his circle of peers , but who is still not accepted by much of society . combined with the talent of the actors , these characters make the film . the one noticeable area where the film is lacking , however , is the absence of cuba gooding , jr . through the second half . his character makes an exit which is supposed to be temporary , but the film ends before his return , leaving his relationship with simon and melvin unresolved . i would have liked to have seen more of his character in general , in addition to a part in the film's conclusion . there's one actor , who will probably not be recognized by any awards , but who contributes greatly to many of the movie's best scenes and who deserves mention . this is that little dog . he plays such a pivotal role to melvin's character development , actually serves to forward the plot , and has some absolutely scene-stealing moments , that it is hard to believe he is simply an animal . award or no , however , when even the dog puts in a good performance , you know you've got an outstanding movie .
0	" quest for camelot " is warner bros . ' first feature-length , fully-animated attempt to steal clout from disney's cartoon empire , but the mouse has no reason to be worried . the only other recent challenger to their throne was last fall's promising , if flawed , 20th century fox production " anastasia , " but disney's " hercules , " with its lively cast and colorful palate , had her beat hands-down when it came time to crown 1997's best piece of animation . this year , it's no contest , as " quest for camelot " is pretty much dead on arrival . even the magic kingdom at its most mediocre -- that'd be " pocahontas " for those of you keeping score -- isn't nearly as dull as this . the story revolves around the adventures of free-spirited kayley ( voiced by jessalyn gilsig ) , the early-teen daughter of a belated knight from king arthur's round table . kayley's only dream is to follow in her father's footsteps , and she gets her chance when evil warlord ruber ( gary oldman ) , an ex-round table member-gone-bad , steals arthur's magical sword excalibur and accidentally loses it in a dangerous , booby-trapped forest . with the help of hunky , blind timberland-dweller garrett ( carey elwes ) and a two-headed dragon ( eric idle and don rickles ) that's always arguing with itself , kayley just might be able to break the medieval sexist mold and prove her worth as a fighter on arthur's side . " quest for camelot " is missing pure showmanship , an essential element if it's ever expected to climb to the high ranks of disney . there's nothing here that differentiates " quest " from something you'd see on any given saturday morning cartoon -- subpar animation , instantly forgettable songs , poorly-integrated computerized footage . ( compare kayley and garrett's run-in with the angry ogre to herc's battle with the hydra . i rest my case . ) even the characters stink -- none of them are remotely interesting , so much that the film becomes a race to see which one can out-bland the others . in the end , it's a tie -- they all win . that dragon's comedy shtick is awfully cloying , but at least it shows signs of a pulse . at least fans of the early-'90s tgif television line-up will be thrilled to find jaleel " urkel " white and bronson " balki " pinchot sharing the same footage . a few scenes are nicely realized ( though i'm at a loss to recall enough to be specific ) , and the actors providing the voice talent are enthusiastic ( though most are paired up with singers who don't sound a thing like them for their big musical moments -- jane seymour and celine dion ? ? ? ) . but one must strain through too much of this mess to find the good . aside from the fact that children will probably be as bored watching this as adults , " quest for camelot " 's most grievous error is its complete lack of personality . and personality , we learn from this mess , goes a very long way .
0	the art of woo attempts to be one of those films like breakfast at tiffany's in which the audience is rooting for some sweet , vulnerable , irresistible woman to work out her problems and to find happiness . the problem is that helen lee who writes and directs seems to have written alessa woo ( played by sook-yin lee ) as neither sweet nor vulnerable and she is quite resistible . alessa is a young woman who happens to be a brilliant art dealer in the toronto art scene . this is some sort of alternate world art scene where people pay tens of thousands of dollars for paintings by talented beginners and dealers in these paintings fly back and forth to places like switzerland . one of the most knowledgeable of the art dealers is alessa . she also happens to be the center of adulation of her friends and every party has suitors camped outside her window . next door to alessa moves struggling genius artist and native american ben crowchild ( adam beach ) . he sees that behind the facade that there is really a sad little girl within alessa who really will not be happy with the rich art collector she is dating . ben gets emotionally involved with alessa . ( as alessa so delicately puts it , " we were bosom buddies , now we're fuck buddies . " ) but alessa will have to decide whether she wants love with ben or wealth with her rich suitor . the real problem with the film seems to be helen lee's inability to decide what she wants to be saying . she undercuts nearly everything she wants us to believe about alessa . alessa is looking for financial security but she makes decisions about large sums of money for her clients . this appears to be a high profile and well-paid job . we are supposed to care about alessa's feelings , but she coldly refuses to visit her own ailing father . alessa cannot be portrayed as sweet and vulnerable if at an art auction she turns into our man flint . this is a charmless romantic comedy that bets everything it has on the appeal of its main character and comes up double-zero . i rate it a 3 on the 0 to 10 scale and a -1 on the -4 to +4 scale .
1	" psycho meets the exorcist with no holds barred " . a blurb like that sounds like desperate publicity for some low budget , third rate rip-off . but no , this tacky plug comes from the poster for suspiria , perhaps italian horror director dario argento's most consistently successful film . what impresses most in re-watching this surrealistic , supernatural thriller is that argento's directorial flair and stylish visuals are matched by a near-fully coherent narrative . screenplays have always been his achilles heel ; confusing subplots , gaping holes , totally illogical incidents and reactions . no question : argento has always been a better director than a writer . fortunately , he gets the plotting pretty well right with suspiria , taking his cue from a book by thomas de quincey called " suspiria de profundis " . the film's storyline suffers from no major lapses in logic , provided one can accept the premise of a ballet school being a front for a coven of witches . jessica harper plays an american who travels to germany to further her studies in dance . arriving at the school late at night in driving rain , she sees a girl leave and run into the storm in a clearly distressed state . what happens next - and i don't make the comparison lightly - is a murder sequence that for intensity , shock value and sheer directorial flair ranks alongside alfred hitchcock's infamous shower scene in psycho . it's quite possibly a homage to hitchcock , but with its baroque sets , graphic gore and brilliantly chaotic musical accompaniment by the gothic rock group goblin , this stunning sequence remains very much argento's own . though nothing else quite equals the intensity of suspiria's opening 15 minutes , the film continues to be never anything less than engrossing as harper begins her own investigations and slowly comes to realise this is no ordinary ballet school . we meet an assortment of slightly sinister characters , most notably the head ballet teacher played by alida valli in another one of those delicious sour-old-matriarch-from-hell roles she does so well . several more violent murders ensue , including a startling scene in a deserted square where a blind man is . . . well , i wouldn't want to spoil things now , would i ? and the film's climax , staged amid secret corridors and hidden rooms , has a gothic ghoulishness that's most impressive . the english language versions of most argento movies usually suffer trimming , and not just for the violence - deep red and phenomena , for example , have been appallingly hacked about . fortunately , the cuts to suspiria ( about 7 minutes in this version ) have not adversely affected the film . the dubbing of the italian actors into english is quite competently done , too , excepting one appalling and unintentionally hilarious effort with a conversation between harper and a professor about the history of witchcraft in the region . and the soundtrack ? it is interesting to imagine what power the film would have lost if it had been scored by someone else . as it stands , the use of goblin's music in suspiria is outstanding . apparently , argento played the soundtrack on location while filming so the actors could hear the music as they acted out their parts . a stereo video player adds greatly to the viewer's overall experience . even better , see suspiria in a cinema , where you'll get the added bonus of widescreen . and the colours ! deep reds , eerie blues , a superb use of shadow and contrast . the cinematography of luciano tovoli , whose more recent credits include reversal of fortune and single white female , is uniformly superb . a nod also must go to production designer giuseppe bassan for his wonderful baroque interiors . these kinds of settings are crucial to the atmosphere of argento's more surreal excursions , the other most notable example being inferno ( 1980 ) on which bassan also worked . suspiria is the film that broke dario argento into the major league of european directors , and it is fully deserving of its cult status . the gore is at times a little excessive and overstated - that's always been one of argento's shortcomings - but overall this is a fascinating , compelling example of italian horror .
1	rated : r for strong language , sexual dialogue , drug use , crude humor , violence and brief nudity . starring : ben affleck , matt damon , linda fiorentino , salma hayek , alan rickman , chris rock , kevin smith , jason mewes , jason lee , george carlin , alanis morissette . running time : 130 minutes being a huge fan of kevin smith , i was expecting a lot out of his newest project 'dogma' . it might just be kevin's best work to date . it's very funny with smart and foul-mouthed dialogue while unexpectedly it has a serious undertone to it and besides going against god and jesus christ , it actually tries to tell people that there is such a thing rather than that there isn't . in 1994 a little $27 , 000 movie premiered at sundance . this little film was called 'clerks' and this little film went on to become a huge video sensation . you really can't meet a person on this green earth who has not seen 'clerks' . it was hailed by critics as one of the best movies of the year and soon a sequel is coming . in 1995 kevin made another movie 'mallrats' that flopped horribly , thought it was not the best movie ever made it was a pretty good little flick . it was panned by critics but hailed by audiences and in 1997 'chasing amy' came out and was kevin's biggest success to date . now in 1999 we get a great little movie by the name of 'dogma' . wow ! what a cast . ok here is the plot in this movie : linda fiorentino plays a regular woman who works at an abortion clinic . one day at her house metatron ( the voice of god ) appears at her house much to her surprise and tells her that she must stop two fallen angels ( matt damon and ben affleck ) from getting back into heaven by ways of a church . ok now get this , she is told to find two prophets : one who talks a lot and one who doesn't , however she gets jay and silent bob instead ( who give us great performances ) . now on her way to new jersey with jay and silent bob to try and stop the two angels the 13th apostle falls out of the sky ( chris rock ) and helps guide her to find these angels . salma hayek plays serendipity who also helps her out along her way . azrael ( jason lee ) who is a demon is trying to help the two angels out so that they can win . bethany ( linda fiorentino ) has to now use the help of all these people to try and stop the angels before they cheat their way back to heaven leading to a violent and bloody end that will make you think twice about your faith . what a movie , it is everything rolled into one : an offensive , offbeat , smart and sassy comedy that surprisingly has a great message at the end , and ends up being a feel-good movie . who would have known kevin had such a soft side on him that could make us know that he is a faithful person himself . now for those of you who get offended with this movie really should not take it to heart . yes it may target the catholic community and bash them a lot , but it also seems to rather than go against god and heaven , it actually goes with god and kevin gives a message that there is a god . this review may sound confusing at first but really the only way to understand it is to see this excellent movie . kevin goes to new lengths in this hilarious comedy and gives us some great characters with not too much background or study and rather we start to know the characters as we watch the movie . of course the best ( and funniest ) of them all is the only duo in history that have made me fall out of my chair laughing and that my friends are jay and silent bob . probably the best characters in movies that i like . the star-studded cast is amazing and has some other cameos by george carlin , jeanne garafolo and so may more that we start to lose track after a while . the script was written by kevin smith with many f'words in there of course and a strong emphasis on sexual talk but he also seems to concentrate on what is important rather that what isn't and makes us laugh at the same time as we think . chris rock gives a hilarious performance and gets into his character very well , with some classic lines . linda fiorentino is just perfect for her role and makes us believe that she really is who she is . of course jason mewes and kevin smith do a great job as jay and silent bob with some priceless lines from jay ( as well as silent bob ) . alan rickman , jason lee , salma hayek round out the cast with matt damon and ben affleck in the starring roles . being oscar winners for the classic 'good will hunting' they give great performances here again but matt damon seems just a little held back and to me did not give it all he could . ben however was all out and got very much into his character as well as the story . the movie's only big flaw is that it has a few unfunny lines and some slow parts to go along with it . however the direction by kevin and the script by kevin as well as the priceless performance by many of the cast members , 'dogma' stands as a new classic and i think i can safely compare it to 'clerks' . while being funny at times , in the end it becomes a serious movie with an important message that some may not agree with but can't deny it . 'dogma' will offend people , especially deeply religious people , but for those of you who are open minded and want to see some very funny material then this is the movie for you . all kevin smith fans must see ! !
1	good films are hard to find these days . great films are beyond rare . proof of life , russell crowe's one-two punch of a deft kidnap and rescue thriller , is one of those rare gems . a taut drama laced with strong and subtle acting , an intelligent script , and masterful directing , together it delivers something virtually unheard of in the film industry these days , genuine motivation in a story that rings true . consider the strange coincidence of russell crowe's character in proof of life making the moves on a distraught wife played by meg ryan's character in the film -- all while the real russell crowe was hitching up with married woman meg ryan in the outside world . i haven't seen this much chemistry between actors since mcqueen and mcgraw teamed up in peckinpah's masterpiece , the getaway . but enough with the gossip , let's get to the review . the film revolves around the kidnapping of peter bowman ( david morse ) , an american engineer working in south america who is kidnapped during a mass ambush of civilians by anti-government soldiers . upon discovering his identity , the rebel soldiers decide to ransom him for $6 million . the only problem is that the company peter bowman works for is being auctioned off , and no one will step forward with the money . with no choice available to her , bowman's wife alice ( ryan ) hires terry thorne ( crowe ) , a highly skilled negotiator and rescue operative , to arrange the return of her husband . but when things go wrong -- as they always do in these situations -- terry and his team ( which includes the most surprising casting choice of the year : david caruso ) take matters into their own hands . the film is notable in that it takes this very simple story line and creates a complex and intelligent character-driven vehicle filled with well-written dialogue , shades of motivation , and convincing acting by all the actors . the script is based on both a book ( the long march to freedom ) and a magazine article pertaining to kidnap/ransom situations , and the story has been sharply pieced together by tony gilroy , screenwriter of the devil's advocate and dolores claiborne . the biggest surprise for me was not the chemistry between crowe and ryan , but that between crowe and david caruso . dug out from b-movie hell , caruso pulls off a gutsy performance as crowe's right hand gun while providing most of the film's humor . ryan cries a lot and smokes too many cigarettes , david morse ends up getting everyone at the guerilla camp to hate him , and crowe provides another memorable acting turn as the stoic , gunslinger character of terry thorne . the most memorable pieces of the film lie in its action scenes . the bulk of those scenes , which bookend the movie , work extremely well as establishment and closure devices for all of the story's characters . the scenes are skillfully crafted and executed with amazing accuracy and poise . director taylor hackford mixes both his old-school style of filmmaking with the dizziness of a lars von trier film . proof of life is a thinking man's action movie . it is a film about the choices men and women make in the face of love and war , and the sacrifices one makes for those choices -- the sacrifices that help you sleep at night .
1	the calendar year has not even reached its midway point , but that hasn't prevented columbia pictures from trotting out a lavish period drama more befitting of the winter oscar-bait season . bille august's high-profile adaptation of victor hugo's classic les miserables delivers everything one would expect from a classy hollywood epic--handsome production values , strong performances by a top-notch cast , a literate screenplay--with one critically missing element : emotional sweep . for those not familiar with hugo's original novel or the hit stage musical it inspired , the hook of les miserables essentially boils down to something like a 19th-century french-set version of the fugitive . after serving 19 years in a prison work camp for stealing a loaf of bread , the brutish jean valjean ( liam neeson ) is paroled . immediately upon release , he steals valuable silverware from a kindly bishop who takes him in for a night ; he is caught by authorities , only to be forgiven by the bishop , who lets valjean keep the silver to start a new life on the straight and narrow . that he does , and in doing so breaks his parole , which sets the obsessively determined inspector javert ( geoffrey rush ) , who was one of the guards in valjean's prison camp , on his trail . thematically , however , les miserables is a story about redemption , which valjean finds through his dealings with two women , the hard-luck factory-worker-turned-prostitute fantine ( uma thurman ) , and her illegitimate daughter , cosette . years after breaking parole , valjean becomes mayor of the town of vigau , where he forms a warm friendship with fantine after saving her from an unjust arrest by javert . valjean promises the gravely ill fantine he will rescue the young cosette ( mimi newman ) from her cruel caretakers , the thenardiers , and raise the child as his own . the " father " and " daughter " eventually land in paris , where the teenage cosette ( claire danes ) falls for dashing student revolutionary marius ( hans matheson ) . the decades-spanning story is the stuff that cinematic epics are made of , and the danish august turns in his most accomplished english-language work , following the underrated 1994 superstar soap the house of the spirits and last year's stylish but highly preposterous mystery smilla's sense of snow . he and screenwriter rafael yglesias bring the sprawling tale into clear focus and keep the events moving at a brisk pace . production designer anna asp , costume designer gabriella pescucci , and cinematographer jorgen persson give les miserables a sumptuous period look whose accomplishment is mostly matched by the efforts of the cast . neeson is commanding yet endearingly vulnerable ; rush's finely modulated menace is far more rewarding than his overrated , oscar-winning theatrics in shine ; and thurman disappears nicely into her highly unglamorous role . the younger members of the cast fare less well . danes is convincing as cosette , but her overdone lip quivering during her crying scenes becomes a distraction ; and matheson , while competent , is a less interesting robert sean leonard . as technically adept and cerebrally engaging the film is , by the time les miserables was over , my emotions had only been superficially involved . while i was touched by valjean's relationships with fantine and cosette , i was not moved . not even reaching the " touching " level is the cosette-marius pairing . my only previous experience with les miserables is with the musical ( as i am sure many others' is ) , and i was dismayed to see eponine , a friend of marius's who selflessly dies in the name of her unspoken love for him , almost completely jettisoned from this adaptation ( the daughter of the thenardiers , here she is only briefly seen as a child ) . her presence would have added some much-needed conflict and emotional heft to the youthful romance , but i suppose august and yglesias felt one tragic heroine ( fantine ) was enough . even so , as 1998 creeps into summer blockbuster season , les miserables is a thoughtful , well-made , entertaining film , one that will sate moviegoers hungry for a dose of drama before popcorn no-brainers invade the multiplex .
0	i suppose it's unfair to criticize a movie like hudson hawk , which has been panned by reviewers and moviegoers alike since it's 1991 release . michael lehmann's action-comedy was quick to win the title `biggest box office flop of all time' , or close thereof . the movie stars bruce willis as renowned cat burglar hudson hawk , who's just been released from sing sing prison after many years in isolation ( `let me put it this way , ' he explains , `i never saw et' ) . greeting him is his old friend and partner in crime ( played by danny aiello ) , who becomes the subject of many amusing fat jokes . these are rather welcome in a movie filled with so many completely unfunny sight gags , cartoonish villains and unbelievable coincidences . it appears as if director lehmann didn't know when to stop all the absurd silliness , and he piles on layer after layer of utter ridiculousness as the movie propels itself toward the finish line . if at some point during hudson hawk you make the assumption that things couldn't get goofier , you'll soon be eating your words . but , i'm inclined to say that this film is not quite as terrible as it's box office numbers suggest . it's fast-paced and entertaining , if you've got incredible patience and a warped sense of humor . for the first portion of this review , i'm going to try and center on the positive aspects of hudson hawk . wish me luck . first and foremost : bruce willis is a good sport . while i'm not entirely sure what he was smoking when he co-wrote this script , willis is quite aware that the entire project is a big , fat , ugly joke . he constantly gives deadpan reactions to things that are very silly and out-of-place , which means he has more than his share of deadpan reactions . another plus is the appearance of andie macdowell as a schizophrenic nun and love interest for the title character . they meet when hudson goes on a mission to steal a priceless book from the vatican , and their relationship escalates in interest from there . it's unfortunate that mcdowell's one-note character is used just as an excuse for there to be a predictable plot-twist , and she offers absolutely no encouraging chemistry with willis . but now i'm rambling on again about the negative things , aren't i ? enough of the charade - for the most part , hudson hawk is an excruciating experience . it's stupid , pointless and repetitive . i can only wonder what bruce willis fans thought after exiting the theater , because this film really doesn't have the potential to please anyone . action fans should take note that hudson hawk is composed of 90% comedy , and even the action sequences are skittery , rushed and poorly edited . and those expecting a hearty laugh or two will find it difficult even to smirk during all of the headache-inducing hi-jinks . don't get me wrong , this film is not devoid of laughs . it's too bad most of them are unintentional , or just plain forced . the impressive cast looks suitably embarrassed . it's understandable to see willis and aiello in a movie of this caliber , but as for the presence of future academy award winner james coburn i'm not entirely sure . coburn plays a former nemesis of the hawk who again comes into play , and he looks unsure of his place the entire movie . especially when he resorts to martial arts during the final showdown , and has a fight with willis that would look right at home in a jackie chan film . things get more bizarre when we're introduced to his team of rejects named after chocolate bars , including future nypd blue star david caruso as the speechless , card-flipping kit-kat . if that's not enough for you , there's richard e . grant and sandra bernhard hamming it up as a deranged couple on the brink of a convoluted economic takeover . their crotch-biting pooch provides a couple of the big laughs here . wait , maybe the only big laughs . . . i'm not sure what kind of movie everyone had in mind when filming hudson hawk . i can't even begin to start about the film's absurd plot ; but let's not get into that . i suppose there's some amusement viewers could derive from the ridiculous premise , if they were that desperate . but hudson hawk never even has a clue of where it's going from minute one , and from there it's 90 minutes of pure cinematic muck .
1	metro i've seen san francisco in movies many times . there was 1994's interview with the vampire and most recently the rock . now , yet again , san francisco is the setting for this movie . eddie murphy stars as inspector scott roper of the sfpd . he is their top hostage negotiator , and the very best at what he does . when his best friend on the force is killed by joe ( michael wincott , in a terrific performance ) , a psychotic , demented jewel thief , roger makes it his mission to capture the guy before he strikes again . meanwhile , roper tries to rekindle a relationship with his british ex-girlfriend veronica , while helping to rear a new up and comer from swat who's an expert sniper and marksman ( michael rappaport ) . despite the obligatory cop movie scenes ( does every cop/new partner movie have to start the same way ? ) where the sgt . assigns roper a partner , roper confronts the sarge , etc . , this film is still one heck of an explosive ride . a scene involving a cable car has to be seen to be believed , and boasts some amazing car stunts . eddie murphy shines in this tailor-made role , and for once , his character shows depth and concern . when confronting joe in prison , you can feel the anger drip from every word . michael rappaport is basically throwaway . he serves no purpose , except to be buddy to murphy and get disabled in the final reel so that eddie can save the day . typical action escapist fare . michael wincott offers the best performance as the crazed killer and jewel thief joe . never before have i seen such a villian written like this where i could actually believe that he was serious and take him seriously . maybe i just thought that this role was different due to wincott's perfectly raspy voice . i don't know . what i do know , though , is that although metro is basically a typical action retread , it manages to cover new ground and shed new light on tired old cliches' . the film is a triumph , and an entertaining one at that . it doesn't meander or trail off from its main character . an enjoyable two hours , metro is enjoyable , witty , action-packed , and fun , and makes for a great action movie that's perfect for all of us that need an escape from reality .
0	a movie laced with a good blend of action , comedy , and a heavy dose of musical celebrity guest appearances sounds pretty gourmet , but even the best ingredients can be thrown together in the wrong way , creating a dismal and unsatisfactory product . eighteen years after the blues brothers hit theaters , blues brothers 2000 is being unleashed , minus half of its original duo ( the late john belushi ) and nearly all of its original charm . dan aykroyd reprises his role ( as well as his co-writing credit ) as elwood blues , the sharp dressed con man who wreaked havoc on a self-proclaimed " mission from god " along with his brother jake and their blues brothers band nearly eighteen years ago . as we begin , elwood is being released from a state penitentiary along with the news of his brother's death in prison years ago . completely on his own , elwood decides to trace his roots back to the orphanage where he spent his childhood , only to discover that everyone he has ever known has passed away . but elwood isn't completely without family . it seems he has a half-brother of sorts - not a real brother mind you , just the illegitimate child of his bluesman pseudo-father curtis ( cab calloway from the first film ) , who has also passed on . despite inklings from mother superior mary stigmata ( kathleen freeman ) to do otherwise , elwood seeks out his only remaining family in an effort to start up an all new blues brothers band . working as a police commander , cabel chamberlain ( joe morton ) , has an immediate disliking for elwood , who nonchalantly fills cab in on his mother's affair years ago and then goes on to steal his wallet . following elwood around is the lonely orphan buster ( j . evan bonifant ) , who quickly learns to become a mini-elwood . when bartender mighty mack mcteer ( john goodman ) joins the group , the blues brothers band is complete , and once again , the group travels the country , crashing cars , blowing things up , and obstructing peace with more than just solid blues rock . meanwhile , cab's personal vendetta against elwood leads him on an impassioned manhunt for his next-to-next-of-kin . >from this point , the movie turns into a series of music videos with a few bits of acting in between . those hoping for an interesting and/or funny yarn are given too many musical interludes while those heavily interested in the music are given too much of a story . only the extremely avid blues fans should attempt getting thru these two hours . for those people , it may be worth it , for luckily there is much more music than shoddy attempts at acting , but when the story does intrude upon the festivities , the film is heavily bogged down with unfunny jokes , musicians turned stiff actors , and the pointless 10-year- old buster attempting to add some sort of home alone cuteness to the whole thing . appearances by musical legends such as aretha franklin , james brown , eric clapton , and a whole slew of others are the high points of the film , but they also confirm why these people are musicians and not actors . blues brothers 2000 is deserving of one whole star simply because if you really , really love this kind of music , you might kind of , sort of like this movie . many , many scenes are nauseatingly unfunny , and if you don't have a passion for very deep blues/rock , you'll be bored out of your skull . much of this film seems nothing more than aykroyd's self-serving vanity project , but no matter how much fun aykroyd may be having with this , none of the excitement is passed on to the audience . and seeing three guys in three-piece suits goofily dancing around with poker faces can only be funny for so long . unfortunately , those two seconds are over about fifteen minutes into the film .
1	a standoff . a man holds a woman , a diplomat's daughter , hostage in his embrace , a gun pressed to her head . a cop , impaired by drink due to his wife's philandering , trains his gun on the man's nether regions , threatening to shoot . another cop holds his gun to his partner's temple , forcing him to disarm . the scene unfolds like a foursome bidding in bridge--upping the ante , signaling tacitly , going for game . the second cop retrieves the first cop's weapon , the suspect lowers his , and the woman caught in the middle moves--in slow motion--to safety . it is then that the intoxicated officer makes his move , grabbing for the assailant's gun . the room turns upside down , a shot rings out , a cop is down . shot in the back and paralyzed for life . the young man who found himself in the wrong place at the wrong time is sent to prison for six years for a crime he didn't commit . storytelling has always been one of pedro almod ? var's greatest gifts and in " live flesh " he gives us a twisting , turning , compelling tale peppered with well-written , colorful characters . characters who find themselves , more often than not , in carefully-constructed scenes like these . characters played by actors we might not know , but who look strikingly familiar nevertheless . take the ruggedly handsome victor plaza ( liberto rabal ) , for instance . before he gets out of prison he could easily be mistaken for that almod ? var favorite , antonio banderas . when we first meet elena ( francesca neri ) , the woman in the middle of the nervous shakedown , she looks like spice girl barbie with her frizzy shock of orange hair , but later tones down her look sufficiently to pass for juliette lewis . elena's husband david ( javier bardem ) is the cop crippled in the shooting and he wears david schwimmer's bemused expression throughout . playing the inebriated cop and his cheating wife are jos ? sancho and angela molina--no lookalikes spring to mind , but they round out the excellent cast . it's a credit to almod ? var's craft that these five individuals cross paths and intertwine with such credulity . " live flesh " begins and ends with a live birth and the film's contradictions come almost as often as the contractions . between the two childbearings , coincidence , irony , and a hefty dollop of sex form the key elements of this thoroughly entertaining film . although based on a ruth rendell story , " live flesh " is brimming with the acclaimed spanish director's high-heeled flourishes . women are at times alluring and repulsive , their extravagant hairdos and animal print coats providing colorful highlights to the intricately-woven drama , an eye bruised by an abusive husband here , a mouth bloodied by an impromptu delivery there . while in prison , victor learns bulgarian from an inmate and learns to love the bible , quoting from deuteronomy thereafter not unlike the way by which david and sancho refer to themselves as " guardians of a sick flock . " victor's pre-fab inheritance is a shambles in a slum resembling sarajevo . " dear son , i got cancer " his mother writes to him in jail . she dies before he is released and it's at the cemetery that victor is reacquainted with elena--redemption , ultimately , substituting for revenge .
0	call " hush " " stop or my mom will kill . " or " mommy fearest . " or " the hand that robs the cradle . " call it whatever you want , but certainly don't see it unless you're in desperate need of a bad movie-induced chuckle -- " hush " scores so many unintentional guffaws that it almost qualifies as a guilty pleasure . chalk its losses up to frequent stupidity lapses and apparent post-production tinkering ( it was supposed to open about a year ago ) , the latter of which appears to have given " hush " a send-off that's downright infuriating . it's too bad that " hush " is so laughable , because the on-screen talent -- including the pairing of gwyneth paltrow and jessica lange -- is nothing to laugh at . paltrow and johnathon schaech play helen and jackson , a photogenic new york couple on their way to spend christmas vacation at his wealthy , well-to-do family's horse farm/estate kilronan . jackson's mother martha ( lange ) runs kilronan all by herself , and her genteel southern hospitality makes helen feel welcome immediately -- even if her first meeting with martha takes place while helen is in the altogether , caught red-handed after a bedroom romp with her husband-to-be . but it seems that martha's friendly smile masks a much more threatening demeanor ; she's what you'd call someone who loves too much . martha eagerly , deviously wants a grandchild , and then helen will be expendable , as far as she's concerned . if there's one reason to catch " hush , " it's lange . she treats the pedestrian screenplay better than it deserves to be treated , injecting martha ( poorly written though she may be ) with a little empathy to level out the psycho-playing field . when she delves into martha's dark side , predictable cliches -- chain-smoking , staring in mirrors , praying in a confessional to a priest who isn't there , poking a hole in helen's diaphragm so she'll become pregnant ( and she does ) -- abound , but it's moderately entertaining junk because lange is such an interesting actress to watch . veteran performer nina foch is smart and tart as jackson's wheelchair-bound paternal grandmother . the rest of the cast looks ill and uncomfortable , especially paltrow . but can you really blame them ? the character relationships in " hush " hold a certain amount of promise , at least until their psychological impact is blown out of the water by sheer stupidity . idiotic situations ( martha yells at a nearby horse so it will bolt up and knock helen over ) compliment idiotic dialogue ( " why did you yell ? " helen yells back at martha ) , and the film takes the form of one of the shoddier fill in the blank-from-hell flicks ever made . you can see through a great deal of martha's actions and lies from their conception ; why do people who have known this woman for years longer than we have never figure things out ? does nobody communicate or read the newspaper in this town ? if any of her potential victims thought , acted or behaved like normal people , " hush " would be a really short movie . and then there's the climax and ending , which abruptly come when helen starts having contractions after eating some pound cake spiked with a labor-inducing drug normally used on horses . after a really weird chase scene , martha calmly knits in a rocking chair while forcing helen to give birth in a bed all by herself . i won't spoil what happens next except to say that it's contradictory , illogical and ( probably , since i'm no doctor ) medically impossible . the final scene offers no closure , no resolution , no confrontation whatsoever . it's just there , dangling amidst silent displeasure . no one should like this ending , regardless of their feelings on the preceding material . perhaps " hush " 's title is a plea to silence its audience's likely bitter word of mouth while exiting the theater .
0	absolute power , the new film produced and directed by clint eastwood , attempts to be a thriller set in the world of hypocritical presidents and their murderous political staff . it is about as thrilling as a lecture on the mating habits of the south american grasshopper . one can only wonder how an utterly absurd script like the one written by william goldman could have ever interested eastwood . not only is the plot unbelievable and contrived , but even the writing itself lacks any consistency or intelligence . continually underestimating the audience , the film gives us information we already know or dont even need . details essential to the story are so improbably convenient they are annoying ( like why would two unprepared secret service men carry two night-vision goggles in their car ? ) . oddly enough , the initial setup for absolute power offers interesting possibilities . a masterful jewel-thief ( played by clint eastwood ) witnesses the murder of the wife of a powerful millionaire ( played by e . g . marshall ) . while robbing one of marshalls mansions , he is forced to hide in the bedrooms vault . there , through a two-way mirror , he sees the wife and another man engage in passionate foreplay . their game of love quickly turns into a violent struggle as the man starts beating the woman . in self defense , the woman grabs a letter-opener and stabs the man in the elbow . she raises her arm to stab again when she is fatally shot by two secret service men . the man ? he is the president of the united states of america . where does the film go wrong ? it cannot be the acting . clint eastwood , ed harris and gene hackman as the president give type-cast , but decent performances . the cinematography is sufficient ; wild and erratic during action sequences , dark and mysterious during psychologically suspenseful scenes , and calm and warm during dramatic dialogue . even the music is not as bombastic as it usually tends to be in the thriller/suspense genre . the fault clearly lies in the screenplay , and the screenplay alone . while setting up a story about misuse of power , about the true possessors of that power , and about intrigue and double-crossing , it does not resolve it . not one buildup of suspense is resolved by an exciting climax . rather , the tense situations are left dangling at the end , giving the viewer an uneasy sense of incompleteness . an example of this is a very promising and tense buildup of a scene : in an attempt to arrest clint eastwood , the police have set up a trap at a small restaurant . police officers are everywhere , incognito of course . at the same time , not one but two hit men are preparing to kill clint eastwood when he arrives . all three parties are unaware of each others presence . this scene is tremendously exciting and the audience is wondering how clint eastwood , who might suspect this is a trap , will get himself out of this difficult position . he will probably have a brilliant plan , involving ingenious preparations . however , when he arrives at the trap , both hit men miss ( how convenient ) and in the confusion eastwood simply walks away . the buildup of this scene took about ten minutes . ten minutes of close ups of the hit men loading their weapons intercut with the police preparing for the trap . the scene was resolved in less than 20 seconds . . . parallel to the story line of catching the real killer is a cliche emotional tale about the estranged relationship between father eastwood and his daughter . the daughter blames her father for never being there for her , because he was either in jail or robbing a house somewhere . of course their relationship takes a turn for the better during the adventure and they end up a happy family . again , it is commendable that absolute power tries to deviate from the mainstream suspense film by giving room for a dramatic subplot . however , trying is simply not enough ! the second story line should be subtle , original and preferably unpredictable . . . everything this film is not . how could a screenplay like absolute power ever get the funding to be produced ? how could eastwood , who has successfully produced and directed many outstanding films such as the brilliant unforgiven , ever believe in a project like this one ? i am sad to say that my respect for the actor/director/producer has diminished substantially due to this film . director quentin tarantino once said : " i can make a good movie out of any bad script . " director clint eastwood obviously cannot .
1	after having heard so many critics describe " return to me " as an old-fashioned hollywood romance , i kept asking myself going into this movie : what exactly is an old-fashioned hollywood romance ? what made " return to me " old-fashioned and old-hollywood ? was it the tunes from sinatra , etc . , legendary singers the senior citizens in the film constantly harp on ? was it the glamorous , sophisticated feel ? the charisma of the two leads ? even now i can't say that i have gotten any closer to the real answer , because i haven't see that many old-fashioned hollywood romances . i don't think any of the romances i've seen have been classified as such . which leaves me the option of vaguely agreeing with my fellow critics -- " return to me " was old-fashioned in the sense that it reminded me of the way the younger generation perceive venerated old hollywood magic , the way i perceive cinnamon spice and apple cider . it was traditional , magical . we knew it couldn't be too daring , or have any surprising plot twists that many cynical modern romances are apt to throw in . it was a romance told with such endearing simplicity , tenderness , and love ( from director bonnie hunt ) that it couldn't help but sparkle with charm despite its shortcomings . the film owes a lot of what it has to bonnie hunt's direction . from the very first bird's eye view of chicago , zooming in slowly toward the insignificant bob rueland ( david duchovny ) , accompanied by the " return to me " ballad ( by whom ? ) , we can tell we're in for something sweet . the scenes between the characters are endearing , truthful , with just a hint of fantasy . real people don't act that way ; real people aren't that nice . we know all this , and yet we want to believe in these folks' existence . the premise itself seems to have sprung out of a fairytale , but hunt's rooting the fairytale in common chicago folk simultaneously lends credit to the scenario and tinges everyday urban life with a hint of the ethereal . everything is ordinary--yet beautiful--in this film . >from the festive little family restaurant to grace ( minnie driver ) and bob's wardrobes . from the eloquent , not-in-a-hurry to progress storyline to the dainty watercolors that grace paints . from the animal stars to the way all the characters interact on screen -- the most beautiful part . " return to me " has done an excellent job of assembling together a group of actors who blend in effortlessly as a family : the audience has no trouble at all believing that this rambunctious family actually does exist . we care for them , laugh with them , cry with them ; we're concerned that the little boy will pick up cursing from his father . whatever hunt did , she brought out the naturalism in all of the actors . disappointingly , david alan grier's charlie , however much i like him , was the most flatly-written . duchovny here does a laudable job of shaking off his fox mulder persona -- with the help of his fellow co-stars rarely do we see any hint of special agent fox mulder . instead we have a normal guy who when he falls in love shows more delight than fox mulder will show over the span of an entire season of " the x-files . " duchovny , who is excellent at understatement and self-deprecation as an actor showcases his considerable comedic talent on screen . minnie driver is engaging as always as the sweet , innocent grace with nothing but a good heart to offer . though an unlikely pair , duchovny and driver gradually warm up to each other as the movie progresses . while " return to me " functions remarkably as a laugh-out-loud comedy , a romantic scenic tour through chicago , and a tearjerker , the story is set up so the film ends up having nowhere to develop . the entire climax of the film hinges on when and how grace is going to tell bob that she actually was the recipient of his wife's heart . we already know that there's going to be a happy ending ; we feel like we spend the entire film , however enjoyably , in a straight line going towards that point . as a result bob and grace click almost too quickly--yes , i know she's supposed to have his ex-wife's heart and everything--it seems too effortless . the main subject is a love story , and the family scenes i love so much unfortunately are overused and distract from the turmoil of the two main characters ( whose story might not have that much meat after all ) . however , in the spirit of " return to me , " it won't do to be too picky about how " old " hollywood tells its stories . i loved knowing that this was a labor of love for bonnie hunt . it shows . the bottom line : " return to me " is nothing remarkable , and yet its sweetness , sincerity , and charm might touch your heart in ways that you hadn't imagined .
1	since most movies about slavery shield us from the true horrors of what they're portraying , it's fitting to say that " beloved " come as a real shock as a film . it's confusing , bizarre , and as tough a film to watch as any film i've seen all year , and that's not necessarily because of the three-hour running time . " beloved " is challenging to watch , filled with tough and powerful poetry that takes us completely off guard , and instead of a straight-forward , hollywood-ized story about what happened to the slaves after they were freed , " beloved " comes off as a cry of anguish from all those who actually lived through what happened ( or , rather , toni morrison , who wrote the novel upon which this is based ) . " beloved " tells the story of an ex-slave named sethe , played by oprah winfrey , who lives on a large farm in the north with her children . when the film opens , her house is being terrorized by a poltergeist , which shakes things up , wounds the dog , and makes things generally uncomfortable for the family . sethe is proud , though , and will not move . her sons run away , leaving only her and her daughter , denver ( kimberly elise ) alone with the ghost which is there without any factual explanation . a couple years pass , and the ghost remains , and one day , a man named paul d ( danny glover ) , another ex-slave who knew sethe years ago when they worked on a plantation together , arrives , asking for lodging . he has been wandering around since he left the plantation , and when he enters the house , it turns red and becomes incredibly hot . when he remarks about what he thinks is evil , sethe replies " it ain't evil . it's just sad . " some more time passes , and paul d has become a fervent member of the household , and the ghost disappears . but when they return one day from going out , they discover a young woman sitting in the house . her name is beloved , and as played by thandie newton , she has almost zero motor skills . she stumbles around , half-grabbing onto things and knocking them over , and when she speaks , she lets out a low guttural sound that eventually turns into baby talk . they let her into her house , and she begins to turn things upside down . " beloved " acts like an incredibly difficult chamber drama paired with a ghost story . most of the scenes consist of people arguing in one claustrophobic , low-lit room , with the occasional flash to the past , where we see images of such horror that we thank god for modern-day psychoanalysts . sethe and paul d have lived through such hellish times that they are forever implanted with the memories of their slavehood on the old plantation , which includes such images as sethe being raped by the white plantation hands , with her nipples being licked , prompting her to cry out to paul d when reminiscing about it , " they took my milk ! " worst of all was the month after her freedom , when she was allowed to live like a free person , working with other blacks on a farm , and then seeing that her old plantation owners have arrived to presumedly take her and her children back . she runs to the barn near by , carrying her four children , and when her old owners burst in , they discover she has murdered one of them and is ready to murder the rest of them if they don't leave them alone . when she is inquired about this moment by paul d in a moment halfway through the film , she says she doesn't regret it . she killed her daughter so that she would not have to live through the horror she did , and she has convinced herself she did the right thing . of course , beloved is really her daugher materialized , though we aren't flat out told that until later on in the film . beloved represents the pain and suffering the slaves went through and shows how difficult it was for them to deal with their freedom after being tortured for so long . thus , " beloved " becomes a sorta-redux of the andrei tarkofsky sci-fi classic , " solaris , " where a cosmonaut discovers that his wife , who commited suicide years before , has materialized when he is orbiting over a planet with a complex brain system . that film spoke volumes about humanity and our memories , how we are constantly regretting what happened in the past , and when if it ever literally came back to haunt us , it would control us completely . " beloved " moves along freely , without a lot of explanation , and for the most part , this is extremely respectable . the most interesting films are the ones that don't explain everything for us , leaving gaps in the characters that we are supposed to fill in with how they act in the present tense . sethe is never fully explained as a character , but we understand all her actions since she's being played by oprah winfrey . it's been well over a decade since her last major performance in " the color purple , " but judging from these two films , i'll bet she's one of the best actresses working today . . . if she was strictly an actress . her talk show , which i suppose is a great entity , has prevented her from becoming a noteworthy actress , and that's a shame because she brings so much to this movie . emotion . sadness . strength . watching the strong sethe , who's so afraid of the past that she's built a rather strong protective coating around herself , break down when she discovers who beloved really is is what makes this movie really great . she makes it real . that's not to say this is a perfect film . in fact , i'd wager to say that the fact that it's confusing and painful to watch is what prevents this from being the truly great film it is . while oprah's performance is powerful and easily sympathetic ( and i'm dying to see her win at least an oscar nomination this february ) , the structure of the film , which doesn't show what happened to her children till halfway through the film , prevents us from really making a cohesive connection to the film . it doesn't necessarily move as though they're memories of one particular character , and by the end , it has lost control over sethe , and as she takes to bed , we are unable to truly identify with her anymore . but despite its tediousness , perhaps that's the point . the distancing by the end of the film may be just part of the way it has been built from the start , since they figure she has crossed over from being identifiable , and it needs to get back with reality . and for the most part , this film seems like the cry of pain from the slaves that it really wants to be . jonathan demme's direction is bizarre , in nature with the story , and he creates the right mood , making it a tough film to sit through , making sure that the audience feels as uncomfortable as the characters . there's more to admire here , like the way that the flashbacks pop up freely and without real organization , just like they would be in real life ; and the way that the ending leaves it somewhat open to more pain and suffering , but laced with a touch of optimism . the acting , not only from winfrey , is amazing , and i anticipate not only she will get an oscar nomination . everyone has been raving about thandie newton's performance , and how it should be rewarded . however , it must be noted that out of everyone , she had the easiest part . act like a baby . throw things . stumble around . chew food with your mouth open . i do think there's another performance worthy of oscar conisderation , but it's kimberly elise , as the daugher who has to stay sensible and sane , and has to carry the burden of her mother's loss of reality towards the end . it's not that newton isn't great : she's as annoying and wacky as the role demands . it's just that elise has the tougher job and pulls it off even better . despite the fact that this film has winfrey written all over it , and not that of writer morrison or director demme , " beloved " has still not done well . costing , i think , around ninety million dollars , it has since grossed about twenty-two . unfortunately , this film is a little too intense for viewers , even for me , and i can stand almost anything ( i recently viewed the 2 1/2 hour long epic " caligula , " the worst film i have ever seen in my life , and did it in a mere 2 sittings ) . although i respect " beloved , " i can't say that i really enjoyed it .
1	" oh my god , i sounded just like a mother ! " mrs . pascal , played with devilish wickedness by genevieve bujold , tells her son . " didn't i sound just like a mother ? " " you are a mother , " her son marty tells her disgustedly . " i know , but i still can't believe it . i look at you people and wonder , how did you ever fit in my womb ? " marty , you see , is a grown-up twin . although his sister , who thinks she is jackie-o , is certifiably insane , marty fits right in with the rest of this highly dysfunctional family in the witty black comedy the house of yes . mother and daughter , played in a brilliant performance by parker posey , are both varying degrees of wacko . most dysfunctional families in the movies are more angry and mean-spirited than diabolically abnormal as this one is . the daughter's fantasy of being jackie-o is probably the most sane part of her being . mrs . pascal is the sort that will not let jackie-o keep a hairbrush downstairs since food is kept on that level . she explains to marty's new fiancee , lesly ( tori spelling ) , soon after their first meeting that jackie-o was holding marty's private part when she came out of the womb . the dialog by wendy macleod , based on the play by mark waters , is so sharp and biting that it seems in danger of cutting through the celluloid at any moment . the script , reminiscent of a david mamet play , flows smoothly with its fast paced intelligence and mesmerizing set of bizarre characters . the exaggerated setup has lesly and marty arriving at the family's out of the way mansion during a thanksgiving day hurricane . in this storm are two sane individuals . the fiancee is a giddy , school-girl type , embarrassed by everything , a complete contrast to her rival jackie-o's bitter pseudo-sophistication . as the two twins' younger brother , anthony , freddie prinze jr . plays the all-america boy type whose only foible is his explicit obsession of bedding his brother's fiancee that night . " we all have our secrets , " jackie-o tells her potential sister-in-law , and boy , does she have a few . this is a house filled with them . ( when lesly calls it the family's " home " to mrs . pascal -- they've never had a visitor before lesly -- mrs . pascal becomes discombobulated until she realizes that lesly is talking about their " house . " ) in a film that gives new meaning to the phrase , " made for each other , " the twin's biggest , but not their only secret , is that they've had a long-term incestuous relationship . they don't like to discuss it , although they are not particularly ashamed of it . perfect for viewers who can appreciate perverse comedy , this story never pulls its punches . jackie-o tries in many ways , few subtle , to show that she is a better match for marty than that ditzy fiancee of his . in one scene marty and lesly are playing chop sticks together on the piano when jackie-o pushes her aside and starts playing a challenging classical piece for four hands . marty joins her as his fiancee looks on with envy . the chemistry between parker posey and josh hamilton is nothing short of amazing . they put down their little brother and most of the other sane people in the world . their ripostes are engaging filmmaking at its best . director mark waters keeps the show's energy level high and lets the leads sling zingers at each other at a furious pace . his crisp direction ensures the movie has nary an ounce of fat on it . jackie-o is temperamentally incapable of being nice . and being jealous , she cuts lesly down mercilessly . " were you poor ? " jackie-o asks her when she finds that lesly committed the crime of growing up impoverished . " did you eat pies ? chicken pot pies ? " " pancakes actually , lots of pancakes , " lesly replies with her usual sincerity . " a donut king , so is she like the queen ? , " jackie-o cattily inquires of marty when she learns that lesly works at a donut king . " are we entertaining royalty ? " with rolfe kent's whimsically sinister music it never seems clear where the story is headed . will it end in a big emotional explosion , a murder , people slowly cutting each other up with words , a familial catharsis , a weather disaster or what ? the emotionally charged play is clearly going somewhere , and the engaging characters captivate the audience with their spell . i'll not say more except that the ending is perfect and a bit of a surprise . the house of yes runs a blazing fast 1 : 25 . it is rated r for sexual situations and conversations , mature themes , violent overtones and some profanity . the movie would be fine for older and mature teenagers , i . e . , treat the movie as it were rated nc-17 .
1	`oh behave ! felicity shagwell is one shagadellic babe . do i make your horny ? female fembots with breasts that require gun controlling . anything that resembles bananas and two balls of icecream . the nut-biting finale between mini me and austin . all that body hair is a real turn on , it's a pity more leading men don't wear it on screen . anything that vaguely resembles sausages and eggs . fat bastard . the love scene between felicity and fat bastard , that redefines sex . the wrongly implied love scene in the tent that redefines anal sex . the love scene between austin and ivana humpalot , that redefines chess and oral sex . the love scene between dr . evil and frau farbissina , that redefines weird sex . the love affair between austin and felicity , that does not happen , because his mojo goes missing . the relationship between dr evil , himself and mini me which redefines a solo love affair . the unique relationship between dr evil and his son scott www . com . zip , that says a lot about our relationship with our children nowadays . weanies , johnny , richard , dick etc . ' this movie is every bit as silly and crazy as the first . there are moments that will make your sick , which are probably best forgotten , but overall mike myers has redefined what it means to be an international spy and leading man .
1	i don't know how many other people have had the idea cross their mind that their life could be an ongoing television show watched by another world of people , but it's something i used to wonder about when i was younger . i can't decide if i first thought it because i watched a lot of tv or because my brother hit me in the head with a baseball bat , but i'm pretty sure andrew niccol , screenwriter for the truman show , has had the same curious thought . the truman show is about a man ( jim carrey ) whose entire life has been engineered by a corporation and marketed to the public . since birth , he's been living in the fictional island town of seahaven , fla . , which actually exists as a giant domed set just beyond the hollywood sign . all the people in truman burbank's life are actors , and the anonymous townfolk paid extras . people watch truman's life 24 hours a day , live , with no commercial interruptions . revenue comes instead from product placement , a staple of contemporary hollywood , with truman's friends and relatives describing their consumer items in cheerful and optimistic tones . the sun rises and sets on cue and everyone likes everyone else . even if you haven't seen the truman show , you've probably learned most of the crucial details from the commercials , the trailer and other promotion blitzes . if anything i've written so far is a surprise to you , then i pity you for making me a primary source for your entertainment news . either way , you should probably know the premise of the truman show going into it , because otherwise you'll probably think it sucks . it begins with jim carrey looking into a mirror , reciting the crucial " eat me " scene from alive , wishing his neighbors a good day , afternoon and evening , and living in domestic bliss with his wife ( laura linney ) . but weird things start happening . a stage light comes falling out of the sky , truman hears people tracking his movements on the radio and he swears he sees his dead father . we learn through a flashback that his father drowned when truman was a child , sailing through a rainstorm . the death was staged by director christof ( ed harris ) , who wanted to put a fear of water into truman to keep him from leaving the island . similar cruel manipulations keep him from stumbling upon the truth , not the least of them truman's best friend marlon ( noah emmerich ) , who assures him he's not in on any conspiracy because the last thing he'd ever do is hurt him . as truman's trusting eyes tear over , christof fades up emotional synthesizer music for a worldwide audience of people who apparently never watch anything else . there's even a daily behind-the-scenes update from harry shearer that captures the highlights of truman's existence . the key to a movie like this is in finding the right balance between humor and drama , because a premise like this has its obvious implications in both directions . and it all hinges on carrey , who has to balance comic naivet with a real sense of longing and drive to find out what the hell is going on . he's come a long way from talking butt cheeks in ace ventura . most fundamentally , it's just plain interesting to follow along as director peter weir shows us just how they can capture a person's life without the person realizing it -- how they coordinate extras , hide cameras and feed automatic lines to actors . the most interesting thing about the truman show is that most of us can probably imagine some ambitious director pitching a show like this . sure , the most interesting tv genre of the '90s has been reality programming and jerry springer's popularity is through the roof , but those people deserve to be humiliated for turning their intimate details over to the airwaves . and when news shows use hidden cameras , it's done in the name of the greater good , not entertainment . but merge the two and you've got the truman show . right now , it's implausible -- i mean , the fcc won't let you say the s-word on the air ; do you think they'd let you broadcast every detail of a man's life to the entire world without his consent ? one day , though , it could happen . and , even though it would mean the end of privacy , people would eat it up . you know they would .
1	the full monty is a whole lot of fun , its wacky , witty , and original . it's written and directed by relatively unknowns , simon beaufoy and peter cattaneo , who both turned up oscar nominations . how did this movie with a budget under 10 million gross over 175 million worldwide ? its been rumored that this film may be the second most profitable movie of the year ! and to think its about male exotic dancers , and not sinking ships . six steel workers who have been recently been laid off and are all looking for jobs . inspired by the success of a chippendale's production , gaz ( robert carlyle ) decides they should all put on a strip show to make some money quickly . as the six team up to put on the show of their lives , they run into a few problems . for instance , dave ( mark addy ) is worried about his weight , horse ( paul barber ) thinks he may be inadequate , and gerald ( tom wilkinson ) is worried about his reputation and timing . so when the night of the show comes , will the men be able to do the " full monty " ? as i said before this is a fun movie , and not just that its really artistically good . the writing and direction are great . the acting is appealing , all the performances have a human quality to them , so you can relate to at least one of the characters . the full monty received four oscar nominations including best picture . which left me wondering one thing , why didn't trainspotting get a best picture nomination last year ? while the full monty is a great lighthearted comedy , it doesn't carry the social impact of the brilliant trainspotting . still , the full monty is a great film , a must see !
0	when walt disney pictures announced a live-action feature based on the '60s cartoon series of " mr . magoo , " special interests groups representing the vision-impaired let out a cry of dismay . mr . magoo , they claimed , would be an insult to the men and women they represented . in fact , they were wrong . mr . magoo is not just an insult to the blind and near-blind , it's an insult to every human being who has the misfortune to suffer through this dreadfully unfunny , 90 minute atrocity . it's stating the obvious to remark that disney appears to have run out of original ideas . look at their roster of 1996 and 1997 releases , and you'll see a shocking list of retreads , including 101 dalmatians , george of the jungle , jungle2jungle , that darn cat ! , flubber , and now mr . magoo . the best of these ( george of the jungle ) was mildly entertaining . the worst , mr . magoo , exposes just how painful a bad movie experience can be . the first problem with mr . magoo is the script . despite the collaboration of naked gun scribe pat proft , mr . magoo is comically barren . from beginning to end , there's not a laugh to be found . every attempt at humor -- and there are lots of them -- falls flat with an audible thud . you'd think that out of the dozens of gags jammed into this film , at least a few would work , but that's not the case . i've had more laughs during ingmar bergman pictures . then there's leslie nielsen , who looks , sounds , and acts absolutely nothing like the animated character ( memorably voiced by jim backus ) . in the past , nielsen has proven his comic aptitude with roles in movies like airplane and the naked gun . lately , however , he has been getting lazy , taking parts in the likes of dracula : dead and loving it , spy hard , and mr . magoo . even if nielsen was in top form , it would take an incredible stretch of imagination to see him as magoo ( especially since we're reminded of the original by the short cartoon segments that open and close the film ) , but " top form " is not a phrase i would use to describe his performance here . this is strictly a take-the-money-and- run operation . the story , which , like many disney stories , can be described in one long sentence : magoo is the only witness to the theft of a rare jewel from a museum , and , as he is trying to apprehend the thieves on his own , the police mistake him for the robber . the cops are played by ernie hudson and stephen tobolowsky , who take their lumps early and often . the bad guys are kelly lynch ( who does a lot of martial arts-type kicking ) , nick chinlund , and malcolm mcdowell ( who has the good sense to look embarrassed ) . matt keeslar portrays one of magoo's sidekicks -- his nephew , waldo . the bumbling man's other , more interesting companion is a dog named angus . most of mr . magoo's humor comes in the form of failed slapstick . the cartoon violence level in this film doesn't approach that of home alone 3 or flubber , but it's still pretty acute , with characters getting hit on the head with sledgehammers and knocked off snowy precipices . there's a non-violent bit with magoo preparing a chicken dinner that could have been funny if it was handled better , but , compared to mr . bean's recent , similar misadventure , it doesn't hold up well . then there is the series of lame jokes that result from magoo's near blindness , such as the occasion when he mistakes a wild animal for a baby . i'm willing to cut director stanley tong a little slack . tong , a hong kong film maker trying to break into the hollywood market , has helmed several jackie chan movies , including first strike , rumble in the bronx , and supercop . his chief talent , that of choreographing martial arts fights , is wasted here ( despite some high kicking by kelly lynch ) . like john woo ( hard target ) and ringo lam ( maximum risk ) before him , it appears that tong has been consigned to the purgatory of making a bad movie as his entry into the american mainstream . it is worth noting that , unlike many disney films which hold a perverse appeal for the under-10 crowd while driving parents to distraction , mr . magoo appears to bore viewers of all ages . the screening i attended was wall-to-wall kids , and , for the most part , they didn't seem to be enjoying themselves . when the film was over , i asked one little girl what she thought of it . her pained expression confirmed the adage that a picture can indeed be worth a thousand words . mr . magoo is the kind of movie that should be rejected by any potential viewer , sight unseen .
0	it's probably inevitable that the popular virtual reality genre ( " the matrix , " " existenz " ) would collide with the even more popular serial-killer genre ( " kiss the girls , " " se7en " ) . the result should have been more interesting than " the cell . " as the movie opens , therapist catharine deane ( jennifer lopez ) treats a catatonic boy ( colton james ) by entering his mind through some sort of virtual reality technique that's never fully explained . after months of therapy sessions in a surreal desert , catharine has no success to report . meanwhile , killer carl stargher ( vincent d'onofrio ) has claimed another victim . his particular hobby is to kidnap young women , keep them in a glass cell overnight , and drown them . he takes the corpse and soaks it in bleach , then suspends himself over the body and jerks off while watching a video tape of the drowning . although carl's been doing this for awhile , he's recently become sloppy , and fbi agent peter novak ( vince vaughn ) is closing in fast . not fast enough , though , to keep carl from sticking another woman ( tara subkoff ) in the cell or to catch him before he suffers a schizophrenic attack that leaves him in a coma . from the videos in carl's house , peter can see that the drowning cell is automated and will fill with water forty hours after the abduction . to save the kidnapped girl , peter has to find the cell before the end of the day , and comatose carl's not talking . so off they go to catharine in the hope that she can go inside carl's mind and find out where the cell is in time . the focus of " the cell " in on the ornate interior of carl's mind , but the universe director tarsem singh creates seems more an exercise in computer-generated spectacle than an exploration of the psychotic personality . for the most part , it's style without substance . in his own mind , carl is a decadent emperor in flowing robes , ming the merciless , as well as a frightened boy ( jake thomas ) abused by his father . all in all , the mind of a psycho killer turns out to be a strangely dull place , and i kept wishing i could fast-forward to the next development . singh is best known for directing music videos , particularly rem's " losing my religion , " and " the cell " seems very much like a really long , really slow mtv video with the sound deleted . singer lopez seems to think she's in a video as well ; she devotes more time to posing in elaborate costumes than she does to acting . the premise had great promise . the computer-generated world within carl's mind could have been a bizarre , surreal universe governed by insanity and symbolism rather than logic . the first room catharine enters in carl's head shows this promise . she finds a horse standing in center of the room ; suddenly , sheets of sharp-edged glass fall into the horse , dividing it into segments . the panes of glass separate , pulling apart the pieces of the still-living horse . this scene is twisted , disturbing , and thought-provoking , because the psychological importance of the horse and its fate is left to the viewer to ponder . another element that should have been developed is the effect on catharine of merging with the mind of a psychopath . their minds begin to bleed together at one point in the movie , and this should have provided an opportunity to discover the dark corners of catharine's own psyche . like sidney lumet's " the offence " or michael mann's " manhunter , " " the cell " could have explored how the madness of the killer brings out a repressed darkness in the investigator . however , catharine's character is hardly developed at all , and lopez has no depth to offer the role . bottom line : don't get trapped in this one .
1	apollo 13 is simply one of the most dramatic film this summer ( apart from swashbuckling braveheart ) . director ( and former actor ) ron howard ( splash , backdraft , far & away ) , most noted for his dramatic film making , displays again his brilliance in creating drama and suspense in apollo 13 . being the second largest box office hit in the us this summer ( with more than us$150 million in the states alone ) , this film is his most successful effort yet . perhaps one of the most appealing feature of this film is the pool of talented actors such as tom hanks ( gump himself ) , kevin bacon ( footloose , tremors , a few good men etc . ) , gary sinise ( forrest gump ) , bill paxton ( aliens , true lies , boxing helena ) and ed harris ( the abyss , just cause ) . . all of whom gave good performances in their respective roles . apollo 13 was the second worst accident ever to occur in the history of us spaceflight ( the worst being the challenger accident ) . jim lovell ( hanks ) , the mission commander , together with his crew , fred haise ( paxton ) and last minute replacement tom swigert ( bacon ) are put to the ultimate test when part of their command module explodes on the third day of the mission , more than three quarters way to the moon . suspense and drama ensue as the three men are left in space with their spaceship out of control and the problem of surviving the journey home . . . if they ever reach it . ed harris and gary sinise who play , respectively , the man in charge of the entire mission control and the astronaut who was supposed to fly but was diagnosed with measles , both delve into their roles superbly . audiences are shown the chaotic and worrisome state of the entire ground control crew , as they frantically attempt to come up with ideas on how to save the astronauts from hurtling into space . also , there are quite a number of real news footages which were broadcast during the accident which took the entire us nation into 5 days of drama in 1970 . the special effects by digital domain are up to standard and the music suits the suspense and drama very well , thanks to film-music maestro james horner . watch out for the launching sequence , it is simply one of the most breathtaking scenes of the film . a bad point though : apollo 13 features much technical jargon and many physics concepts in its script . those who consider themselves `scientifically illiterate' might have a slight problem understanding what caused this and what caused that during the course of the show . this is however , just a minor point , just forget all those technical bullshit and immerse yourselves into the drama and suspense throughout the film . you should enjoy it .
1	i think the first thing this reviewer should mention is wether or not i am a fan of the x-files . first , let me assure you that no prior experience with the series is required to fully enjoy this movie . the producers are not stupid , making a movie just for fans of the series is not profitable . you have to reach for a larger audience . therefore , the movie is quite user-friendly . altough , non-fans will only fail to understand certain emotions behind the looks many characters exchange . but fear not , duchovny and another man later on provide more than adequate background info on what is going on . you will never feel as if you just walked in on the third act of some great opera . in any case , the answer is no . i am not a fan of the x-files , i only watch it when nothing else is on and i prefer millennium . however , since the fox network as been so kind as to air several key episodes for several weeks before the movie's opening weekend i took that opportunity to test the movie . i taped all of these episodes and watched them only after seing the movie , i am glad to report that i learned nothing new . everything you need to know is explained to the viewer by duchovny and others . i know i am going maybe a bit too far to make my point but everybody should get the chance to experience this movie . warning : major spoilers follow ! please do not read to fully enjoy this movie , you must not be able know what is coming , what exactly is over that hill and what that weird " hummm " sound is all about . you have been warned . the x-files is what a summer should be . exciting , scary , great special effects ( unlike other summer movies the effects do not take over the movie and are only there when it is really necessary ) and good performances . this is coming from a guy who thinks david duchovny is the human equivalent of a wooden plank . from start to finish , this movie does not let go of you . when i compare it with last summer's movies the best way to describe it would be : take the excitement and great score from face/off and the deadly use of sound from event horizon . this flick is scary , not in a b movie kind of way where you always know where and when the critter will jump at our heroes . in fact , the first time the critter in this movie makes an apperance it is totally out of the blue . you might as well bring ear plugs because this thing is louuuudd ! the last time a monster scared me that much was when i first saw aliens as a six year old kid . you know , when you are affraid to put your feet on the floor because the creature might be under the chair , or when you keep trying to cover your throat with your shirt ? so yeah , the x-files is scary . and guess what ? you never even have to see the monster but your imagination works overtime and it sure beats having to watch a flawed , computer generated , babyzilla , it looks like you could walk right through it not even scarier than your grandma in undies type of monster . do not think that the x-files is a monster movie . in fact , the creature is there for maybe three minutes total . no , the x-files is definately a mulder episode of the series . scully is at his side , of course , but gillian anderson gets maybe half the screen time . she has a couple of good scenes with duchovny , but she gets kidnapped during the last half hour of the movie so she does not get to do much . no , this is mulder's time in the spotlight . by now , you have heard of the scene where mulder " showers " independence day . if you have not then i will not spoil it for you , let's just say that due to recent events mulder should be " showering " godzilla instead . to those of you wondering if mulder discovers that the truth is indeed out there . . . who cares ! ? if he did find it the series would over anyway so what are you complaining about ? the dialogue in interesting and the director is marvelous . the camera is almost always looking over the shoulder of our heroes so we feel as if we are right there with them when they open a door or climb a hill . the script is spotless , every thing that happens happens for a purpose . if you are confused by something , do not worry because it will all become clear later on but , and i cannot stress this enough , pay attention ! ! ! unlike most summer movies , the dialogue is twice as important as the effects . miss one vital piece of information and , like most people who talk during movies , you will go home and tell all your friends how this movie made no sense . also , to those people who need to go to the bathroom during movies . . . don't ! the person who watched the movie with me had to go twice and twice she missed an important conversation . there is no time to take a breather between scenes because , again unlike most summer movies ( godzilla anybody ? ) the x-files does not need to fill scenes between the suspense and the action with useless subplots , every scene is crucial and serves a purpose . who needs to see the blond chiouaoua have a " big emotional scene " between godzilla attacks ? so far this summer i have seen only one movie who ranks higher on my list of movies i'd recommend and that is the truman show but it only wins by a nose . but the truman show is not what i would call a summer movie , the x-files is . what more do you ask from a summer movie other than the chance to be excited ? cool effects ? it's got some . pulse pounding ? hell yes ! strangely enough , i think that fans of the series will hate this movie while non-fans will have a good time . it does not provide answers to the show's many questions , the status quo remains nearly the same and , no , mulder and scully do not get together . rating : four and a half out of five stars for the best movie yet this summer , several jump right out of your seat thrills , many " whoah , i never saw that one coming ! " moments , four " holy shit , where the hell did that come from " and one heck of an ending . you may wonder where this movie lost half a star . well , i swore never to give a movie the full five stars so i had to find something about the in his ice truck , the tracks it leaves in the snow behind him go on for several miles but then they just stop . it's pretty obvious the film's makers drove the truck for several miles to give the appearance that mulder had been driving for a long time , but in the end it looks like mulder just dropped from the sky and started driving .
0	bad . bad . bad . that one word seems to pretty much sums up beyond the valley of the dolls . if that summary isn't enough for you , how about t&a , t&a , t&a ? still haven't got the point ? other than director russ meyer's predilection for casting attractive large breasted women who ultimately expose the afore-mentioned anatomical areas , there is really only one other reason to recommend even taking a look at this movie . that is the fact that it was co-written by famed film critic roger ebert , who also was responsible for the screenplay . after watching this movie you will never be able to sit through another one of his reviews where he gives a movie a thumbs down for bad writing with a straight face . this movie stinks out loud . quite frankly , this movie deserves a . but there are parts of it that are so bad they are almost funny . so i'm giving it a . and maybe that is too generous . right from the opening credits , i knew that i had a class-a bomb on my hands . not only are the way the credits actually shot distracting , but the first scene you see includes a big breasted young woman being chased by a guy in a nazi uniform . i had absolutely no idea why the hell that was happening ( it does get explained later ) and as soon as the first scene is over , we cut to a completely unrelated scene . to be honest , as i sat through this movie mesmerized by just how incredibly awful it was , i actually forgot about the seemingly out of place opening until it popped up again later in the film . with the quality of the writing during the rest of the film , it wouldn't have surprised me if the opening had never been explained . so what is this movie about ? you ask . like it really matters . ok , here goes . this all-girl band headed by kelly macnamara ( dolly reed ) and her friends go to hollywood to try to gain a foothold in the music industry . once there , they do manage to find success ( due as much to their hooters as anything else ? it sure wasn't for their brutally bad singing voices ) , and the movie chronicles how their lives change for the worse as the pressures of fame get to them . everything from big egos , to booze and drugs to free flowing sex sends them on a downward spiral . there are a couple of other idiotic subplots thrown in for good measure , but the fame is the one that pretty much sums up this thing . >from a creative standpoint there is nothing redeeming here . other than the above-mentioned obsession with big knockers that russ meyer seemed to have . the dialogue is so incredibly bad that it literally is funny in parts . mr . ebert has generously thrown in helpings of " hey man " , " dig " and my all time favorite -- " this is my happening , and it freaks me out " . now i ask you , with lines like that how can you go wrong ? ebert had tried to inject as many big words as possible into the dialogue . maybe he thought it would make the movie seem smarter . i don't know , but all the big words in the world wouldn't be able to disguise the bad writing and even worse acting . but the wretched dialogue goes along well with the wretched quality of everything else in this movie . i've seen home movies directed better than meyer managed with this turkey . in fact , there is one scene -- the one in which they are in a van driving to hollywood to make their fortunes -- during which i really had to question if meyer or his editors had just suffered serious head injuries . add to the directing and writing the music in this movie . i almost got up to check my sound system to see if it was broken , there was such a pile of crap emanating from the speakers . then we have the cast . first lets start david gurian who played harris , the manager of the band . this has got to be the goofiest looking guy that has ever set foot in front of a motion picture camera . sadly , his acting doesn't come close to making up for his looks . if you have been following along up to this point , this shouldn't surprise you . meyer's stable of well endowed girls also have the benefit of being fairly attractive to go along with their other assets . dolly reed plays kelly , the leader of the band . and no surprise here , she was cast for her cup size , not her talents . and yes , she does loose the shirt a few times and display her impressive talents . sadly , her ass is almost as large as her chest . hey , it a sexist movie , so i'm writing a sexist review . then we have former playboy playmate cynthia myers in a fairly small role as casey , one of the other band members . this goes along with the rest of the idiotic thinking in the movie . meyer casts a gorgeous playmate with a rack to kill for and who obviously has no acting talent at all , but her nude scenes are the biggest disappointment of all . sure russ , now is the time to get artsy and throw in some well placed shadows . on the up side , she does have a fun lesbo scene . i sound like i'm writing a review in a porn magazine . but hey , i'll admit it ; the only reason that i actually managed to sit through this damn movie was to catch a look at cynthia myers naked . and since that was a huge disappointment , i pretty much wasted two hours of my life on this turkey . the only thing that i can say about this movie is that you should stay away from it . unless of course you want to feel good about yourself by knowing that even a pulitzer prize winning film critic like roger ebert has screwed up at least once in his life too . and if you are thinking of checking it out for the double d's -- you are better off just downloading nude cynthia myers pictures off the internet . this is a movie that should be avoided at all costs . an even better idea might be to require video stores to place a warning on the box of beyond the valley of the dolls -- beware : this movie is extremely hazardous to your common sense . proceed with extreme caution .
1	star wars : episode 1 - the phantom menace ( 1999 ) review by matt pusateri few movies evoke nostalgia , enthusiasm , and affection like george lucas' 1977 classic , star wars . the original blockbuster film and its two sequels not only evoked wonder and passion in a generation of filmgoers , but has deeply entrenched itself in american pop culture . arguably , more americans today can explain what " the force " or a " jedi " is than a budget deficit or a serb . so 22 years after the release of the original , and 16 years since the third film , the return of the jedi , how can any new star wars film withstand the weight of incomparable expectations and anticipation ? can a new storyline and a new cast of characters possibly compete with the legends of the first trilogy - luke , han solo , and darth vader -all cultural icons ? against this challenge , the fourth star wars film , episode one : the phantom menace hit the screens last week . and despite some early critical reviews in the major media , the film is neither a flop nor a disappointment . while the phantom menace is certainly not the finest film in the series , it is nonetheless engaging , exciting , and visually breathtaking . it is a worthy sequel - er , prequel - to the original star wars films . the phantom menace takes place decades before the setting of original films . as the film opens , obi-wan kenobi ( ewan mcgregor ) , the wise old master who introduced luke to the force in the original star wars , is only a young jedi apprentice , still learning from his fellow jedi and instructor , qui-gon jinn ( liam neeson ) . the republic government has sent the two jedi to settle a trade dispute that has developed into a blockade of the planet naboo by a shifty trade federation . the jedi quickly find themselves not in negotiations , but in the middle of a planetary invasion , rushing to protect naboo's young queen amidala ( natalie portman ) . later , after eventually rescuing amidala and helping her escape naboo , they are forced to stop at tatooine to repair their battle-damaged ship before bringing her to the galactic senate to make an appeal for justice . on tatooine , qui-gon discovers a young slave boy , anakin skywalker ( jake lloyd ) , who not only can help them get the parts they need , but displays uncanny intelligence , insight , and instincts . qui-gon senses the child is " unusually strong " with the force and begins to suspect that he may be " the one " prophesized to " bring balance to the force . " as anyone who has watched the original star wars trilogy knows , far from being a galactic savior , the innocent-looking 9-year-old will in time become the ruthless darth vader . complicating matters further is a mysterious hooded figure , darth sidious , is behind the trade blockade and invasion of naboo , and sends out a lethal apprentice , darth maul , to find and capture queen amidala . while amidala and the jedi fight to save her planet , they soon also have to deal with the deadly and relentless darth maul . if the plot sounds a bit complicated , it is . the phantom menace not only introduces an earlier generation of characters and an immediate crisis , but sets up the foundation for the events that will eventually lead to the fall of the republic , the demise of the jedi knights , anakin's turn to evil , and the rise of the dark empire of original trilogy . but the complexity is not overwhelming . the story moves quickly , with the only drawback being that many questions , predictably , remain unanswered at the end of the film , setting the stage for the next episode . one of the reasons the film's story seems hazy is not that it is too confusing , but too unfocused . it's unclear whose story phantom menace is . in the original trilogy , the movies were clearly luke's story , with the stories centering around his growth from farmboy to rebel hero to jedi knight . but it's unclear whether this new film is anakin's story or obi-wan's . if this trilogy is centered on anakin , it's a shaky foundation . lloyd , like many child actors , lacks the subtle acting skills of adult performers , and as a result , his character seems shallow and unimpressive . on screen , we see nothing that suggests a dark side lurking underneath his little-boy face , or for that matter , any presence that would make him seem so special that qui-gon is willing to believe he is " the one . " the rest of the cast does fine , though they often work with some iffy dialogue by lucas . neeson is perfect as an aging jedi knight . mcgregor is well-cast as obi-wan and conveys a balance of youthful energy and calm sensibility . portman fits the role of a young queen well , but her lines were often very formal , giving her little room to give her character much personality . the biggest problem with the phantom menace is not the plot or the characters , but the interaction between them . individually , the characters in this new film are no less developed than those in the original star wars , and the storyline is not more confusing than previous films in the series . but unlike the previous trilogy , lucas doesn't do as good of a job playing the characters off one another . in star wars , there were immediate contrasts and memorable exchanges between luke and han , han and obi-wan , and leia and luke . the ensemble played off each other and immediately showed their distinct attitudes and personalities . in the sequence in where luke , han , and chewbacca attempt to rescue leia from her cell on the death star , the audience learns a lot about all four characters in the ways they react to the immediate problems and each other . there is no comparable sequence in the phantom menace to flesh out the characters and their relationships with each other . individually , they are interesting characters with clear motivations and interests , but lucas develops little chemistry or tension between the them . this is perhaps the most glaring weakness of this film , and is probably the reason it has disappointed many reviewers . but despite the need for a richer dialogue and stronger character interaction , the film is still very engaging . many of the wonderful elements of lucas' previous films make the phantom menace both memorable and entertaining . first , of course , is the remarkably rich and imaginative universe lucas creates . the characters visit magical underwater cities , evade dinosaur-sized sea monsters , fight battle droids and menacing " destroyers " on venetian-looking planet of naboo , watch a spectacular event , part roman-chariot race , part nascar circuit , on the arid desert planet of tatooine , then head to corsucant , the gothic urban capital of the republic and home to the galactic senate and the jedi council . each location is elaborate and complex . lucas never settles for vague ideas about the look of his settings , he creates rich , spectacular landscapes , palaces , and skylines . most of the new special effects in his re-released special edition trilogy in 1997 were changes that allowed him to give the earlier movies the look and feel that just weren't possible when the films were made . more than ever , in this new film , lucas' universe is filled with a menagerie of creatures , robots with personalities , and a supporting cast of aliens who interact with the main characters . the best such character is watto , a greedy tatooine junk dealer who owns anakin and his mother as slaves . watto has a scratchy italian voice and a short , paunchy body with oddly mismatched wings that flutter like a hummingbird as he floats around the room . of all the computer-generated characters in the film , watto is the best done and most enjoyable . speaking of computer-generated characters , no review of the phantom menace is complete without mentioning the most controversial figure in the film : jar jar binks . with more than 80 minutes of screen time , jar jar is the realization of george lucas' dream to include a fully computer-generated character into the cast of the new trilogy . jar jar , a clumsy amphibian and member of the gungan race , literally stumbles his way into the path of the jedi knights early in the film and becomes qui jon's accidental sidekick . jar jar usually performs a comic-relief role in the film , lightening scenes with his mishaps and inability to stay out of trouble . the animation of jar jar is nearly seamless , and he interacts with the characters throughout the film as if he were really on the set with the actors . however , despite the technological magic that makes his character possible , jar jar isn't completely convincing . he still moves and sounds too much like a cartoon to blend into a scene . throughout the movie , jar jar never transcends a " roger rabbit " -like presence . you accept that he's there , but you never lose sight of the fact that he is an animated character . initially , i found jar jar annoying , but grew to enjoy the humor he added to the film . on my second viewing of the film , jar jar was a lot of fun and i didn't mind him at all . a second reason this film continues the fine tradition of star wars movies is that the film is replete with humor and small details that flesh out the world lucas creates . despite all the film's struggles between good and evil , and the sober musings about one's destiny and " the force , " like all star wars films , the phantom menace never takes itself too seriously . fortunately , lucas hasn't lost sight of the fact that his films are entertainment , not high art . from the bumbling jar jar , to a one-man , two-headed announcer team calling the action at the film's thrilling pod-race sequence , to a cameo appearance by e . t . in the film , the phantom menace is simply a lot of fun , with lots of half-hidden jokes and humor that can easily be missed . and finally , the phantom menace works because , as in all his films , there is no shortage of speed and action . from beginning to end , there are light-saber battles , hair-raising chases , and thrilling duels between good and evil . the pod-race sequence on tatooine is one of the most entertaining and exciting scenes in any star wars film , and the final showdown between obi-wan , qui-gon , and darth maul is arguably the best choreographed , most thrilling fight sequence lucas has filmed . the phantom menace won't win any major oscars . it probably won't beat titanic's box office record . and it's not even the best star wars film ( i'd put it third , after the original and the empire strikes back ) . but it's an exciting and entertaining film , far better than your typical summer blockbuster . the film can't live up to it's hype - no film , not even the original star wars , could have done that . but it's still worth seeing . . . probably more than once .
0	_soldier_ is hands down one of the worst movies a person could ever have to sit through that doesn't have jean claude van damme in it . i could liken it to the sci-fi cheese that was the hollywood product-of-choice back in the early 80s , but that would be too much of a compliment . if there is a movie theater in hell , this film is playing there 24 hours a day . the story , such that there is , revolves around todd ( kurt russell ) , an automaton of a man who has been raised from birth to be a merciless soldier in a not-too-distant ultra-conservative future ( is there any other kind ? ) after years of desensitization at a military academy full of other boys just like him , todd becomes a ground fighter in a series of wars all over the galaxy . who the enemies in these wars are is never revealed , but the few glimpses of todd in battle show that it doesn't matter , because innocent hostages are wiped out as indifferently as the bad guys . after ten minutes of this nihilistic trash -- yes folks , there's more -- we see todd as a buff , scarred adult , now so accustomed to the carnage that no confrontation at all causes him to break a sweat . there's a new wrinkle , though . todd and his brethren are declared obsolete , and a new batch of soldiers takes their place . after losing a sanctioned battle with _dragon_'s jason scott lee , the seemingly dead todd is dumped by a flying ice-cube tray ( well , that's what is looked like ) on a remote garbage planet . if you predict that todd meets a bunch of outcast settlers on this planet , and that they band together to fight a bunch of bad guys coming to destroy them , you're way ahead of the game . the renegade society on this trash heap is so clich you half-expect tina turner and master blaster to come strolling into frame any minute . it's surprising that _soldier_ is the brain-child of _blade runner_ co-writer david webb peoples . unlike that mind-twisting classic , this film contains just barely enough dialogue to fill about three double-spaced pages . add into the mix the _mortal kombat_'s paul anderson inept direction , and it's easy to see how _soldier_ turned out so bad . and the special effects ! remember the flying steam irons in hardware wars ? gary busey is in this movie . 'nuff said . _soldier_ is proof that hollywood still has plenty of bad ideas sitting in its script vaults . that this sad film made it to the silver screen should encourage plenty of aspiring screenwriters out there that there is hope after all . now if you'll excuse me , i have to go weep for the future .
0	synopsis : wealthy cuban landowner luis ( banderas ) gets more than he bargained for when he sends away for an american bride . not only does his new wife turn out to be the beautiful julia ( jolie ) , she also harbours a secret past of dubious merit . soon , julia has absconded with both luis' fortune and his heart , and as he pursues his wife through the cuban underworld , luis begins to realise that , for him , there is no turning back . review : given the absurdism of its would-be plot , it's unlikely that " original sin " could have been turned into a reputable piece of filmmaking , regardless of writer , director or stars . this is , at its heart , b-movie junk : a lurid melodrama which appeals to neither the brain nor the heart but to the nether regions . that said , " original sin " could at least have become enjoyable junk had the filmmakers embraced its trashiness and indulged in it . instead , cristofer seems to have mistaken this for a serious production , and directs it as such . the result is a vapid , uninteresting morass of obvious crosses and double crosses , as likely to incite a yawn as a thrill . consider the initial sex scene between banderas and jolie : brightly-lit and mostly filmed from above , it looks like an excerpt from an amateur soft porn show . cristofer doesn't even manage to capture the allure of cuba ; instead of portraying his setting as a steamy , sensuous island paradise , it appears bland and lifeless . at least banderas and jolie manage to inspire some interest ; there are hints at times that they want to have more fun with the script , but aren't being given the chance . the same cannot be said of jane , whose billy is nebbish and transparent . also unwise is the jolie framing sequence , which practically gives away the film's denouement .
0	so i went and saw this film right , it was called " battlefield : earth " , i was never interested in the previews , and never too terribly interested in the book , nor do i find scientology interesting , but after reading advanced reviews of how bad this film really is , i had that weird urge just to watch it . well let me be the first to say , and so far in my view it's safe to say : battlefield : earth might be the worst film i have ever seen , yes even worse than " mr . magoo " , " blue in the face " , or " jaws : the revenge " . roger christianson whos credits include set direction , and art direction for such great films as " alien " and " star wars " , directs this film with such amateurism , that the film looks and feels and in fact sounds so dumb , that it's quite depressing . the look of the film , is dark and drabby at times , but then bright and happy at other times . the sound is terrible , and has the worst surround sound effects i've heard . the acting is nothing , the dialogue poor , and the make-up effects hideous . here's the so-called plot : earth 3000 . . . . man is a endangered species , while aliens from the planet psychlo ( the aliens are named psychlo . . . i wonder why ? ! ) are invading earth , destined to put an end to those " man-animals " to an end , and destroy earth once and for all , of course we have our typical hero ( played terrible by barry pepper , who was great in a small role in 1999's " the green mile " ) who is destined to go out , and save his planet ! one thing : he has to go up against , terl , the chief of security psychlo , who is played frankly , quite bad by john travolta , whom with dreadlocks , a big head , and green eyes just doesn't work . of course the sidekick to terl , is played by ( lol ! ! ) forest whitaker , who looks like a deformed werewolf of some kind . our friendly human johnny ( barry pepper ) looks just as bad as well , with long scraggly hair . i'm not really sure how to quite explain the badness of this film , except just to say it's terrible . everything in this film is imcomprehinsable , from the make-up effects , which by the way aren't good , to the phony looking special effects , everything in this film is faulted . in fact i don't remember one part in this entire movie where i was having a good time , or enjoying myself . in fact there is no part in the movie that i liked or enjoyed . throughout the entire 127 minute running time , i was dying , constantly looking at my watch , and hoping maybe the projectioner would blow a bulb or something , sadly it didn't . my advice to hollywood : get new scripts , new acting classes , better directors and damnit , make films like american beauty more .
1	apparently , director tony kaye had a major battle with new line regarding his new film , american history x . i don't know the details of the fight , but it seems that he is not happy with the final product , and nearly removed his name from the credits altogether . i've heard about this kind of thing happening before , and it makes me wonder how much input a studio has over the films they produce . as it is , i found american history x to be an extremely good film , not just because of tony kaye's focused look at the touchy subject of racism , but because of a powerful , charismatic performance from edward norton . it's hard to believe that it has only been two years since norton's fantastic role in primal fear , but , here he is now , starring in his own film and making himself a star . norton is one of those performers who becomes his character , and his work in american history x is one of the very best performances this year . he plays a young man named derek vinyard , a skinhead living in venice beach with his brother , danny ( edward furlong ) , mother ( beverly d'angelo ) , and sister , davin ( jennifer lien ) . the film opens with a flashback , in which derek brutally kills two black men vandalizing his car . we find out that this lands him in prison , and the film from that point is seen through the eyes of danny . in the present-time of the film , danny is in high school , and eager to follow the footsteps of his brother . much of the film is told in flashback , and we see the path that leads to derek's adoption of white supremacy . when derek is released , having served three years in prison , he finds that his brother is now a full-blown skinhead ; derek , however , has given up the violence , and tries to get his brother to understand why racism and the violence that comes with it are bad things . what makes this all interesting is that these two young men are not stupid , thoughtless people -- they are intelligent and articulate , and voice their beliefs in disturbingly straightforward terms . it's hard to make a controversial movie and not preach , but kaye has found the right note for his material . because american history x is a mainstream film , there has to be a redemption phase for our main character -- some people may think that this is the only way to make him sympathetic . i partially disagree with this , because , although i do not advocate racism in any way , it's interesting the way kaye presents derek -- he is a loud , obnoxious man , but he's also very smart . the reasons for why he becomes a skinhead are believable -- his father was arbitrarily killed by a group of black men . it's clear that he's passionate about his beliefs , and that he's not just a punk looking for an excuse to beat people up . of course , it helps that kaye has an actor as talented as norton to play this part . it's astonishing how frightening norton looks with a shaved head and a swastika on his chest . in addition to getting the look just right , he's perfect for this role -- derek requires intelligence , depth , and a whole lot of shouting , and norton does it all with ease . even when he's at his meanest , derek has a likable quality to him , and that's a gutsy approach when telling a story about a skinhead . what adds depth to the story is a subplot in which the principal of danny's school ( avery brooks ) becomes obsessed with purging the hatred from danny . the other performances are all terrific , with standouts from furlong , d'angelo , and lien . visually , the film is very powerful . kaye indulges in a lot of interesting artistic choices , and most of them work nicely -- lots of slow-motion and strange camera angles add to a moody atmosphere . but , like a lot of movies lately , american history x skims past greatness in the last few minutes . although the climactic scene is very moving , the picture ends with a pretentious , preachy resolution featuring a brief narration from a character who was killed . for a movie so smart a subtle up until that point , it felt like a slap in the face to be hand-fed a theme in such a simplistic way . it makes me wonder what , exactly , tony kaye disliked about the final version of his film . perhaps this last scene was the problem . it's hard to imagine any director not being at least partially pleased with a film this good -- in a time when so many movies are timid and weak , american history x manages to make a compelling argument for racism without advocating it any way .
1	there's a moment in schindler's list when a number of jews are trudging through snow , clean and crisp , dark edges and frost on the ground . one girl waltzes through , wearing a red dress that stings the eyes . it is probably the finest moment through out the film . when i first saw it i began to cry , though i could not say why . this landscape is the setting of many small moments that add up to one big whole . when one man is shot in the head we see blood oozing out onto the ground -- so black and murky , its almost pomegranate red . at another time we follow a young boy as he runs , searching for a hiding spot before finally squeezing into a toilet -- which is already occupied . like so ( citizen kane , fargo , the godfather , the godfather part ii , greed , ) many of the greatest american films , schindler's list plays with the concepts of money , power , and soul . but this is a movie about a man who does the right thing . starkly emotional , and brutally powerful , schindler's list strips away everything on the outset and leaves us ony feelings . the following that it has gained is not suprising -- this is probably , thus far , the best film of the decade . steven spielberg has always been a skilfull filmmaker -- his assured hand churned out both jurassic parks , jaws , the indiana jones films , and e . t . -- but it wasn't until 1993 that we saw what a brilliant man he can be . the product of his genuis is really something to see -- it can bring tears to your eyes just as it uplifts you . throughout , we sense the deep control which he so masterfully spreads . we watch oskar schindler ( liam neeson ) grow from an arrogant , self important man who hires jews only to save money into a moving figure , with a deep sense of pride and accomplishment . the film requires much work , and can be a harrowing experience -- go expecting a quick entertainment and you'll be bitterly dissapointed . it does reward the patient viewer . this is a mature spielberg , and his deft hands shape an absoloute masterpiece . this eqsuisite , beautiful film is a rare gem . it does a good job of summarizing why i love movies . it leaves one breathless , uplifted , and with much to think about . afterwards you can reflect on individual images , visions , and people . laconic , removed , schindler strides through the film a detached prescence who watches all , does much , and leaves feeling as if he could , should , have done more then he did and was able to . the change seems natural -- in the hands of a lesser filmmaker , it would be crude and would cheat the audience . instead we are told a tale , told a story . the film is punishing to watch , yes . but anyone who allows themselves to get involved will experience a miracle , and a genuine masterpiece of a movie .
1	though it is a fine piece of filmmaking , there's something about elizabeth . . . that left me a bit cold , and i think it is something that bugs me quite often in films , particularly these days ; i just didn't care about the characters . to me , the first and foremost job of a filmmaker is to create characters ( be they imagined or historical as the case may be ) that the audience gives a hoot about . and though elizabeth works well on many levels , it falls short of excellence because of that very reason . elizabeth takes place in england in 1554 , as queen mary , half sister of elizabeth and a monarch on the side of catholicism is dying . before she dies , though , she cannot bear to sign a document which would condemn her half sister to death because of her heretical protestant beliefs . as a result , amidst much anger within the council , elizabeth becomes the queen of england . the film chronicles her rise to power as she fights for a unified church of england and tries to bring order to her personal and political life . much of the film deals with elizabeth's love for lord robert , a mysterious man who thrusts his lordship onto many a woman as he continues to proclaim his love for the queen . there is much ado about her lack of a husband , and political pressures from spain and france enter into the equation . the problem with the film lies with this as its centerpiece , as love interests are such a character driven element . i didn't much care about the characters ( perhaps aside for elizabeth who is played quite well by blanchett ) and so i didn't have much interest in who would join her in her nuptials . the cast is rounded out well with the marvelous rush who plays the queen's most loyal advisor , sir francis , and attenborough as a well-meaning but old-fashioned lead council . why then , you must be asking , do i recommend elizabeth ? simply because it is the result of a perfect pairing of director and cinematographer . kapur and his cinematographer remi adefarasin ( neither of whom i have heard ) create a beautifully realized piece of filmmkaing from the technical side . the light streams through each frame as in any painting from the period and beautifully captures the realistic light sources that would have been found in churches , cellars and castles in 16th century europe . each frame is rich with color contrasted with blackness or blown-out white light from windows . the costumes by alexandra byrne deserve a mention as they are such an inportant aspect of each shot . indeed , elizabeth is one of the most visually beautiful films of the decade , ranking with kundun and braveheart . watch also for the incredibly " godfather-esque " mass murder scene . it made me think in retrospect of the similarities between the two films .
1	capsule : trippy , hyperspeed action machine from hong kong's accomplished tsui hark . van damme and rodman have nice chemistry , the stunts are eyepopping , and stuff gets blowed up real good ; what more do you want ? i admit i was all set to loathe double team ; it reeked of cheapjack timing-oriented marketing ( stick dennis rodman in a movie , quick , while he's hot , and do something about jean-claude van damme's flagging career while we're at it ! ) . surprise -- double team transcends its dumb roots and turns out to be a mess of fun . bring some friends , get some pretzels , and have a blast . van damme is jack quinn , an ex-agent who is brought back in for " one last mission " -- you'd think any spy worth his shoe phone would run like hell when he hears those words . but van damme's character has a pregnant wife who's also a sculptor , and some unpleasant pressure gets used to get him to come through on this mission . he's been assigned to take down an old enemy , a terrorist named stavros ( mickey rourke , looking oddly subdued ) , who may be back up to his old tricks . in the first showdown between quinn and stavros , the movie wears its ambitions proudly on its sleeve : nonstop action . an amusement park , a hospital , a private " retired spy " 's retreat , most of rome , various houses , planes , cars and other modes of transport , and the coliseum ( ! ) all become arenas for some of the most bone-rattling shoot-outs and punch-outs filmed . they are better seen than described and are reason enough to see the film : one jaw-dropping scene has van damme taking on a man who uses a switchblade with his * feet * . ( van damme is a good , dextrous athlete and fighter , but he is often upstaged . ) there are other nice touches . stavros and quinn both want the same thing : to retire in peace with their families . that ambition ties them together in various ways , and also humanizes them a bit . one of the things about hk action movies is that there's always some form of human element , and that's carried over into this movie as well . it gives weight to scenes that would otherwise be forgettable . also good is dennis rodman , playing a weapons dealer named yaz -- a character who sticks out like a fistful of broken fingers and who is funny just standing there . rodman is natural on screen ; he's fun to watch , especially when slinging bad guys like basketballs , and deserves to get a movie of his own , based on what's seen here : a lightweight , fast-moving entertainment that showcases all of its pieces excellently .
1	airplane ! is considered among many to be the epitome of satire film-making . after all , it's brought to us by one of the best known satire writing/directing teams . even if most people don't recognize the names behind the films , they are bound to recognize the titles : airplane ! , top secret , the naked gun , and hot shots to name a few . but although the zucker/abrahams/zucker team was first introduced with the kentucky fried movie in 1977 , airplane ! remains the true cornerstone of their work , and their directorial debuts . in the seventies , disaster films seemed to be at an all time high . films like earthquake , the towering inferno , and the poseidon adventure were big hits . there was also a series about the disasters that can arise when traveling by plane - a series that spanned the entire decade . and so , in 1980 , we were introduced to a new airplane disaster film . this time the disaster had nothing to do with a maniacal hijacker or crashing into the ocean . . . it had to do with bad fish . airplane ! is the story of ted striker ( robert hays ) - an ex-fighter-pilot who has never gotten over the fact that a decision he had to make in the midst of war led to the death of six , er , seven comrades . unable to stop living in the past , ted's world fell apart . he spent his time moving from city to city without ever having a stable job , and eventually , as we begin this film , is getting dumped by his lover , flight attendant elaine dickinson ( julie hagerty ) . in a desperate attempt not to lose her , ted buys a ticket for the same flight elaine is working . unfortunately , she is unsympathetic and even criticizes ted for following her , which leaves him wallowing in self-pity . in the midst of it all , something happens . someone gets sick . then another . then another . soon , the whole plane is full of deathly-ill chicago-bound people . . . and when the pilots get sick ( played by peter graves , kareem abdul-jabbar , and frank ashmore ) , who will save the day ? ( gee , i wonder ) of course the main draw here is the non-stop " whiz-bang " comedy , with a hefty dose of both visual and spoken gags . although i had seen this movie a few times before , i was still laughing thru the entire thing . the most fun character by far is the doctor , played by leslie nielsen . he's a dry , subtle , sterotypically straight-faced doctor that ends up saying some of the funniest lines of the film . in a film like this , you're not really expecting an elaborate production , so one can't complain about the amateurish quality . what you can complain about is the absolutely annoying johnny , played by stephen stucker . this character is pointless , nauseating , and very unfunny . i don't know why he was put in there , and i don't think anybody will find a good excuse . and when the film nears an end , it slows down quite a bit , almost getting old . you gotta give it to a movie that only runs 88 minutes and can feel two hours long . aside from that , airplane ! is really a top-notch spoof that will likely forever be known as a spoof classic . it would be a good choice to pop in the vcr with a group of friends , especially if they haven't seen it . and if they ask what the plot is , just tell 'em " it's a synopsis of the basic storyline of the film , but that's not important right now . " if you've seen the film , you'll understand ; - )
1	while watching " shallow grave , " i found myself periodically noticing thematic similarities to the coens' " blood simple . " both are good films in which several characters , none of whom are the most conscientious to have walked the earth but still are not really evil , indulge in an act of deception that soon necessitates more serious crimes . the body count rises , and before long seemingly normal people have blood on their hands . both films are also flawed , but for different reasons . " blood simple " is unrelentingly dark and moody , but its characterizations were a little hollow . " shallow grave , " on the other hand , is nearly flawless for an hour and twenty minutes , and then the filmmakers throw away much of what they'd accomplished for a more standard , audience-pleasing ending . the events of the film were sufficiently intense and disturbing that i honestly felt quite troubled by what i was witnessing on screen most of the time , yet there was a slight grin on my face at the end . as the film begins , we are introduced to alex ( ewan mcgregor ) , juliet ( kerry fox ) , and david ( christopher eccleston ) , a scottish trio living in an apartment in glasgow . they are all sarcastic and occasionally obnoxious , but other than that they seem like a fairly normal bunch . a man named hugo moves into the apartment's remaining vacancy , and the next morning he is found dead of a drug overdose . juliet is about to call the police when alex discovers that hugo had brought with him a suitcase filled to the brim with cash ( presumably from criminal activities ) . the three eventually decide to keep the money and cover up the death ; after a drawing of straws , the particularly unenviable task of mutilating the body so as to make it unidentifiable and burying it falls to david , who had been the most reluctant to partake in the scheme from the beginning . all of this transpires in the first twenty minutes or so of the film , and part of what makes " shallow grave " so brilliant for a while is that i honestly had no idea what was coming next . other than the obvious question of why they don't report the death and simply hide the cash , which is not addressed , the plotting and characterization , while sometimes predictable , worked in a way that kept my attention and , on more than one occasion , gave me chills . i will , therefore , attempt to continue this review in a way that doesn't give away too much of the plot . broadly , the trio are in danger due to hugo's underworld connections , as two goons search for the money and kill several people in the process . a police inspector ( ken stott ) is clearly suspicious and visits the apartment , asking pointed questions and trying to unnerve the three suspects by exchanging banal and weirdly humorous bits of dialogue with a junior detective . david , meanwhile , becomes increasingly paranoid , moves into the attic , and develops an affinity for sharp objects . director danny boyle effectively creates an atmosphere of mounting tension and suspicion in the apartment , and finally the three seem ready to turn against each other . while i do not consider myself the " happy endings are automatically stupid " type , i thought that " shallow grave " really should have ended in tragedy - a realistic analysis of the story up to the last ten minutes of the film would indicate that all three characters were probably about to end up in prison , in the mental hospital , or in the morgue . this could have been accomplished , quite credibly , but then boyle and screenwriter john hodge seem to flinch and opt for a more conventional " caper " ending in which we get a kick out of seeing who outsmarted whom , and nothing more . granted , this isn't really a " happy " ending , but it's still pretty light-hearted compared to what preceded it . i really shouldn't say anything more about the ending as far as details go , but let me add that it seemed not only shallow and lazy but also inconsistent with the rest of the film and not very believable . yes , this ending made me crack a smile for a couple of minutes , but ultimately it left me feeling as if i'd been cheated . still , " shallow grave " was brilliant most of the way through , and it does at least meet the minimum requirements for an entertaining thriller , and i am therefore awarding it three stars . i guess i just can't help but think about that fourth star that boyle and hodge let slip away .
0	capsule : five friends at a stag party are involved in the accidental killing of a prostitute . the cover-up attempt becomes a monster that eats up the friends , two wives and several innocent bystanders . this was a real audience pleaser at toronto , but it did not do much for me . , low 0 ( -4 to +4 ) - directed by peter berg who acted in the last seduction and copland . - five buddies go on a stag outing to las vegas while cameron diaz works through the logistics of her upcoming wedding to one of them . one of the buddies accidentally kills a prostitute . - several people with no moral compass . they started out with a simple , innocent little cocaine party ( ! ) and by accident look what happened . they have one moral person among them ( daniel stern ) , and one totally amoral person ( christian slater ) . it is more selfish to let the amoral lead , so they do . - this film is strange , but not really funny or biting . black comedy should actually be funny as well as strange . there should be some element of satire . the satire is missing here . i did not find myself laughing here either . what we have is a strange crime tale . - one just does not care what happens to these people . - the same idea of people just getting themselves in deeper and deeper has been done frequently . if this film is popular it is just bringing a familiar plot to a new generation . - it begins like diner ( particularly with daniel stern ) and ends up like an extended horror/crime comic book . - there are several logical holes in script . if a security man goes to investigate a complaint and disappears , wouldn't the guests he was investigating be the first suspects ? someone framed for a crime in the way shown would be judged innocent after minimal forensic detective work . ( i am desperately trying to avoid making this a spoiler . ) - popular and situation ethics get a real slamming . - some acting of grief is hammy and overdone . more yelling than humor .
0	dear god , this is a fantastically bad film ! regardless of what i say about knock off , you can't grasp its awfulness from my words . you have to see it and experience it for yourself . here's the kicker , though -- i suggest that you do so . yes , this is a bad film -- easily one of the most incompetent films of the year -- but it has a certain misguided charm that makes it a unique kind of disaster to endure . in fact , i enjoyed myself for most of its brief running time , despite the dreadful acting and a completely incomprehensible story . don't get me wrong : i'm not excusing knock off . it reaches an unacceptable level of badness ; it's so incoherent that i wonder if it was hacked up worse than the avengers was . it also features some truly terrible performances from lela rochon , michael wong , paul sorvino , and -- of course -- jean-claude van damme . it does , however , have the entertaining presence of rob schneider , and the excessively inventive and pretentious direction of tsui hark . as i watched it , i occasionally wondered if it was aware of its own awfulness . now , in retrospect , it seems clear that it wasn't , but it's still a fascinating kind of mess . i don't like writing plot descriptions ( it is , by far , the most boring part of writing a review ) , but , in this case , i'm off the hook : there is no way i could write an accurate synopsis for knock off . for the sake of comparison , i had no trouble understanding the usual suspects during my first viewing . i paid closer attention to knock off , and the only thing i am able to say about it is that van damme plays a dude named ray , and is accused by the cia ( i think ) of selling knock off products ( knock off products are , of course , products that look like name-brand materials but are generic and cheap ) . i don't know what any of this has to do with martial arts , but there are lots of martial arts in the film . ray is good at martial arts , so when he has to beat up bad guys , there's no problem . rob schneider plays his sidekick , although i had no idea who he really was by the end of the film . lela rochon is just some woman who accuses them of stuff , while paul sorvino is both the good guy and the bad guy at once ! in fact , every character goes through so many shifts from good to bad that the end provides absolutely no insight into what any of them really do . in that order , knock off is completely incoherent and makes absolutely no sense . but what a strange mess it is . it was written by stephen e . de souza , who also wrote die hard and 48 hours . can this be the same man ? i don't see how , unless , of course , huge chunks of the film have been removed for the sake of running time . knock off seems to have an interesting premise ( as far as action films go ) , but there's no semblance here . for instance , van damme is introduced , and then seconds later he's running a chariot race through the streets of hong kong . why ? who knows . what are the implications of this ? i have no idea . most action films abandon depth in favor of action , and this is normally a problem . knock off , however , is the first film that i would have preferred to see with all of the talky sequences cut . the acting is embarrassingly bad : rochon , in particular , delivers each of her lines with stiff and talentless insincerity . sorvino , in addition , deserves better than this . van damme is bad , but he's charming in that bad way , and so i can't say that he's hard to watch ( although i rarely understood what he was saying ) . the only exception is rob schneider , who is actually quite funny a lot of the time . tsui utilizes so many tricks that he makes john woo look tame by comparison . they're all pointless gimmicks though , such as shots of the inner-workings of a knock off running shoe . but his action scenes are never boring : one particular piece inside of a fruit factory ( a fruit factory ? ) is well-choreographed . lots of the scenes are pitched well to comedy , such as our heroes' first encounter with the rochon character . but did tsui know that his film is beyond ludicrous ? i hope he did , for the alternative is a frightening thought . knock off has the feel of a truly terrible exercise in camp mania . if it were boring , i'd give it zero stars . but it's not boring : it's loud and excessive and completely incoherent . it's also funny , even when it isn't meaning to be funny . a bad film that succeeds as entertainment doesn't deserve to be fully lambasted . i recognize knock off for its irrefutable badness , but i can't deny it's zany , useless charm . oh , i know , they're just action scenes looking desperately for a real story , but they're fun action scenes amongst a crowd of laughably inane concepts . it's fun to admire the awfulness of a film like this , but that doesn't excuse the fact that it is , indeed , awful .
1	trees lounge is the directoral debut from one of my favorite actors , steve buscemi . he gave memorable performences in in the soup , fargo , and reservoir dogs . now he tries his hand at writing , directing and acting all in the same flick . the movie starts out awfully slow with tommy ( buscemi ) hanging around a local bar the " trees lounge " and him pestering his brother . it's obvious he a loser . but as he says " it's better i'm a loser and know i am , then being a loser and not thinking i am . " well put . the story starts to take off when his uncle dies , and tommy , not having a job , decides to drive an ice cream truck . well , the movie starts to pick up with him finding a love interest in a 17 year old girl named debbie ( chloe sevigny ) and . . . i liked this movie alot even though it did not reach my expectation . after you've seen him in fargo and reservoir dogs , you know he is capable of a better performence . i think his brother , michael , did an excellent job for his debut performence . mr . buscemi is off to a good career as a director !
0	here's a concept -- jean-claude van damme gets killed within the first ten minutes of the movie . now if that isn't enough to get you to finally see a van damme movie , i don't know what is . all sarcasm aside , it is certainly a different way to start a movie , of course a few minutes later we find out that the newly deceased had a twin brother -- so lucky us , we get to see more of jean-claude . van damme #1 works for the russian mafia in the united states and is killed by some of their operatives . van damme #2 is a police officer in france who finds out that he had a twin brother he never knew about after #1 gets killed in france . the remaining twin ( the french cop ) goes to the united states to find out who killed his brother and avenge his death . once there , he hooks up with his deceased brother's girlfriend , played by natasha henstridge , and the two of them set out to discover who the murderers are . jean-claude's acting abilities don't seem to be up to the usual lackluster standards in this movie . in other words , just in case you missed the sarcasm , his acting is worse than normal . on the upside , natasha henstridge is in this film , and she does what she did best in species -- she gets naked . sadly , this is probably the high point in the movie . she is actually a decent actress , but didn't improve as much as i thought she would after species . this is the typical van damme movie , with jean-claude doing a variety of high end martial arts moves on his opponents . nothing new here , and certainly nothing we haven't seen in every other van damme movie . simply put , there is absolutely nothing new about this movie . it has a retread plot -- this isn't the first time jean-claude has played twins . he still can't act . we all saw natasha's breasts in species ( although this is one repeat performance i'm not complaining about ) . this is pretty much like every movie that van damme has ever been involved in -- sub par .
1	118 minutes ; not rated ( though i suspect it would be rated pg for adult themes and language ) mamoru oshii is a name that probably isn't very well-known to most american audiences , but perhaps it should be . oshii was the director of last year's best-known japanese animated film import , _ghost in the shell_ , and is known among fans of japanese animation , or anime , for making films with a deep philosophical bent . one of these films was the first theatrical venture for the patlabor animated series . in its many incarnations--graphic novels ( " manga " ) , two different runs of made-for-video episodes ( original animation videos , or oavs for short ) , and a television series running to nearly fifty episodes--patlabor has proven to be one of the most popular series ever in japan . set in the very near future ( though it was a somewhat farther away near future when the series was first conceived ) , this atypical giant robot anime features the characters , rather than the machinery , as the primary focus . as a whole , patlabor is the story of an exciting time for japan . as the prologue to each episode of the television series explains , giant industrial robots , known as " labors " ( an interesting play on words , considering that " robot " is derived from the czech word for labor ) , have come into widespread use in japan toward the close of the twentieth century . with the rise of labors , however , has come a new menace--labor crime . this led to the creation of the two special vehicle divisions , using patrol labors to fight labor crime . the patlabor story centers around the second special vehicle division , sv2 , who , through no fault of their own , have acquired a bad reputation for destructiveness . sometimes utterly hilarious , sometimes almost deadly serious , the patlabor series explores the interpersonal relationships of the special vehicle crewmembers , and also looks at the effects of technology on modern life . those who are unfamiliar with the patlabor story and characters may find themselves slightly confused coming into the movie , although there is ample background exposition provided for new viewers . the story , as has much of patlabor before , centers around the controversial babylon project , a gigantic seawall that will , on its completion , allow the reclamation of thousands of square miles of land from tokyo bay . this project has been an almost constant target of environmentalist terrorists , most notably the house of sea organization . however , the threat in this case comes not from any terrorist , but from someone who is already dead . . . shinohara heavy industries , the premier labor manufacturer in japan ( if not the whole world ) , has just come out with a new operating system that increases labors' movement speed and efficiency by 30% . this hyper operating system , hos for short , has very quickly been installed into well over 90% of the nation's labors . . . including the patrol labors of sv2 . since that installation , dozens of labors , including a heavily-armed military model , have begun to go on berzerk rampages for no apparent reason . . . and the only factor they all had in common was that they were all running under the new hos . ( some wags have compared this to windows 95 . ) it's up to asuma shinohara , labor command officer with sv2 and the son of the president of shinohara heavy industries , to find the source of these problems before more labors--including sv2's own--fall victim to them , and before hos drags his father's company down with it . as was the case with _ghost in the shell_ , if you just want a no-brainer actionfest , this might not be the movie for you . _patlabor : the movie_ is more of a psychological thriller , a technological suspense drama . it is closer , perhaps , to a chrichton novel than to an action movie ( crichton novels that have been made _into_ action movies notwithstanding ) . there are long , thoughtful montages of dialogueless footage as two investigators make their way through slums and derelict housing in old quarters of tokyo , similar to sequences from _ghost in the shell_ . this movie is fraught with symbolism--in fact a large part of it is based on christian symbolism . patlabor's near-future setting is , aside from the giant robots tromping around , very similar to our own present day . the film uses this setting to make its central point : is progress moving too fast for humans to keep up ? are history and culture falling by the wayside like the old buildings that are being torn down and replaced with new ? this is a question just as applicable to today as it is to patlabor's alternate-1999 setting . as far as the technical aspects of the film go ( referring to the subtitled version , as that's the only one i've seen ) , the film transfer is clear , almost phenomenally so . the animation quality is incredible , though the character design is different from what most patlabor fans will be used to . the oavs and tv series were more cheerful , better-suited to humor ; the movie , however , makes everyone look a great deal less cute , and emphasizes that this is going to be , for the most part , a deadly serious storyline . as far as cinematography goes , there are many interesting moments in _patlabor : the movie_ . i don't think i can recall ever seeing a fish-eye perspective used in any other animated film ( save for _ghost in the shell_ , another oshii film ) , or indeed , in many other movies at all . the cinematography is well-suited to the storyline , emphasizing what it needs to , though a couple of scenes ( where characters' features are exaggerated in anger ) may seem slightly strange to western audiences . the audio track of _patlabor : the movie_ is in glorious hi-fi stereo , and should be used to demonstrate home theater systems--it _is_ that good . even without headphones , sounds from either side of the screen can be clearly heard to _come_ from that side . giant robot footsteps are deep and booming . the sometimes-understated , sometimes-blaring score is crisp and clear , and always right on the mark , enhancing the moods created by the animated scenery . as far as the subtitles go , i have to say that they're among the most easily-readable subtitles i've ever seen for _anything_ . large enough that they don't strain the eyes , but small enough not to conceal too much of the screen . although it does have several action sequences in it , most notably the climactic conclusion , _patlabor_ is foremost not an action movie . although it is a superbly-realized film , it relies in large part upon prior familiarity with some of the characters to carry the story , and that could detract from some people's enjoyment . my .
0	here i sit at my computer about to write my review of the recent action comedy " bait " starring jamie foxx and david morse . this is a review i don't even want to write because i'd just be laying the same criticisms on it that i would with any other so-generic-and-predictable-it's-beyond-ridiculous piece of hollywood fluff . if they're not going to give us , the audience , just a little credit and put something together with half a brain , why should i waste my time and mental energy criticising it ? last summer i took this same approach with my review of " the mummy , " in that review i just quoted phrases my reviews of other sub-par movies . i think i shall do the same thing here but with a few less quotes ( not all are applicable ) . i hope this goes to show you what i think of " bait " and why you can find out all you need to know about it without having to take a wild guess . it's genuinely unfunny ( i , and the other audience members only laughed once during the entire two hours ) , unoriginal and unthrilling . it's not so bad to the point where it's fun to watch because of its badness and it's no so bad you absolute loathe it and are pained by watching it , it's just such a cliche in and of itself , that , uhh . . . lost my train of thought . anyways , here's those quotes , enjoy ! " getting an audience's attention right from the beginning plays a major role in how today's films work . we want to have something exciting to watch , not a slow build-up of a story ( god forbid ! ) , and this film plays right into the mainstream's hands . . . " - review of " armageddon . " " it's clear the film doesn't want to waste time on reality and thus the attempt to establish plausability ( the most minimal amount necessary ) comes across as a half-assed effort . supporting characters and shady sup-plots are introduced , but as is the case with films made up of a large cast of characters , only a handful have any real significance . . . there's a fine line separating homage from plagiarism . . . , " - review of " godzilla " ( 1998 ) " unfortunately , as is the case with most modern thrillers , once the film showed potential for authenticity and intelligence , the cliches and action sequences take over , " - review of " the jackal . " chad'z movie page is back after heavy renovation . reviews of nearly all mainstream movies playing today ! get my reviews of everything playing at your local cineplex so you can better make an informed decision on what to see . don't forget to vote on my poll and sign the guestbook !
0	this is the movie that could single-handedly bring " mystery science theater 3000 " out of cancellation . it's one of those movies that's so bad it's absolutely hilarious , due in no small part to its big star , supermodel cindy crawford . if you only remember one thing about fair game , it should be that it singlehandedly proves crawford should stick to the sports illustrated swimsuit issues . if you thought kathy ireland was laughable in alien from l . a . , you'll change your mind when you see fair game . ireland would win handfuls of oscars if this was her only competition . in a real casting coup , crawford plays a super-intelligent lawyer ( in a jogging bra , of course ) . we all know this is a stretch , the only legal opinion crawford has ever put forth being that she favors the death penalty for anyone who wears white after labor day . nonetheless , someone out there thought she'd make a good lawyer , but we're reminded of her true function in the movie when she takes two showers in a period of twenty minutes . and for you horny teenage boys out there , you actually get to see her topless for two seconds in the dark . . . come to think of it , that may have been a body double . cindy crawford isn't black , is she ? like i said , crawford is a lawyer with a bunch of russians after her . billy baldwin ( or is it stephen ? alec ? adam ? kim basinger ? ) is the police detective who has to save her life , time after time , chase after chase , explosion after explosion . there's absolutely nothing original about this movie . it's every cop show of the 70's mixed with every action thriller of the 80's and every technology- exploitation movie of the 90's . three decades of crap all in one place , driven further into the ground by crawford's complete lack of acting talent . and it's all completely predictable . you know the mistakes baldwin and crawford are going to make before they make them , you know when the " sexual tension " will finally end up in them consummating the relationship , you know when the villains will capture crawford so baldwin has to rescue her in the climax and you know the movie's going to suck from the first scene . the plot isn't really explained until the end . all we know is these russians have every detail about crawford in their computer . in the words of one of the villains , " we even know what size pantyhose she wears . " ( yeah , you and every 14-year-old boy in america . ) he goes on to add , " we know more about her than she does . " ( _that_ i find very easy to believe . ) i hope you enjoyed those two sample dialogue quotes , because i wrote down plenty of other bad ones ( " if it weren't for me , you'd still be pulling bananas out of your ass in cuba ! " ) because , you see , fair game is not only a showcase for recycled action cliches and terrible acting , but also some seriously bad dialogue . it all adds up to a really terrible movie that made me laugh in plenty of places i wasn't supposed to and grimace in places i was supposed to laugh . one more thing fair game has against it is some awful comic relief . would you laugh at a scene where crawford tortures a computer nerd with double entendres like " i'm very interested in _hard_ware " and other crap about playing with his joystick ? i wouldn't , but not because i'm a computer nerd . it's just not funny . crawford's only contribution to the information age are a few gif files floating around with her head on a nude traci lords' body . . . or was it jack lord's body ? i'll leave you with the final line of dialogue in the movie . the boat with all the russians has just blown up and baldwin and crawford are floating on a life raft . crawford says woodenly , " that was my client's boat you just blew up . i'm filing a lawsuit against you . you're in big trouble , " or something to that effect , and baldwin replies smugly , " what do i have to do to get out of it ? " they of course begin making out and the credits roll . i'm not going to talk about how stupid the line is or how , if they'd really wanted to go for a bad closing line they would have had baldwin say , " you think i could settle out of court ? " but i will tell you that , if anyone ever suggests you watch fair game with him or her , you quote the final line of the movie to that person : " what do i have to do to get out of it ? " serving america for over 1/50th of a century !
0	in 1989 , director edward zwick began his career with the powerful civil war drama , " glory , " but since then , he has made continuous disappointments , to me at least , with 1994's " legends of the fall , " and 1996's " courage under fire . " those two films weren't bad , just not very good , but with zwick's latest film , " the siege , " he has finally made one . " the siege , " is a modern-day action-thriller that focuses on terrorism that is sweeping through new york city . investigating the matter is fbi agents anthony hubbard ( denzel washington ) and frank haddad ( tony shalhoub ) , who are first hit by the ordeal when a city bus explodes with several innocent people on it . later , a bomb goes off in a broadway theater , killing even more . they soon meet cia operative elise kraft ( annette bening ) , who may very well hold the key to the identity of the arab terrorist . there are some movies that simply don't need to be made , and , " the siege " may very well be one of them . oh , sure , zwick thinks he is making a " meaningful " action film , since he has added lots of exposition scenes in which the audience is basically lectured on the horrors of terrorism , but what he really has made is actually no more substantial than , say , " die hard , " which also starred bruce willis . this time , willis is horribly wasted as a general of the u . s . army , who puts a state of martial law over nyc during the climax . whatever points , " the siege , " earnestly tried to make , were obviously lost in the translation from page to screen , or maybe , zwick never really had anything serious to say in the first place . the role of the arab community is offensively stereotypical , just as women were in the recent , " john caprenter's vampires , " by placing them all in the category of " bad guys . " " the siege , " contains three fine actors---washington , bening , and shalhoub---but washington is stuck with a character that contains not an ounce of even remote development . bening has slightly more to do , and has an intriguing character to work with , while shalhoub pretty much steals the show , even though , again , he has no real character . by the climax of , " the siege , " with washington giving a sermon to willis on the so-called " message " of the story , i felt like i had wandered into a sequel to , " on deadly ground , " in which steven seagal gave a 10-minute speech at the end about preserving the environment . " the siege " is constantly heavy-handed , not entertaining or insightful , and just goes to prove that not even the best actors can save a film that lacks a satisfactory screenplay .
1	zero effect gets its title from the main character , daryl zero ( bill pullman ) , although we don't understand what it truly means until the very last line of dialogue in the film . zero is a private investigator , perhaps the best private investigator who ever lived ( at least he'd like to think so ) . however , he's a socially inept being , and eccentric in every possible way -- this fact certainly makes his talents as a private eye even more bewildering than they already are . zero's accomplice is steve arlo ( ben stiller ) , a " normal " guy who does the business side of the job -- he's the one who actually speaks to clients and explains zero's greatness as an investigator . the opening scene has steve explaining the many virtues of zero's talents to soon-to-be client gregory stark ( ryan o'neal ) . it turns out that stark has lost a key to a safe deposit box , and is now being blackmailed for something that he apparently knows nothing about . zero takes the case , and the plot thickens . his path leads to a young , pretty paramedic named gloria sullivan ( kim dickens ) . despite her luminous and seemingly-harmless presence , she turns out to be the one blackmailing stark . through his investigations , zero learns why , but not without developing feelings for gloria -- feelings that , because of his reclusive behavior , are new and confusing to him . i have no particular affinity towards the mystery genre of film . i can idly enjoy movies about private investigators , and , every once in a while , a film like chinatown comes a long that blows me away ( actually , no private eye film has ever reached chinatown's greatness ) . zero effect , which is jake kasdan's first effort as writer/director , is a film about a private investigator that succeeds in all attempts : it's an original , funny , and completely involving motion picture . with so many cliches available to this genre , i find it amazing that kasdan avoided all of them . but he didn't just successfully avoid flaws : he has created a great film here , one that had me interested and fascinated from the first shot to the final moment . take , for starters , the great cast of characters . pullman is terrific as zero , showing a comic flair that i really haven't seen from him since spaceballs . zero is the kind of guy who seems at ease switching personalities so frequently as he does here ; the fact that he's an almost exaggeratedly twisted , emotionally unstable man outside of his profession is not at all difficult to believe . pullman's performance is much more layered than it might seem at first glance , and the occasional voice-over as he's going through the motions of his job are insightful and often hilarious . ben stiller is also a very funny individual ; he's the kind of comedian who makes normal lines sound funny . " i'll shoot you , " he says to stark at one point . " i have a gun , and everything . " his character is also well-drawn , with an interesting subplot involving his girlfriend ( angela featherstone ) who is not happy with the extensive amounts of time he must spend away from her due to the unpredictability of his job . o'neal also gives his character a bit of depth ; and kim dickens , last seen ( and underused ) in mercury rising , gets a chance to show us her talent here , giving gloria the realism this kind of character really needs . i find zero effect to be an immensely funny and witty film . kasdan's humor is of the best kind -- soft spoken , and mostly dialogue-driven ( though there are some great visual jokes ) . it's the kind of humor that's funny even after you've seen it five or six times . there's one scene in which zero talks about how detached he is , an how that makes him such a great detective . what we see during this narration are various shots of him sitting on a bed , or standing motionlessly , with his hair destroyed and an utterly blank look painted on his unshaven face , his eyes pointing to something off camera , but obviously to nothing in particular . i can't convey to you how funny this is , but what makes it great film making is that it has a point -- scenes like this are frequent , and they provide solid characterization of zero . as a side note , i don't consider myself an average viewer when it comes to comedy ( not to sound elitist ) -- i find things funny that many do not , and vice versa . there was a clump of people near me in the theater laughing uproariously through this film , and the rest of the theater was relatively silent through most of it . i have a feeling the humor here won't appeal to everyone , but there's certainly enough story and character development to keep anyone's interest . jake kasdan , son of writer/director lawrence kasdan , is only 22 years old . i found this out after seeing the film , and i can't remember ever being so impressed with a film maker . his direction is stylish without being pretentious , and his writing is mature , full , and developed . zero effect is the kind of film that i'll buy for my collection -- smart , original films like this are rare as it is , but this one actually has a heart and a soul . at the end of the film , i was involved in the characters , and i was satisfied with the outcome . and , with kasdan's undeniable talent at such a young age , all i can do is hope to see a lot more from him in the future .
0	plot : something about a bunch of kids going into a haunted house and playing out parodies of other horror and non-horror movies . oh yeah , there's also something about a ghost possessing the mansion and shit , but trust me , you won't care much about the " plot " in this film . . . critique : parody movies either work or they don't and this one just doesn't work ! the laughs aren't as pronounced this time around , the energy level , the gags and all of the characters just seem to be going through the motions here . it's like they were all in a hurry to finish the film or something ( wink , wink ) . and the scariest part of it all ? check out the number of screenwriters it took to pen this puppy : seven ! i say again , it took seven people to write 82-minutes worth of fart jokes , half-assed stunts and spoofs of films other than horror . now i'm not exactly sure if each of the writers wrote their own parts separately or just tossed " funny sketch " ideas out there while smoking the chronic themselves , but the end result is a film that basically plays out like an extended skit on " saturday night live " . there are a couple of funny one-liners , but mostly just rehashed one-joke scenes , a lot of dead silence and lame gags . add to that the very unoriginal title and movie poster and you gotta start asking yourself if anybody was even trying here ( the film's website isn't even up yet ! ! ! what the f * * * ? ! ? ) . i do however have to give it up to james woods , the man who opens up this movie with the funniest parody of them all ( the exorcist take-off-- miss this and you've missed any reason to see the flick ) . i especially liked his one-liner as he walked in to see the possessed woman's head turning . very funny ! unfortunately , the film plummets straight down after that , with dumb parodies of many teen flicks that have nothing to do with horror such as save the last dance and dude , where's my car , and other action movies like charlie's angels and mission impossible 2 . now help me figure this one out , will you ? isn't this supposed to be a parody film of horror movies ? ! ? ( or maybe that's just the title of the film f-ing with my head ) . well , i'm sorry to have to say this but the only horror in this film is its lame-ass script ! the wayans brothers should have known better than to look towards the weinstein brothers ( money ) instead of the zucker brothers ( comedy ) for this sequel . unfortunately for us , all we're left with here is a skeleton of a film which might've been funny , had it been worked over a few more times , tightened up here and there , and been injected with more solid laughs . but as things stand now , there is no doubt in my mind that the obvious greed to capitalize on the success of last year's film has led everyone down this path , so screw them for not trying as hard ( critically speaking , of course ) . you should all be ashamed of yourselves for not putting enough " real " effort into this chop-job and for not providing your fans with the ultimate of your talents . pooh on you ! ( that's telling 'em , joblo ! sheesh ) btw , i'm allotting one point alone to actress kathleen robertson , whose massive breasts and skanky g-string had me chompin' at the bit . you go , girl ! everyone else . . . stay ! where's joblo coming from ? airplane ( 10/10 ) - airplane ii ( 10/10 ) - galaxy quest ( 8/10 ) - hannibal ( 7/10 ) - the haunting ( 3/10 ) - mafia ( 5/10 ) - naked gun ( 8/10 ) - scary movie ( 8/10 ) - top secret ( 9/10 )
0	when i ponder childhood memories past , one of the things that always springs immediately to mind is watching the " inspector gadget " tv show with my older brother . truth be told , we were rabid fanatics ; our version of cowboys and indians was chasing each other around our coffee table to the theme tune , alternating who would get to be gadget and who would be stuck playing the part of dr . claw , the inspector's arch nemesis . i was never a biggie on nostalgia , but you just can't help but have fond memories of something like that . sometimes i even find myself up at 4am watching re-runs of my favorite episodes , trying to recapture some of that sense of wonder i felt as a kid . at the very least , i was expecting the new film version of the classic television series to have at least some kind of similar effect on me . despite how horrid a film may be , the simple task of rekindling even a slight feeling of nostalgia is pretty tough to screw up . so back i sat , with minimum expectations of what the movie would deliver ( let's face it ; exactly how good can a live-action disney film really be ? ) . i was wise enough to steer clear from the likes of mr . magoo and george of the jungle ( two previous disney adaptations ) , and i wish to god that i had been sharp enough to skip gadget as well . rarely has a movie left me with such an utter feeling of emptiness . as everyone else was getting up to exit the screening room after the movie had completed its assault on mankind , i was left sitting there , absolutely speechless and totally dumbfounded at what i had just seen . can something this awful truly exist in such an evolved world ? right from the beginning , i knew i was in trouble . in the opening scenes , each character is introduced as if their sole purpose is to just be , to simply serve as real-life duplicates of their cartoon clones . when referring to them , people almost yell in fear that the audience will not catch on as to who a certain character is supposed to be ( " oh , hi penny ! is brain with you ? " ) . creating one-dimensional replicas is one thing ; having mere names take the place of them is quite another . the " plot " , shall we call it , stays fairly in tune with the original series . matthew broderick stars as john brown ( how creative is that ? ) , a security guard who is horribly injured by a pack of ruthless businessmen headed by scolex ( why , rupert everett , for the love of god why ? ? ? ! ! ! ) , who himself is transformed into claw by an unfortunate chain of events . brown is then rescued and used as a prototype for a new law-enforcement technology wherein he's joined with various machine parts and some nifty gadgets to form ( drumroll , please ) . . . inspector gadget ! >from here on out , the movie becomes a hodgepodge of stupid dialog and confusing situations ( although , to be fair , my confusion could have been caused by the virtual concussion the film was inflicting upon my fragile mind ) . there's something about an evil gadget taking over the city ( his first crime must have been swiping matt dillon's dentures from there's something about mary ) and it all ends with ( what else ? ) a bunch of post-credit nonsense and a cameo by don adams himself . to be honest , i wasn't much paying attention to these " treats " . i was just glad that it was over .
0	the spy game is up . you can thank charlie's angels -- the movie -- for that . when did banality and pandering become okay ? just steal from hong kong , the matrix , and a kitschy tv show from the mid-1970s and that's a movie ? charlie's angels is one of the worst examples of action film homogeneity and shameless duplicity in any film i've seen in ages . charlie's angels is dumb . just plain dumb . as we all know , three of the hottest females on the planet -- drew barrymore , cameron diaz , and lucy liu -- are three super-agents working for the mysterious millionaire named charlie . they all drive fast cars , look oh-so-fabulous even in the morning , and don't seem to get a scratch even when fighting armed men , having buildings explode ten feet in front of them , or flying through the air in matrix slow-motion . and while the entourage spends 90 minutes romping around in cleavage-busting wetsuits , cleavage-busting waitress uniforms , and cleavage-busting wet t-shirts , they scarcely succeed in resembling so much as a group of annoying , drunk sorority girls , the kind who hit on everybody at a party . the actual plot revolves around the ridiculous story of a millionaire computer engineer -- the great sam rockwell -- who gets kidnapped by a mysterious rival computer company . of course , the rival wants control of his new personal identification system , which involves such latter-day buzzwords as gps , cellular tracking , and even mainframe . the amazing crispin glover lends his acting chops as a crazed henchmen involved in all the nasty things that happen to the angels -- like battling each of them in many round-robin matrix rip-off ( again ) fight sequences and harboring a strange attraction to sliced-off locks of the angels' hair . the coup de grace is bill murray as bosley , serving as charlie's manservant , or , more to the point , the angels' pimp . the rest of the movie comprises a revenge arc , enough costume changes to fill three productions of les miserables , carbon-copy fight sequences that would lend credible evidence to a jackie chan and the wachowski brothers lawsuit for intellectual property theft , and the strange transformation of sam rockwell into mickey rourke's long-lost brother . charlie's angels starts off with a bang and ends up being a soggy burrito left out overnight . nothing is difficult , plausible , or believable in any of the angels' actions . it feels like the matrix , mission : impossible 2 , and cleopatra jones and the casino of gold all rolled into one . diaz is a knucklehead . barrymore is the " dangerous one , " mean and tough and about as believable as katie holmes in the role . liu is just . . . lucy liu , looking good in a skin-tight black leather suit . the list of movies from which charlie's angels is directly lifted is equally astonishing . the writers apparently ran the copier all night stealing scenes from armageddon , lethal weapon ii , all of jackie chan's movies , the great escape , saturday night fever , revenge of the nerds , payback , darkman , dr . no , the matrix ( as mentioned ) , and even tv's friends . it's a shame , too , because one of the many screenwriters , john august , was at the helm of last year's favorite , go . then again , what can you expect from a director known solely as " mcg . " there is no camp value in the film , no interesting main characters , no invigorating action scenes , no reason at all to waste your time except to ogle the hot chicks and enjoy the performances of a few supporting players . note to hollywood : next time , let's leave the tv shows on the tv .
1	alien 3 is the only alien film i have seen in theaters . i saw it when i was 13 years old , and i must admit that i didn't like it . of course , i was expecting aliens again , and i believe this was my fault . in order to appreciate alien 3 , you need to see aliens , but you also have to wipe away all the expectations from its predecessor . james cameron's aliens was an action film , and many people consider it the best in the series . i am among that group , but alien 3 is an extremely entertaining film , which critics have bashed for its originality . many thought the final chase scene went on for too long , and many others thought that the film was too much dialogue and not enough action . both are untrue , because the film has quite a bit of action , and the dialogue was essential and well-written . as for the chase sequence , it was long , but not overly long , creating quite a bit of suspense from confusion . perhaps watching alien 3 on video helped . on the big screen , i was overwhelmed by something i normally didn't see . it was a very dark film , and the language was extremely harsh . i had always figured the alien series to rely on smart dialogue instead of moronic profanities . don't get me wrong--i'm not saying films should eliminate swearing , but when a film substitutes dialogue with these profane remarks , it gets rather distracting . however , since seeing it again , i realize that the swearing is mainly just an aspect of the restrained hatred in the characters . as a result , alien 3's only flaw ( albeit a major one ) is the underdeveloped characters . we never really care about any of them , and i get the feeling that many scenes were cut in order to shorten the length of the movie . there were only two characters i liked , and of course one was lt . ripley ( sigourney weaver ) , although we have gotten to know her through two other films . the other character was dr . clemens ( charles dance ) , but because we like him , the inevitable occurs . alien 3 begins exactly where aliens left off . the prologue of alien 3 is a pure cinematic achievement by director david fincher , who had only directed music videos before his chance with this alien entry . without using a single line of dialogue ( unless you count computer warnings ) , fincher sets up the entire film . an impressive aspect of this is that fincher only shows a few seconds of film before cutting to a title card . we see lt . ripley and the little girl in their cryogenic compartments . . . ( title ) . . . a shot of an alien egg . . . ( title ) . . . alien legs stretch up into the air . . . ( title ) . . . and so on and so on . during these first ten minutes , i learned everything i had to in order for alien 3 to proceed . it's quite a remarkable opening , and one which will remain in my mind for a long time . because of this face-hugger which has been hatched aboard the vessel from aliens , the hypersleep containers are sent into an escape pod , and sent down to the nearest planet : fiorina fury-161 , an ore refinery which has been turned into a maximum security prison . however , the face-hugger managed to attach itself to one of the cryo-tubes , and is sent down with the escape pod . unfortunately , during the landing , all but one of the survivors from aliens is killed . ripley is discovered by some of the inmates and taken back to the refinery . of course , you need a carrier for this face-hugger , and it attachs itself to the dog which came with the team of inmates . ripley is revived and asks to see the ship . after seeing a mysterious acid-eaten section , ripley asks to see the dead bodies , and then have them cremated . this cremation scene is one of the most powerful and impressive of all the alien films . featuring a monologue from dillon ( charles s . dutton ) , a prisoner who has found god , the movie cuts back and forth from the ceremony to the dog's demise . it's one of the most memorable moments , as the speech reflects exactly what is going on with the dog . and this is where alien 3 succeeds . fincher normally injects a lot of symbolism into his films , and i can easily see him becoming the next stanley kubrick or alfred hitchcock ( in fact , he is the mixture of both ) . fincher knows exactly what to film and how to film it , and i figure that he will be one of the few directors with complete control over his films . alien 3 is riddled with symbolic speeches and metaphorical images . by doing so , fincher creates some of the best scenes in the entire alien franchise . many people have criticized fincher's filming of the death scene of ripley ( i reveal nothing by saying this ) as looking too fake , but i enjoy and relish in the portrayal . showing ripley fall in slow motion is a nice touch , but by actually not showing her hit the vat of iron , a great deal of symbolism is derived . i feel that it would have spoiled the mood of the entire film if they had actually shown her splash into the molten iron . however , most people seem to want to witness ripley die ( which creates a paradox , as she is the character i didn't want to see die ) . why she is killed is one of the surprises of the film , and i don't plan on spoiling that in this review . >from every alien film comes several memorable moments which seem to stick with you forever . in alien , it was , of course , the moment the alien burst out of kane's stomach . in aliens , it was the showdown between alien and ripley in a machine . alien 3 has several , but most memorable is the terrific shot involving the alien and ripley . ripley is pushed up against a wall , and the alien stands inches away from her . why it doesn't kill her is a shocker , which later leads to a surprise ending . fincher apparently loves to use close-ups of actors' faces ( michael douglas and the clown face-off in the game in the same style ) , and by shaving off the actors' hair , the only thing we have to look at is their faces . many critics didn't like all the actors being bald , but it makes complete sense when taken in context of the plot . most of alien 3 works when you take it in context of the story , but when you try to compare it to its predecessors , fincher's turn seems a bit gloomy and dark , though that's not always a bad thing . the plot is pretty much a rehash of the first two films , with some major twists . again , we are setup with several different characters , and one by one , they are picked off . however , while the first two had tons of arsenal ( especially cameron's film ) , alien 3 takes place on a planet devoid of human life except for this run-down prison . as a result , no weapons are to be found . this creates a lot of tension , although i must admit that fincher could have added a lot more suspense . as an alien film , alien 3 is the worst of the series , but by itself , it is an extremely well-made motion picture , with a lot more merits than not . the unfortunate thing surrounding this second sequel is the one-dimensional characters . i never was really emotionally involved on screen because most of the characters are hardcore criminals whom i really could care less about . despite this , ripley was the central figure , and that's what is important . we care for her , even though she began to act just like one of the guys . again , the technical side of this film is remarkable , and better than the two previous versions . while cameron's version was a pumped up action film with massive artillary , fincher uses brilliant camera angles , terrific lighting , and moody sets . the cinematography , by alex thomson , is very well done , with a terrific chase sequence towards the end of the movie . the confusion of the ending draws the viewer in , as we are just as confused as the actors who are being chased around . the yellows , reds , and oranges of the lights create a dark mood , and by themselves create a lot of suspense . shadows dance on the walls , and yet those shadows could easily be the alien . the alien is different from its predecessors this time around , and the swiftness of this alien is quite intense . the camera likes to take up the perspective of the alien , racing after the characters . the sets are quite incredible , which are reminiscient of the nostromo from alien . the narrow corridors and labrynthine hallways is well constructed . the sets appear to be in the future , but not too far in the future . one of the set pieces even aids in the destruction of the alien ( nothing surprising there ) . sigourney weaver turns out yet another good performance , equaling her portrayal of ripley in aliens . she was snubbed at the oscars for this one , mainly because the film was a critical bomb . her reactions are far more realistic in this film , with her crying over the loss of the little child she risked her life saving in her previous encounter . it's quite touching really . charles s . dutton is very strong in his performance as one of the inmates , and i was on the brink of actually caring for him . charles dance turns in a nice low-key performance , and as a result , i cared for him immediately . lance henriksen makes a brief appearance as bishop ii , but he was more entertaining in aliens . the rest of the cast is pretty stale , though pete postlethwaite sticks out due to his recent turns in the usual suspects and the lost world . alien 3 is rated r for strong violence and language , and sex . although it has its flaws , alien 3 is highly entertaining with rich symbolism . this film reminds you how much fun it is to spot metaphorical images throughout a movie . while kubrick may have a moral message throughout his films , fincher relies on cinematic devices to bring his meanings out . it's a film like fincher's which reminds us that it is okay for a film to sacrifice quality for quantity ( the final scene ) . in fact , it tells us that we , as a society , have become too critical of things which may happen to look a little " fake . " whenever something looks fake on screen , we immediately point it out as a mistake . but perhaps it isn't a mistake .
0	it seemed like the perfect concept . what better for the farrelly brothers , famous for writing and directing comedies with offensive subject matter , than to make a movie about a guy with a split personality ? it's exactly the sort of thing the brothers relish : poking fun at something serious ( in this case mental illness ) , throwing all care to the wind to get a laugh . jim carrey's signed on too ? even better . the national alliance for the mentally ill even helped out by levying complaints against the brothers' new film before its opening , claiming it was misrepresenting the condition of split personality , labeling it incorrectly as " schizophrenia , " and so forth . such a protest seemed like just the sort of thing that would , of course , only add more fuel to the farrelly brothers' fire , proving that some people just couldn't take a joke , and that the farrellys would be helping the more enlightened viewers to yet another dose of their brilliantly subversive comedy . yes , it all seemed perfect , but one thing went wrong : their movie isn't funny . it's not for lack of trying . the farrellys utilize in " me , myself & irene " their most high-concept premise ever : carrey plays charlie baileygaites , a man who after being dumped by his wife for a midget limo driver , decides to bury all his aggressive feelings deep down inside and never release them . this , of course , means all his neighbors exploit his entirely too-forgiving nature , making his job as a rhode island state trooper increasingly difficult . soon enough , charlie's repressed aggression manifests itself into a second , independent personality named hank , a deep-voiced , boorish ogre unafraid of taking the assertive actions his predecessor had been unable to muster . this guy isn't above crashing a car through the wall of the barber shop in which he's been insulted , or holding a little girl's head underwater because she refused to stop jump-roping in the street . then things start getting lost in the most complicated plot the farrellys have ever attempted , and the film runs off its tracks . some have suggested that this isn't a problem , because the farrelly brothers' brand of humor doesn't require plot to work . they're wrong , of course : plot was greatly instrumental in building up the kind of rollicking comic energy that infused the farrellys' last effort , 1996's " there's something about mary . " ( 1999's " outside providence " was technically an earlier project . ) the brothers' earlier film wasn't funny merely because it contained outrageous gags ( despite what some newsmagazine articles would have you believe ) , but rather because its most outrageous gags were entirely unexpected . in " mary , " the farrellys managed several times to pull off a neat sleight-of-hand trick : they'd have you thinking the story was going one way , then reveal its real direction in delightfully surprising fashion . " me , myself & irene , " by contrast , seems to have been made by folks who looked at " mary " and saw only the surface grossness , missing all of the subtle machinations that really made it work . having been produced by the same guys who made " mary , " " irene " seems like an even bigger disappointment . the brothers pile on the offensive humor , taking shots at race , midgets , albinos , mental illness , and all manner of bathroom jokes . but they haven't come up with a way to make any of it fresh most of " me , myself & irene " comes off as rote , by-the-numbers , adolescent comedy . the plot , with carrey forced to drive alleged fugitive irene p . waters ( renee zellweger ) , who's in more trouble than anyone knows , back to new york , has an ending that's entirely predictable from the get-go . ( think charlie and irene will fall in love ? yeah , me too . ) the farrellys then introduce scores of different characters , and none of them ever manage to do anything you haven't already expected them to do , no matter how outrageous their actions might be . compared to the curveballs the farrellys are used to throwing , this stuff is almost entirely soft-tossed , presenting an obvious problem : when gross-out humor loses its shock value , it's no longer funny , merely gross . the jokes that do work are milked over and over until their effectiveness runs dry . take , for example , the subplot involving charlie's three black sons ( anthony anderson , mongo brownlee , jerod mixon ) . the incongruity of it all is funny for a while , with three burly black men discussing higher math in ghetto language and white-bread carrey mouthing said language with an entirely too-pleasant smile on his face . but by the end of the film , they're still doing the same schitck it hasn't been elevated to another , funnier level , and it hasn't been dropped either . that's too bad , because it ceases to be amusing about halfway through . " me , myself & irene " reeks of wasted opportunities . there ought to be more focus on how other people react to charlie's new personality , and on how charlie deals with the consequences of hank's actions . this doesn't really happen nearly every supporting character learns about charlie's condition early on , so they don't have any opportunity to be surprised by it . the film throws what looks like a patented farrelly curve in a scene towards the midway point ( involving an albino companion charlie and irene pick up called , appropriately , " whitey " ) , but the script doesn't go anywhere with it , instead leaving the thread twisting in the wind before awkwardly tying it up during the climax . jim carrey is a gifted comedian , both physically and vocally , but he's left with nothing much to do here except contort himself in a manner similar to steve martin in " all of me . " it's a great showcase of flexibility and split-second role-shifting , but none of it is terribly funny . carrey doesn't pull any stunts we don't expect him to pull , and the farrellys' script doesn't give him anything else to pull : the situations in which he must perform the role-shifting aren't set up in any meaningful way . perhaps carrey can take solace in the fact that his supporting actors fare no better . zellweger's irene is not a strong female lead mary in " mary " may have been part adolescent fantasy , but she was also intelligent and strong-willed . irene is nothing in particular , as the film never makes clear whether she's ditzy , clever , or neither . as such , she gives us nothing to latch onto as the only " sane " person in the film . chris cooper is stuck playing exactly one note as a corrupt fbi agent , and his character is entirely too straight-laced for a movie like this . he , like the others , does absolutely nothing unexpected . after viewing the shapeless mess that " me , myself & irene " eventually dissolved into , i was stuck wondering whether or not the farrellys had outsmarted themselves . maybe their kind of comedy can only work for so long until audiences get wise to it and stop being shocked . but i don't believe it -- good filmmakers find ways of surprising their audiences even after people have grown attuned to their style . if the farrellys are indeed good , smart filmmakers ( and i still think they are ) , they'll rebound just fine . even after that happens , though , i'll still consider " me , myself & irene " to be a high-caliber misfire .
0	it's a good thing most animated sci-fi movies come from japan , because " titan a . e . " is proof that hollywood doesn't have a clue how to do it . i don't know what this film is supposed to be about . from what i can tell it's about a young man named kale who's one of the last survivors of earth in the early 31st century who unknowingly possesses the key to saving and re-generating what is left of the human race . that's a fine premise for an action-packed sci-fi animated movie , but there's no payoff . the story takes the main characters all over the galaxy in their search for a legendary ship that the evil " dredge " aliens want to destroy for no apparent reason . so in the process we get a lot of spaceship fights , fistfights , blaster fights and more double-crosses than you can shake a stick at . there's so much pointless sci-fi banter it's too much to take . the galaxy here is a total rip-off of the " star wars " universe the creators don't bother filling in the basic details which makes the story confusing , the characters unmotivated and superficial and the plot just plain boring . despite the fantastic animation and special effects , it's just not an interesting movie .
1	very few people would be unaware of beavis & butt-head ( both created and narrated by mike judge ) . they are the two animated mtv characters who have the most annoying laughter know to human kind . you may have seen them on their television program , as they snigger and make lude remarks about women , anything related to sex , and the music film clips that they watch . in beavis & butt-head do america the pair finally make their big screen debut , to the delight of some , and the deplore of others . beavis & butt-head ( yes , those are their real names ) , are two very ugly teenagers with extremely warped minds driven by raging hormones . they live their lives in front of the television . the worst possible event occurs to the pair when their television is stolen . this happens as they sleep , and when they awake it takes them a few minutes just to decipher that the television has gone . beavis even tries to use the remote , though there is no television there . the two spot a van outside and two sinister looking men carrying a television . even at this point they have no idea what has happened . they look around , seeing all the evidence , but are completely oblivious to the fact that these men have just stolen their television . before the movie i knew that they were stupid , but i didn't realise just how stupid . this is typical of their behaviour throughout the film . eventually they realise that their television has been stolen , so they leave their sofa to go search for a television . luck would have it that they stumble into a hotel room ( looking for a television ) where a man is awaiting two guys whose task it is to kill his wife . this man , thinking that beavis & butt-head are the assigned killers , tells them that they can have $10 , 000 if they " do his wife " . beavis & butt-head , being the ignorant fools that they are , think that he is offering them $10 , 000 dollars to have sex with his good looking wife . they are taken to the airport where they fly to las vegas to " do her " . to them , this is the best day of their lives . not only are they going to lose their virginity ( one of their lifelong aims ) , but most importantly , they will have enough money to buy a big screen tv . inevitably they become caught up in a huge crime , and unbeknown to them , are tracked across the country by the fbi . oddly enough , it is their complete stupidity that spares them from being caught , as a result the fbi is convinced they are criminal masterminds . they end up travelling right across america , visiting places such as the hoover dam and washington dc . the irony is that although they visit so many grand and spectacular locations , their one time out in the big world away from their television , they are completely oblivious to it . at old faithful they are far more fascinated with the infra-red operated urinals than with the geyser itself . beavis & butt-head essentially have the journey of their lives . they even get to meet the president . but all they care about is getting their television back , and losing their virginity . this is one of the many reasons that the film is so funny - it's unbelievable just how stupid they are , and how they can be so oblivious to everything around them . the humour is certainly crude , but then beavis & butt-head are just that ; crude , lude and rude . in the end you can't help but feel sorry for them , a pair of anti-social couch potatoes whose life is television . in this respect , and also with regard to authority ( such as the fbi ) mike judge is quite critical of amercian society . if you are easily offended , or find this pair particularly annoying , steer clear . otherwise , it should keep you laughing the whole way through . one note of warning : don't take friends who like to imitate beavis & butt-head . . . . . you'll never hear the end of it !
0	a couple of criminals ( mario van peebles and loretta devine ) move into a rich family's house in hopes of conning them out of their jewels . however , someone else steals the jewels before they are able to get to them . writer mario van peebles delivers a clever script with several unexpected plot twists , but director mario van peebles undermines his own high points with haphazard camera work , editing and pacing . it felt as though the film should have been wrapping up at the hour mark , but alas there was still 35 more minutes to go . daniel baldwin ( i can't believe i'm about to type this ) gives the best performance in the film , outshining the other talented members of the cast . [r]
1	bill condon's " gods and monsters " is a fascinating look into the last days in the life of gay director james whale ( ian mckellan ) , who made the horror classics " frankenstein " and " bride of frankenstein . " since i was unfamiliar of whale prior to viewing the film , there is no way to know how accurate the film is , but i suspect that much of it only came from whale's inner fantasies and hallucinations . whale , who fought in wwi and then went on to become known for his work on horror pictures , decided fifteen years before his death at age 67 to quit filmmaking once a homosexual scandal broke out involving him . as the film tells it , during the end of his life , whale , at his large home in l . a . , became infatuated with the tall , handsome , and much younger man , clayton boone ( brendan fraser ) , who was working as the gardener at his home . james whale , we learn quickly was , what many people refer to him as in the film , " a dirty old man . " in one of the opening scenes , a young film enthusiast visits whale's home to interview him and whale agrees , on one condition : for every question he answers , the young man must take off an article of clothing . because of this episode , we know exactly what it is whale wants when he asks clayton to pose for him for a painting , later making the excuse that his bright , white shirt is disracting only so he will take it off . clayon agrees , and doesn't really think much of this , much to the warnings of his friends , becoming more and more intrigued in the stories whale tells him about his past . certainly , the relationship between whale and boone is headed for a downfall , since whale starts to grow a deep love for this young man , even though boone is not gay , and whale himself realizes he is nearing the conclusion to his life , as he begins to seldom suffer mild strokes and moments of true catharsis . " gods and monsters " is an intimate and seemingly respectful portrait of a director who was forced to become somewhat of an outcast , due to his sexual preference , and never got the recognition he would have liked , since he longed to be referred to as a " motion picture director , " rather than a " horror director . " and in one heartbreaking scene , he attends a party with boone being his guest , held by director george cuckor , and finds that many of the other attendees do not recognize him anymore . it is evident that whale's first love in his life was making movies , and when his career ultimately fell apart , so did his passion in life . as played brilliantly by ian mckellen , james whale comes off as a sad , but dignified man , and a person who was not afraid to stand out from others , just as long as he knew he was being true to himself . he never hid the fact that he was gay , however , even if it meant threatening his filmmaking profession , and it was this unblinking honesty that made him a great person . through the complicated relationship that develops between whale and boone , boone , of course , only things of whale as a possible friend or someone he can talk to , while it means so much more to whale , who sees boone as sort of his salvation in life . although boone is only in a dead-end job as a gardener of people's homes , whale views him as the ideal man , not only one that is good-looking , even though it is this attraction that first begins his feelings , but one that will actually listen to him . since whale lives with only his loyal , but disapproving maid ( touchingly portrayed by lynn redgrave ) , it is boone that whale can talk to in his ultimate reclusion from the world , and the only reason whale finally decides to attend the gathering of george cuckor . although an extremely fine and mature picture , a few small elements hold the film back from ultimate greatness . it is appreciated that the film does not pull for any obvious or overly dramatic story developments , but it is a little thin , and the structuring of the " on-again-off-again " friendship at the film's center is fairly predictable . we know early on where these two characters are headed , and we can guess that there will be a final confrontation between the two as the tension slowly builds . in lesser hands , this set-up might have felt too calculated , but it is not in the surprisingly deft treatment and writing that helps the film to be much more than this . also , a subplot is briefly brought up between clayton and a waitress working at a bar ( effectively played by lolita davidovich ) , but abruptly dropped and never brought up again . if the film was not going to follow up on this side story , then it , perhaps , should have been taken out altogether . " gods and monsters " is a heartfelt and intelligent motion picture , impressively directed by bill condon , who , i sense , relates to or fully understands the meaning behind the curious relationship between whale and boone . the film also plays as a tribute to a fine man who met an untimely end . walking away from " gods and monsters , " it was ian mckellen's marvelous and astounding performance that left the most impression on me , and i doubt there could have been anyone who could have stepped into the role more fully and believably . it is a sad testament when a person's true talent and love is unfairly taken away from them , based on the scrutinization and judgement of their personal life , which , ironically enough , is no one else's business in the first place .
1	titanic is , without a doubt , the best movie i've seen all year . and believe me , i'm not an easy critic to impress : the english patient was too long , men in black was over-hyped , and several of the " big summer releases " were dead in the water . thank god this film got delayed until december . it's my christmas present . titanic is in the tradition of the old hollywood epics of years-gone-by , and it is truly a stunning film . while watching this picture you are completely mesmerized , never taking your eyes off the screen , nor checking your watch to see how much longer it's gonna last , despite its 3 hour plus running time . as a friend of mine , who's a true titanic-buff , said " if someone doesn't like this film , it's because they didn't want to . " truer words are hard to come by . of course , it doesn't hurt that this film comes from one of my favorite directors , james cameron , who is unarguably the greatest action director of all time . if you wish to argue that point with me , look at his list of credits : the terminator , aliens , the abyss , terminator 2 , true lies , etc . still care to disagree ? not only has cameron helmed the directorial duties of this film , he also wrote , produced , and edited it . and to show his true faith for the project , he renenged all directing fees and percentage points to ease the budget costs . it's obvious he truly loves titanic . the film opens with footage , both real and fake , of an underwater excursion by special submarines to the bottom of the atlantic , where a team of explorers lead by bill paxton are searcing for a diamond called the " heart of the ocean " , which , according to bill paxton's character , would be worth more than the hope diamond today . their search turns up , dissapointly , no diamond , but instead a drawing of a young woman wearing the diamond . this picture is broadcast on cnn and is seen by a 101 year old woman named rose , who claims to be the girl in the picture . she is flown out to sea to meet bill paxton and to tell them about the diamond . almost all of the rest of the movie is her narration of the past . rose's narration shows us how she was an unhappy young girl , engaged to a rich man named cal hockley ( billy zane ) that she didn't want to marry . her mother is pushy and obnoxious , and cal hockley is arrogant . they are boarding the titanic , which is sailing to america , and this is where she is to marry cal . meanwhile , a young man named jack dawson ( leonardo dicaprio ) and his italian friend ( danny nucci ) win two 3rd class tickets aboard the titanic in a poker game . they are overjoyed , and rush aboard just as the boat is leaving . for them , this is their ticket to america , to a better life . for rose , she is sailing to her doom . the first hour and a half or so of titanic tells the story of how rose dewitt ( kate winslet ) and jack dawson fall in love . it's the classic wrong-side-of-the-tracks story , and does sometimes resort to a few cliches . but as i said above , the love portion isn't sappy and doesn't " weigh the film down " , as some critics have said . it's sweet , and it didn't make me restless at all , despite the fact that i usually hate love stories . of course , it might help that cameron introduces some pretty interesting characters to help keep our eyes glued to the screen . most of these people actually were passengers on the titanic back in 1912 , including the enigmatic molly brown ( played by the talented kathy bates ) , the captain of titanic ( bernard hill ) , and so on . all of these characters add an extra depth to the film , and make it that easier to watch . of course , things really start to get going after the hour and a half mark , where the titanic strikes the iceberg and begins a slow sink to the bottom . the sinking is depicted realisticly , and the effects are truly amazing . it is not told in a heroic fashion sense either , as people are portrayed as panicking , pushing others aside to get on the limited lifeboats , and drowning and dying horrible deaths . the best part of the movie , in my opinion , comes at the very end , when we flash back to the future . the crew , who at first had been skeptical of rose's story , now are totally aborbed by her . rose goes out onto the ship's ledge , and we then learn a secret about her that catches us off guard . we then see a dream of rose's , in which she returns to the titanic and is dancing with jack dawson . most people i talked with after the movie saw this as only a dream . however , i think it symbolized more ; i think it meant that rose had died , and is going to a sort of heaven , which would be the happiest part of her life : her and her one true love , jack . if anyone has seen the movie and would like to voice an opinion about this , e-mail me at venom8@hotmail . com .
0	the obvious reason for producing a sequel to an immensely popular movie is to acquire continued profits . the rationale is sound , but in many cases of this and recent years , the sequel is a shoddy product that's exposed for the cash-milking vehicle it really is . last year's speed 2 and scream 2 , as well as this year's species ii have all been products that have been decisively less than satisfactory . in some cases , a sequel can even discredit its predecessor , as with the latest neo-slasher flick , i still know what you did last summer . whatever uniqueness the original might've had now seems trite and overplayed when paired with this abominable thriller . julie james ( jennifer love hewitt ) and ray bronson ( freddie prinze jr . ) are back from the original to star in i still know , reprising their roles in typical fashion . julie and ray experience a rather predictable falling-out at the beginning of the movie , leaving the door wide open for newcomer will benson ( matthew settle ) . will and julie hit it off , and along with friends karla ( brandy norwood ) and tyrell ( mekhi phifer ) , the foursome heads off to a radio station-giveaway vacation in the tropics . unfortunately , things aren't so peachy once they arrive , and with a regularity you could set your watch by , the infamous fisherman ( muse watson ) is back with his hook . it's another bloody showdown , complete with cliffhanger ending . there's not much that's original about i still know , and with the market saturated by gen-x thrillers like this one , it's unlikely that i still know will get any recognition other than that of a bad sequel . for die-hard fans of the genre , this will be required viewing material , but the bottom line is that the material here is just recycled from the original i know what you did last summer . the aura of thrillerism surrounding the plot isn't heightened by skillful scripting or camera work , but rather a tense , string-based score and manipulative editing . the man with the hook ends up becoming very belittled this time around when the script gives him too many lines of dialogue -- he goes from being a scary figure to a nutcase in a few short and painful moments . much of the mystery is dropped for the sake of getting the point . the whole reason the plot exists - julie and karla must guess the capital of brazil in order to win the trip from the radio station - is a dead giveaway , lessening suspense and creating a hurry-up-and-wait timing problem . and , whereas the killer's identity might've been a question in the first movie , it's almost a given here , which changes the dynamic of the movie drastically . three or four teens run automatically from a man in a rain slicker they nonchalantly refer to as " the killer . " they're almost used to it , and the performances show it - not hewitt , nor prinze , nor brandy , nor phifer give a decent show . and so , in the end , it's left wide open for a third movie and - most likely - a brand new supporting cast . god help us .
1	for many people , procrastination isn't a problem to overcome , it's a high art . we'll do just about anything to put off a task . when the deadline for this column nears , it's the only time during the week dishes get washed and the bed made and laundry done and plants watered and . . . eventually , hopefully , sometimes , there's a breakthrough and we actually get down to work . amazingly it's almost always easier than we dreaded and after finishing , that sense of oppressive apprehension melts away . and then , the next time , we do it all again . english professor grady tripp ( michael douglas ) is a master . seven years ago , his first book was a hit . he's been working on his second -- a short 200-page piece -- since then . fearful that he can't live up to the first , he can't bring himself to finish it . no writer's block , he's nearing 3 , 000 pages with no end in sight . now he's having a particularly difficult day . the college's annual writers conference is bringing in accomplished novelists reminding tripp that other people are finishing _their_ books . during the first day , his wife has left him , his married girlfriend informs him she's pregnant and his agent is in town with a six-foot transvestite in tow . by the evening , our besieged writer is driving though the snow-covered streets of pittsburgh with a suicidal student beside him , a stolen jacket that marilyn monroe wore on her wedding day in the back seat and a murdered blind dog stuffed in the trunk . this could be a pivotal point in his mid-life crisis . and then there's the next morning . there's a lot to like about this movie . there are no huge explosions , shattering glass or computer-generated dinosaurs to distract from the very real human issues . grady is caught up in the curse of people who accomplish great things early in their career . in the world of " what have you done for me lately ? " , he knows his second book has to be better than his first . instead of finding out , he drifts , comfortable in the insular cocoon of academic peter panhood . he doesn't have much of a life and neither does his star pupil james leer ( tobey maguire ) . james may be suicidal and psychotic . certainly everything that comes out of his mouth is a lie . he makes up a past of working clash anguish because the truth of wealth and comfort just isn't interesting enough . as the weekend progresses , they are both forced to fully engage life . that's the question they must face : comfort or real experiences ? the film takes some interesting chances . non-traditional relationships are presented as matter-of-fact . extra-marital , gay , interracial , professor-student : here they aren't judged , merely choices . the actors are all first-rate . douglas triumphs , playing against type as he spends most of his time disheveled , unshaven and clad in a pink women's house robe . maguire's disengaged alienation works perfectly here . robert downey jr . as grady's agent livens up his scenes . director curtis hanson ( " l . a . confidential " ) makes a few missteps . the women are underused . frances mcdormand does a good job of her limited role of sara , grady's married lover but we never understand much of who she is . the chemistry between the two of them is non-existent which makes some of the ending unconvincing . katie holmes is a student with a major crush on the professor , but her character goes nowhere . we never even see grady's exiting wife . this is very much a guy's film . the varied relationships between the men are much more convincing than any of the others . grady's alternating mentoring and rejection of james is the centerpoint of the film , not him and sara . as the boomers age , expect to see more mid-life crisis films to catch the attention of that demographic . eventually it'll probably become cliche , but right now we've got a winner . i'll finish this in a second . right now i have to grab some paint . i noticed some trim in the other room that needs a little touch-up . ( michael redman has written this column for so long that he's made mid-life crisis a career choice . )
1	synopsis : in this movie , steven spielberg , one of today's finest directors , attempts to spice up the 1800s story of a long courtroom battle over the fate of prisoner cinque ( djimon hounsou ) - - a young angry man from sierra leone who was kidnapped into slavery - - and his fellow prisoners . cinque and friends have landed a ship on the shores of america after escaping spanish slave traders , but since the americans don't speak cinque's language , the black men are hauled into court to determine whether or not they are legally slaves . technically , since the international slave trade was outlawed at that time , people like cinque couldn't be kidnapped into slavery ; one had to be born a slave to be legally considered a slave . lawyers baldwin and adams ( matthew mcconaughey and anthony hopkins ) must prove cinque and the others were captured into slavery , rather than born slaves , in order to get them out of prison as free men . three lengthy court cases are portrayed with spielberg's trademark panache - - flashy beginning , lots of facial close-ups , big music , and dramatic imagery . a final speech by adams is followed by an anticlimax where subtitles show what eventually happened to the various characters . opinion : making a fictional movie is easier than making one about real life . in fiction , one invents purposeful , clear-cut good guys and bad guys , puts the fictional characters in conflict , and takes the tale to its exciting conclusion . real life , however , consists of long stretches of boredom with a few dramatic moments and characters who stand around , think thoughts and do nothing , or come and go before events are resolved . spielberg gives us a visually spicy and historically accurate real life story . djimon hounsou and anthony hopkins turn in excellent performances .
1	director dominic sena ( who made the highly underrated kalifornia ) and producer jerry bruckheimer ( the rock , armageddon ) bring us a slick and entertaining remake of the 1974 film of the same name that absolutely no one has ever seen . nicolas cage plays memphis , a retired car thief who's " pulled back in " to the business by an evil car thief overlord ( christopher eccleston ) determined to kill memphis' kid brother ( giovanni ribisi ) . memphis is ordered to steal 50 cars in four days time or his brother will meet an unfortunate demise , all while having to elude the detectives hot on his trail and a rival car thief who feels the job should have been given to him and his gang . memphis sets out to put his old crew back together , but discovers that most of them have retired as well . gone in sixty seconds does things right from the opening credits . in that sequence , we get a rockin' little tune from moby , along with some simple back story told only with photographs and assorted objects . filmmakers can sometimes make or break a film just from its opening title sequence , and this one easily gets you in the mindset for an entertaining ride . and what follows doesn't disappoint . . . cage turns in one of his good performances here ( he can easily go either way . . . good or bad . . . i don't know how he does that ) , and his mannerisms and dialogue delivery carry the film along nicely . of the supporting cast members , angelina jolie as memphis' former love is in the film just to provide eye candy ( she's definitely the hottest looking grease monkey i've ever seen ) and robert duvall as memphis' former mentor is just around to lend the film some class . also , i'm a big fan of will patton ( armageddon , the postman ) and would love to see him get a huge role someday . none of these three performers are given much to do unfortunately . some underrated performers however are given meaty supporting roles . delroy lindo ( get shorty ) shines as the exasperated detective in pursuit of memphis , as does timothy olyphant ( go ) as lindo's partner . i just wish some of the other characters could have been as important . the only real gripe i have about the film though is its conclusion . . . mainly because you know how it will end before the opening credits even roll . there's no doubt in anyone's mind that the 50 cars will be successfully stolen , and the filmmakers blew a perfectly good opportunity to add some suspense to the picture by using the " rival car thief " plot line . as it stands , that story line is wrapped up about halfway through the film in a tidy little package . but if i was making this film , i'd have had the rival gang trying to get to the cars before memphis and his crew , thereby making memphis have to improvise . . . thereby adding some meat to the plot . the finale is essentially just a big car chase , and there just aren't ways to make car chases interesting anymore . it's all been done . the chase is also shot and edited in that " jerry bruckheimer action sequence " kind of way that leaves the audience wondering what specifically is going on in the scene . sure it's a car chase , but what exactly are the particulars of it ? it's very hard to tell . finally , there's a stunt during this scene that comes close to challenging the " bus jumping the ramp " sequence from speed in the " oh , i don't think so . . . " department . despite those minor complaints , gone in sixty seconds is pure summer movie entertainment . it's not thought provoking , but it's shiny , loud and fun . . . just what a summer flick should be . [pg-13]
0	actually , i'm fairly sure the experience of having my flesh torn and mutilated by barbed wire would have been more positive than watching this movie . " baywatch " babe pamela anderson lee proves once and for all that she should keep her double-d's on the small screen . at least there you don't have to pay to see her cleavage . and for those viewers out there who would only lay down money for this movie in hopes of seeing pam topless , hate to burst your bubble , but there are no full-fledged nude scenes in barb wire . you wouldn't be reading this review right now if i had known that fact going in . i can't go back in time and reverse my mistake , but i can warn other horny teenage boys out there . they do tease us a few times with scenes where you almost see her topless but if she is nude , it's so quick you can't even tell for sure whether you're seeing her andersons or not . a nipple hallucination sort of thing . barb wire was adapted from a comic book , interesting because pamela is probably the only woman who looks like a comic book character in real life , even wearing low-cut leather to do office work ( businesswoman bondage wear ) and having unreal body proportions . yes , like the mona lisa , pamela anderson is a man-made beauty , probably in more senses than one . she is a definite beauty , though , and looking at her is never an unpleasant experience . you'd just think the woman who began her career as a playboy playmate wouldn't have any reservations about appearing nude in the movie , because it's obvious she wasn't pulling a sharon stone and trying to make people pay attention to her acting skills . i mean , she shows off more cleavage here than a jeweler's convention . the movie is set in the year 2017 , " the worst year of my life , " pam says . ( " the worst movie of the year , " i say . ) america is going through a second civil war and pamela is a nightclub owner in the only free city in the nation ( silicone valley , i think ) . she also hires herself out as a bounty hunter when the price is right , posing as first a stripper and later as a prostitute . but don't call her " babe . " she hates that , and reminds us of that fact way too many times . imagine , a woman who does a trapeze strip tease in a bar while having a hose sprayed on her being referred to in such a sexist , demeaning term . a liberated woman like pamela anderson shouldn't have to hear words like " babe " during a strip tease , especially since that movie about the talking pig was such a success . the plot ( ha-ha ) revolves around a pair of contact lenses that allow their wearer to pass through the congressional directorate's retina scanners . in the words of one of the characters , they're " more than meets the eye . " reminds me of the " transformers " cartoon , and i sure wished the movie could somehow be transformed into something decent , but that never happened . no , the movie just continued on its path of lame action scenes starring pamela van-damme , big-busted kickboxer , and her resistance accomplices , ex-boyfriend axel ( tamuera morrison ) and cora ( victoria rowell ) . thank god they didn't name her cora reef . one bad character name is more than enough . pamela originally doesn't take sides , giving some speech about she's only loyal to the money they pay her , but she changes her mind once the congressional bastards kill her blind brother , jack noseworthy of bon jovi " always " video fame . i still don't know if barb wire is a step up or step down for noseworthy , but he definitely is nose worthy ( even if he isn't sponge worthy ) . pam gets ready to avenge his death by grabbing up an armful of semi-automatic weapons and strapping an ammunitions belt to her chest . it's not rambo . . . it's bimbo ! mark my words , barb wire will be all over the cinemax network in a year . it's got all the elements of the direct-to-video releases featured on hbo's bastard cousin , the cable channel i'd never watch if it didn't somehow come free . it's got the non-titillating scenes of voyeurism , laughable flashbacks , bad dialogue and action cliches out the wazzoo . there's even a narrator at the beginning setting up the movie's premise while the words scroll up the screen . someone needs to tell pamela the wookie this ain't star wars . if you've seen any action flick of the past fifteen years , you'll recognize plenty of lifted elements . barb wire has the obligatory trucks flipping over , car crashes , explosions , broken glass and slow-motion shots of bodies falling hundreds of feet to their death . this is one of those automatic-pilot movies anyone could write or direct . barb wire has only two things going for it . . . and i think you know what those two things are .
1	upon arriving at the theater during the opening credits , i took my seat and prepared myself for what appeared to be " hellraiser meets the crow " . but as soon as kiefer sutherland began speaking the narrative monologue , describing " the strangers " and their reasons for contacting human beings , i was hooked . there was something especially compelling about the nature of his voice . i knew from the start that i was going to witness the actions of his character rather than the actor attempting the character . sutherland played the role as a true veteran . upon the completion of his monologue , the camera arrives on sutherland in such a fashion that you can only wonder how long alex proyas spent on cinematography . i would imagine , for a film of this caliber , that maximum hours of work were spent where they were needed the most . the film flowed beautifully . as i was being taken through the intricate regions of the " dark city " , a clever plot began to unravel , to the point where the last time i had seen such clever plot twists were in " the usual suspects " . not to mention a series of special effects that would make james cameron literally turn green with envy . but if you're not exactly the biggest sci-fi fan , caveat emptor . get ready for the atmostpheric darkness of " 12 monkeys " or " the crow " without the boredom or depression . the concept of the plot is as mindstretching as " 12 monkeys " was , however , so be prepared and be sophisticated . and imagine a picture that finally does justice to the comic-book-gone-feature-film fad that hollywood has recently become abusive of . dark city simply puts " spawn " to shame . in fact , during the climax of the film i couldn't help but feel the strong presence of an " akira " -esque explosion throughout the general feeling of the movie . so my initial predictions were wrong . this film is anything but the meloncholy of " hellraiser " parts one through five . i'm never one to base a film entirly on special effects , so know that when i give dark city it's actually because the film contained all of the neccessary ingredients to keep me entertained and awake from storyline to plot twists to camerawork to even ( tsk , tsk ) special effects . not since contact have i recieved such deep insight into the way the human mind operates and never this year have i been so blown away . the best film i've seen all year , and easily one of the best i've ever seen
1	`strange days' chronicles the last two days of 1999 in los angeles . as the locals gear up for the new millenium , lenny nero ( ralph fiennes ) goes about his business of peddling erotic memory clips . he pines for his ex-girlfriend , faith ( juliette lewis ) , not noticing that another friend , mace ( angela bassett ) really cares for him . this film features good performances , impressive film-making technique and breath-taking crowd scenes . director kathryn bigelow knows her stuff and does not hesitate to use it . but as a whole , this is an unsatisfying movie . the problem is that the writers , james cameron and jay cocks , were too ambitious , aiming for a film with social relevance , thrills , and drama . not that ambitious film-making should be discouraged ; just that when it fails to achieve its goals , it fails badly and obviously . the film just ends up preachy , unexciting and uninvolving .
0	this is the last carry on film with its almost intact regular cast and it is the swansong of hattie jacques and sid james . dick turpin ( sid james ) and his gang which includes harriett/harry ( barbara windsor ) and tom " doc " scholl ( peter butterworth ) , terrorise the countryside by staging highway robberies : " stand and deliver ! " owing to the increased occurrence of turpin's robberies , captain desmond fancey of the bow street runners ( kenneth williams ) and his sidekick sergeant jock strapp ( jack douglas ) visit turpin's area of influence to bring him to justice . they are under the express orders of sir roger daley ( bernard bresslaw ) . their intellect does not count for much and when they increasingly become suspicious of reverend flasher aka dick turpin ( sid james ) , whom they confided in earlier , they still cannot believe that the rector has any part in these robberies . however , once they catch harriett and put her in jail , and sir roger daley takes complete charge , it seems that there is no hope for dick turpin . then again , sir roger has assigned the dimwits fancey and jock strapp aswell as the old dithering constable ( kenneth connor ) to keep an eye on their prisoner ! there is no doubt that this is a 'sid james' carry on movie . he excels in double roles ( as in 'carry on- don't lose your head' ) and his performance as flasher and turpin is hilarious . barbara windsor is also funny as harriett the sex mad housemaid and member of the gang , and hattie jacques' small but effective role as the rector's housekeeper martha hoggett is played to perfection . jack douglas plays a milder version of his excruciatingly annoying on-screen persona and kenneth williams is given a rather mundane part . peter butterworth is not allowed to shine in his boring performance as tom , and bernard bresslaw's character appears only briefly in the film . the only notable performance from the support cast comes from joan sims as madame desiree , who is travelling around the country escorting her starlets the 'birds of paradise' and sporting a fake french accent . when her girls and her are robbed by turpin , she is determined to catch him and helps the reverend to find the culprit ! a carry on by the numbers , this movie is only notable for the great performance by sid james in his last carry on movie . the jokes are bluer , the script is poorer ( it is the last script written by talbot rothwell ) , but the music is a marked improvement . although nearly all the regulars appear , they seem to be just going through the motions . none of the high spirits of the earlier films are apparent here . just a selection of crude jokes and repititive double-entendres .
1	i am starting to write this review before going to see strawberry and chocolate , cuba's oscar nominee for best foreign film , directed by tomas gutierrez alea ( who also directed the sometimes and in some circles critically acclaimed memorias del subdesarrollo-- " memories of underdevelopment " . i saw memorias as part of a cuban cinema class back in the late '70s ; it merged the politics of the cuban revolution with mundane elements of the human condition . i knew then that memorias was probably a state-sanctioned political missive , and now expect strawberry will follow suit . fellow internetters , primarily in the newsgroup dedicated to cuba ( soc . culture . cuba ) , have mentioned that strawberry is a harsh criticism of the revolution and its current state of affairs . i have jumped to the conclusion that strawberry is nothing more than a veiled attempt at espousing the party line--it probably looks like political criticism , but it ain't so . having some first hand and extensive anecdotal knowledge of castro's repressiveness , i can't conceive of his tolerating honest and adversarial criticism of the revolution , and i can't imagine his letting anyone even suggest his failure as a leader of a failed movement . as kids say these days , duh ! , the revolution's current state needs no criticism ; its physical and spiritual crumbling is self evident . the proper questions to put relate to castro's legitimacy . i bet the film takes castro's power for granted , and that this or any other movie , produced under cuba's state control , cannot question his right to run cuba's political show ( ongoing now for more than 36 years ) . that's why i just can't believe strawberry is an honest criticism of the regime . let's see what happens after the room goes dark and the screen lights up . i saw the film--twice . i was right ; castro remained intact . strawberry negotiates the relationship between a young " dialectic materialist , " as he describes himself , and a homosexual photographer ( diego ) in 1979 cuba . the young man ( david ) is the son of peasants ; a symbol of the revolution's reason for being . grateful to the revolution for the opportunity to receive a university education , he studies political science instead of literature , his avocation , because he perceives it is his duty . therein lies a likely unintended irony , since cuba has no need for political theoreticians . cuba's government is castro . diego's lifestyle is the antithesis of revolutionary life . he enjoys the finer things--tea , opera , art . he does not do " voluntary work " for the revolution . his small apartment is a sensual oasis . the moniker " bourgeois " figuratively hangs over his head during the early parts of the movie . however , he is a " revolucionario " in his own way . the supporting roles are filled by : an aging busybody with a heart of gold and a troubled psyche ; david's roommate , who rally takes the communist party line to its expected extreme ; david's ex-girlfriend , who dumped him for another guy , yet wants to bed him before she leaves for italy with her husband ; german , a gay sculptor whose work diego is attempting to exhibit , and who strikes a faustian pact with the government . gutierrez alea and co-director juan carlos tabio do a fine job at almost showing that homosexuals can be revolutionaries too . heck , towards the end of the film you begin to think the guy deserves a medal for his patriotic fervor . he really loves the revolution ( as supposedly does everybody else in cuba ) and wants to make it better by exposing and correcting some of its flaws . real criticism is missing though . this movie is political window dressing . luis aguilar leon's op . ed . piece on fresa in the miami herald ( 10 march 1995 , at 21a ) did not color my judgment ; it presaged my intuition . aguilar leon expressed my sentiment about this film's political angle best : like many artistic manifestations in cuba , strawberry and chocolate sprang from a totally manipulated environment . as art critic ivan de la nuez well states in the latest issue of the magazine postmodern notes , the silenced artists are those who refuse to accept " the charade in which artists can provoke up to a point , while the institutions legitimize themselves by forbidding them to go beyond that point . " although terrible propaganda , this is otherwise a fine film .
0	this independent film written and directed by eric bross has the look and feel of all those other troubled blue-collar youth films that have inundated the market in recent times . it is hard to tell what is independent about this film ; it might as well have been made in hollywood or on a home videocam . it is the debut film for the director , who tells his personal story about italians growing up with heavy new jersey accents and remaining tight with each other as they grow into young adults , a tale which could have been rewarding to see in the 1950s , where the mind-set of all the characters depicted is grounded , but to see it in the 1990s is a different story : it is old news . the love story between the simple girl waiting to get married and her luckless boyfriend turning nasty on her doesn't mean much , since their relationship remained undeveloped . the introduction of the wise-guy angle and the loyality among buddies bit , are not moving enough emotional experiences or intelligent enough dramatics to elevate this film above its limited story line despite the tour-de-force performance by the star of the film , adrien brody as ray . ray is the only son of a low-level mobster once arrested for running an illegal casino operation out of his bloomfield , new jersey , suburban basement . ray sr . ( vincent ) is now trying to make a go of it by running a small scale home-repair business . his son lives with him and works unhappily as a shoe salesman , dreaming of getting rich quickly so he can open a business and marry his long-time waitress girlfriend joanne ( sybil ) . the title of this film refers to the shoe size of paul newman-10b , which really has nothing to do with explaining anything about the film . you should be aware that there are a lot of things about this film that don't make sense : its constant brainless chatter between the buddies , their uneventful growing pains , and the despair of their lives , make it very difficult to feel any empathy for them . desperate to make his dream come through , ray goes to a loanshark , humorously and menacingly played by james e . moriarty , and borrows 10 grand to bet on a " sure thing " at freehold raceway . the horse loses and now ray has big problems , as the loanshark comes after him with his muscle to get his dough . there is nothing i have seen so far to like about ray . he is undependable , mean-spirited , and stupid . so when his best friend mike ( gallagher ) , the narrator of the film , gets a chance to sleep with his girlfriend--who cares ? the director must be kidding himself if he thinks we do . as for ray's gambling debt and his dilemma of how to pay it off , the story is too predictable for anything other than what you would expect to happen . his buddies , the college student mike and the dependable butchie ( gillan ) , and his old man , who he has this love/hate relationship with , rally to his aid . and the film ends on an obligatory artistic note of ambiguity , that seems to be the way it is for all those wannabe artistic films , as ray is off to florida all by his lonesome self to try to put his life together . there was just no energy or spark or anything relevant in this superficial film to keep it interesting , though adrien brody showed signs that he could be a future star . because of his intensity and looks , he reminds me of sean penn .
1	vampire films , as well as other horror films , are usually dumb and predictable b-movies , meant to scare us by cliches and simple shocks . it is therefore interesting to watch neil jordans recent film that is not only visually stunning , but has also a plot worth making movies about . based on anne rice's novel , " interview with a vampire " is a long , dark trip to hell . the film opens with gothic quire and dark streets of present-day san francisco . the camera slowly find particular window . a shape of a young man is visible in the darkness . " so you want me to tell you the story of my life ? " . the mysterious man is louis ( brad pitt ) , a two-century old vampire , telling his story to a fascinated interviewer ( christian slater ) . his tale opens in 1791 louisiana , just south of new orleans , where louis falls victim to the vampire lestat ( tom cruise ) . given a choice between death and eternal life as one of the undead , louis chooses the latter , a decision he will forever regret . everlasting life and eternal youth , promised to him by lestat , turn instead into never ending suffering , damned to eternal hunger for blood and longing for peace . louis cannot kill with the impunity of lestat , but , to sate his hunger , he must feed , and the blood of animals is not enough . eventually , he pierces the neck of a grief-stricken young girl named claudia ( kirsten dunst ) , whom lestat then curses with his unholy form of resurrection so that she can be a surrogate daughter to both himself and louis . for a while , they are one " big , happy family . " but all things end , and claudia's growing resentment of lestat fuels a bloody confrontation . when luis and claudia break loose from lestat , they travel to paris , where the euro-vamps santiago ( stephen rea ) and armand ( antonio banderas ) , who introduced them to a bigger world of the damned . director neil jordan ( " the crying game " ) together with the talented director of cinematography philippe rousselot and composer elliot goldenthal has created an incredible atmosphere . as the film begins , there is an incredible palette of colors , beautiful sunrises , lush golden fields , green forests , inky-blue clouds and blending sun . when luis is " born to darkness " , everything suddenly changes to dark velvet , lit only by the silver moonlight . the beautiful production design by dante ferretti , wonderful costumes and art direction by malcolm middleton re-create the multiple historical periods in the film . from the renaissance new orleans and the beautiful rococo paris of the 18th century , to our present days . the casting is likewise good , involving some of the most famous and beautiful stars of hollywood , ireland and spain . the controversial casting of tom cruise as lestat is incredibly effective . cruise is energetic , sinister , charismatic , wild and bloodthirsty . cruise's lestat likes to seduce young women before exacting his dark red sustenance . with alarming swiftness , the victims switch from sexual excitement to outright horror , as his murderous purpose becomes clear . " . . . kill them mercifully , but do it . you are what you are . . for do not doubt , you are a killer ! " that is how lestat is teaching luis . but behind that furious facade is anger and loneliness that he carries through the centuries and tries to smother with nightly rampages . brad pitt is equally convincing as the " vampire with a human soul " . antonio banderas and stephen rea are effective , but since they play more or less secondary characters , their performances are almost invisible . the greatest performance in the film comes suprisingly from the young kristen dunst , who manages to create an incredibly emotional and believable character . the world is changing around the little child , but she does not . she remains unchangeable - a child for all eternity . only her wise , dark eyes reveal her age . ironically the film's only miss is the script . anne rice's novel is a very interesting read , and her script is rich , colorful and emotional , but it is also tiering and too melancholic , at times resembling a soap opera : claudia : " . . . . is that what i should do ? let you go . . my father , my luis , who made me . . . who will look after me , my dark angel , when you are gone ? " luis : " everything will be alright . . " claudia : " do you really believe that ? " and then they hug emotionally . moments like those displayed above and luis' self-pity is a bit tiresome . however rice's script is otherwise strong and well structured , bringing up humor and comic episodes , that were more or less hidden in the book . when lestat finds claudia's dead dressmaker , whom she has killed , he cries out : " who will make you that dress now ? be a little practical . . . . never in the house ! " moments like that are both entertaining and appealing . neil jordan's direction is beautiful and sensual as he plays with interesting issues like eternity , homosexuality , love and loneliness . his gothic saga is not meant to scare , but to display these issues differently . wrapped up in mystery , his new , original picture brings vampire-films to a new height .
0	the law of crowd pleasing romantic movies states that the two leads must end up together by film's end . if you're not familiar with this law , then maybe you've seen the trailer for this film which shows that the two leads are together by film's end . now if you're a regular reader of mine , you've heard me say this countless times : you know how drive me crazy is going to end , but is the journey to get to that ending worth it ? no , it definitely is not . melissa joan hart ( from abc's " sabrina , the teenage witch " ) likes a hunky stud on the basketball team . adrien grenier is her grungy neighbor who's just broken up with his activist girlfriend . apparently he wants to make his ex-girlfriend jealous enough to take him back , and she wants someone to take her to the big year end dance . so the two pretend to date for some reason , but only after hart gives grenier a bath to turn him into a hunky stud . will grenier like his new popularity and turn on his friends ? will this crazy scheme work ? do i care ? the teen comedy resurgence of late has been surprisingly good in terms of comedy . what makes movies like can't hardly wait and 10 things i hate about you work ( and to a lesser extent , she's all that and never been kissed ) is because the writers of those films seem to realize that high school is a joke and write their scripts accordingly . i don't know what the writer's intention was with drive me crazy . there was some smart comedy in those films to make the obvious endings worth getting to . here there's nothing . . . just teens whining about who's going to take them to the big dance . do me a favor kids , go get a job or something . . . just shut the hell up . in all honesty , the best part of this film is the end credits . now normally when i say that it's followed with the joke " . . . because the movie is finally over . " in this case though the end credits really are the most entertaining part of the film . after the obligatory second playing of britney spears' titular song , there's a quick commercial jingle for a burger joint the kids in the film hang out in and a brief rendition of the school song for their high school . nothing great , but more entertaining than anything in the 90 minutes which preceded them . sci-fi fans take note : there are brief appearances from stephen collins ( star trek : the motion picture ) and faye grant ( the tv miniseries " v " and " v : the final battle " ) . [pg-13]
1	the heist of a flawless , 84 carat diamond , fixed bare knuckle fights , irish gypsies and a dog are just some of the goings on in director guy ritchies's sophomore feature , " snatch . " " lock , stock and two smoking barrels " intro'd helmer/scripter ritchie with a hyper-kinetic , in your face underworld comedy that grabbed the viewer's attention from beginning to end . his protagonists were innocents set adrift in a see of sharks to swim or be eaten alive . with " snatch , " the director doesn't remake his first work , but he does delve more deeply into the criminal underbelly of london , mining a rich collection of characters in the process . >from the very beginning , " snatch " tosses you into the action with the theft of the fabulous diamond , the desire of new york gangster avi ( dennis farina ) . en route from antwerp , diamond thief and courier frankie four fingers ( benicio del toro ) stops in london to make a separate deal with avi's partner and cousin , doug " the head " ( mike reid ) . frankie's addiction to gambling tempts him into making a bet on an illegal boxing match for boris " the blade " ( rade sherbedgia ) , a ruthless russian mobster . the bet turns out to be a setup for a robbery by a trio of bumbling incompetents - vinnie ( robbie gee ) , sol ( lennie james ) and portly tyrone ( ade ) - that goes miserably awry . meanwhile , a couple of young toughs , turkish ( jason stratham ) and tommy ( stephen graham ) , are trying to break in to the boxing game with the help of local villain brick top ( alan ford ) , who also owns a pig farm . when their first fighter is put out of action , with one punch , by a wild irish gypsy named mickey o'neil , they figure to put the loose canon in as the contender in a fixed fight . mickey proves less than reliable and goes against turkish and tommy's deal . brick top , impressed by mickey's performance , decides to gives them another chance - after calmly explaining that it takes 16 pigs about eight minutes to completely devour a corpse . when avi doesn't get his precious rock , he jumps on a plane for london and hires a local legend , " bullet tooth " tony ( vinnie jones ) , to find frankie and the diamond . things spiral out of control as all these forces head on a collision course of double-cross and double-deals - and a dog that ate a squeaky toy . guy ritchie ( mr . madonna to some ) is an extraordinarily talented auteur who has a wonderful knack for pulling together his unique collection of cast and crew and feeding them funny and gritty dialog that spews out of the characters' mouths like machine gun fire . the helmer marshals his large ensemble actors in a frantically paced caper comedy that makes you laugh and feel queasy at the same time , the above description by brick top being just one example . the assemblage of actors and non-actors in rough-and-tumble settings gives " snatch " an earthy feel in its depiction of london's criminal underworld . the cast of characters is too large to credit here , but two of the performances - first among equals , you might say - are worth noting . alan ford is brilliant as the ruthless , evil brick top . when he refuses sugar in his tea because " i'm sweet enough , " it makes you shiver , even as you laugh . his is one of the best gangster characters i've seen in years . the other outstanding perf is given by none other than brad pitt , the name actor the movie's popularity may hang upon , at least initially . pitt , as mickey o'neil , is hard drinking , hard fighting , highly unreliable and nearly incomprehensible with a unique irish brogue and dialect of the pikers , the irish travelers of europe . this gypsy brigand would steal the fillings from your teeth , especially if it would benefit his beloved mum ( sorcha cusack ) . when brick top threaten the safety of mickey's family , he makes an enemy that cannot be stopped . pitt puts a credible spin on his character and does some incredible physical stuff , too , as a bare-knuckle boxer . the production team behind the camera includes ritchie alumni , producer matthew vaughn and lenser tim maurice-jones , and other talented technical artist that bring the hyperactive imagination of the author to visual life . there is a patent feel to the look of " snatch " and " lock , stock and two smoking barrels " that reeks of " signature " for ritchie , but i'm not sure how this will translate in his future works . there is so much talent in the filmmaker that i would like to see him branch out in other directions . nonetheless , " snatch " is terrific sophomore effort , a darn good action comedy and a hoot to boot . i give it a b+ .
1	after bloody clashes and independence won , lumumba refused to pander to the belgians , who continued a condescending and paternalistic relationship with the congo . their officers , particularly general janssens ( rudi delhem ) in the force publique , the congo's army , caused rebellions , undermining lumumba , who was outraged at the rape and murder of belgian nationals . with unrest building , moise tshombe ( pascal nzonzi ) and the province of katanga , which contained 70 percent of the country's resources , proclaimed secession . lumumba replaced janssens , making mobutu a colonel , and went on a pacification tour with congolese president joseph kasa vubu ( maka kotto ) , but it was too late . 'when you want to drown a dog , you say it has rabies , ' prophesies lumumba of his own fate . peck and bonitzer do an exemplary job telling a complicated tale with a myriad of players , although they frequently succumb to cliche , particularly regarding lumumba's private life . peck's script illuminates bantu sayings like 'the hand that gives , rules' when lumumba uses it with the american ambassador . peck's direction is less assured , with many scenes unfortunately playing like standard television fare . he's served well , though , by his casting of ebouaney in the title role . ebouaney is dynamic , radiating his character's fierce passion for his people and his country . lumumba's intelligence and ability to strategize , even as he's cornered by insurmountable odds , are given life by ebouaney . peck's subject and lead actor elevate his film above its mediocre production . " lumumba " is a story that deserves to be told and ebouaney's performance makes the tragedy personally felt .
1	scarface , a remake of the 1932 film of the same name , is a very gripping and , as far as i know , a true-to-life story of how power and violence lead to corruption . al pacino , as tony montana ( for whom the movie is named ) , also provides a brilliant performance as a cuban refugee who comes to america with less than nothing and becomes one of the most highly respected and feared drug lords in miami . oliver stone also penned the screenplay in one of his earlier writing roles . the film begins by disclosing the story of now fidel castro ordered thousands of cubans to set sail and head for the coasts of the united states . many of these cubans had criminal records , such as tony montana , a cocky , fast-talking man who has the look of crime . nearly right after his arrival in miami , tony is thrust into the gangster life when he participates in a cocaine buy that goes awry . along with his friend and partner , manolo ( steven bauer ) , tony rises in the gangster ranks when he forms a friendship with frank lopez ( robert loggia ) , a high-roller in the organized crime field . tony also begins to fall in love with elvira ( michelle pfeiffer ) , who at the time was frank's lover . of course , sooner or later in this industry , betrayal and corruption amount into a force greater than anything else , and tony is one of the ones who fall victim to this force . this is not before he becomes one of the most respected , and often feared , men in miami . tony gets to the point where he cannot trust anyone , and everyone he knows basically feels the same way towards him . no one can trust him , and basically , no one does . scarface , although incredibly violent , is one of the best crime films of its time and stands out as another great performance for al pacino . although he did not receive any recognition from the academy for his performance , it truly is a very good one . in fact , his accent and facial movements alone are enough in my mind to win at least a nomination ( although he did get a golden globe nomination ) . another element that stands out when someone mentions this film is the profanity . a figure tagged to the film boasts that the word " fuck " and it's uses are uttered 206 times throughout the film , which is apparently a record . the thing is , the vulgarity fits rather well with the movie . as odd as it sounds , it's true . in the end , scarface is a very powerful film that hits home hard .
0	some talented actresses are blessed with a demonstrated wide acting range while others , almost as gifted , have more limited types of parts for which they are suitable . as was amply evident after basic instinct , sharon stone can play sensual roles with great abandon . rejecting her natural abilities , she has spent the rest of her entire career trying with little success to play against type . gloria is her latest disaster . babe ruth didn't quit baseball after one season to play football in a quixotic quest to prove his athletic dexterity , and neither should stone reject what she does best . janeane garofalo , for example , is no less wonderful an actress because she could have never pulled off stone's part in basic instinct ; neither is stone any less talented because she couldn't do garofalo's comedic roles . gloria , directed by respected director sidney lumet and adapted by steve antin from the 1980 screenplay by john cassavetes , was not screened in advance for critics , almost always a sign that the studio isn't behind the picture . after seeing it in a nearly empty audience after it opened , it is clear why they held it from the press . it is a film more to be endured than enjoyed . as the story opens , an angry gloria ( stone ) is being released from prison after 3 years confinement . she's got a bad attitude and a big mouth . she also has a bad case of wavering and overblown new york accents , a disease suffered by much of the rest of the cast . an annoying child actor named jean-luke figueroa plays a soon-to-be orphan named nicky . just before his whole family is gunned down by hoods working for gloria's ex-boyfriend kevin ( jeremy northam ) , nicky's dad gives him a banana yellow floppy disk with secrets about kevin's operation and offers him a piece of fatherly advice . " be a man , " his father lectures him sternly . " don't trust nobody . not no broads . nobody . " most of the film's leaden dialog is delivered with the emotive power of the automated time and temperature announcements . add in the movie's almost non-existent background noise and the excruciatingly slow pacing , and you can hear the sounds of the lines falling to the ground like stones . lumet places his actors in the frames like fruit in a still life painting . they stand awkwardly mouthing the stiff sentences that pass for discourse . ( " say you're my baby , " kevin coos demandingly . " i'm not gonna , " gloria pouts back . ) the movie has a plethora of logical flaws and implausibilites . the kid rarely seems the least bit worried or scared , no matter how many people are after him with guns , trying to kill him . and in one key scene , the yellow floppy he holds is assumed to be the right disk without checking it and is further assumed never to have been copied . gloria , who keeps saying how she hates kids , takes nicky under her wing and protects him from kevin and the bad guys . think her maternal instincts will show up before the movie finally and predictably ends ? if you don't know the answer , you may be just the right viewer for this film . you have to say this for stone : she can keep a straight face . when explaining life to a 7-year-old kid , she says with utter seriousness , " you got a lot of love making to make ; you got a lot of boozing to do . " gloria runs 1 : 48 . it is rated r for profanity , violence and brief male nudity and would be acceptable for teenagers .
0	i'll bet right now you're just lounging by the pool , humming " i will always love you " and wistfully recalling your candlelight dinners with success . it isn't necessarily over for you : i say you still have enough charm that you could avoid starring in " kevin ! " for at least a few more years . begin by scribbling " the star that burns twice as bright burns half as long " somewhere you'll always see it , perhaps on the fridge door , or on a bedroom mirror with lipstick . you had a heck of a thing going there until you agreed to star in robin hood : prince of thieves , where you were not only upstaged by powerhouses morgan freeman and alan rickman , but christian slater ( ! ) , several dozen tall trees , bows , arrows , and a canoe , too . after dances with wolves and jfk , you decided the world needed more three hour movies , expensive three hour movies , so you starred in and produced wyatt earp ; wyatt earp the man was a boring idiot who made the history books solely due to a general lack of famous wyatts . wyatt earp was so dull a cowboy that he died of natural causes . tombstone was a vastly superior movie based on the same legend , and that featured kurt russell as earp and dana delaney as his girlfriend ! ( she was played by joanna going in your movie-you know , the character known best in wyatt earp as " jew whore " . what were you and lawrence kasdan thinking ? ) now , you're suffering the demise of yet another of your epics , the postman , a film so financially disastrous that it all but eradicated the memory waterworld's and tin cup's mildly lucrative box office takes . the postman is not the worst movie ever made-people in hollywood are quick to forget movies like howard the duck whenever the next bomb comes along . yet it is a ridiculous movie . i suspect you thought you had another braveheart on your hands-why else line up two armies on horesback , all prepared for battle , for the climax of your film ? -but " mailheart " the postman is not . ( i can think of some more appropriate alternate titles : post encounters of the worst kind ; farewell , my salary ; howard the postman ; the postman's never watched twice . . . ) what a brown movie . i hate brown . you love brown . dances with wolves was golden and brown-it looked like an eggo commercial . the postman had me running for a glass of water every two minutes ; would the post-apocalyptic world look this maddeningly bland and dry ? what exactly happened to this desert world , anyway ? did we all become so stupid that we didn't immediately begin rebuilding homes , restaurants , and most importantly , shopping malls , after " the war " ? why did you choose to drive the movie's plot with a dumb group of terrorists who , well , terrorize townfolk across america ? why is it only * they * have ammunition , anyway ? was it really appropriate to cast your daughter as a girl who has a sweet crush on you , the drifter-cum-postman ? why cast english actress olivia williams as an american ? don't you realize that european women can only deliver their big emotional scenes in their native accent ? ( take a look at the less-than-stellar performances of an american-ized nicole kidman or an american-ized minnie driver . ) who could give a damn whether you lived or died at the end of this movie ? if it came down to a fight for leadership between you and the leader of the terrorists , why didn't you do that halfway through the film and save us all a lot of headaches ? why cast will patton as the bad guy ? because you worked with him in no way out ? sure , he's a suitably creepy villain ; know why ? because he's creepy in everything , including armageddon , in which he plays a heroic astronaut who practically slithers into his space suit ! why heroize the most demonic institution in america , the u . s . postal system ? was tom petty supposed to be playing tom petty ? if so , why didn't he look more skeletal ? ( he should have been around 70 years old . ) why , oh why , do i have so many questions ? ( i could ask plenty more . ) shouldn't a three hour running time have provided you enough space to answer everything ? you have one great line in this film , and you deliver it to a mule ! : " the things i like about my ass . . . " i had to wonder . actually , i enjoyed the tone of the opening scenes , a relaxed cynicism , if you'll accept such clunky phrasing-too bad you couldn't resist the temptation to film yet another love letter to your country . ultimately , i'm saying relax . there is no quota , no need for you to make a picture a year . settle down . really question future screenplays before you commit to them . feel free to write back . i know how much you like letters .
1	a fully loaded entertainment review - website coming in july ! i didn't really expect very much when i rented stuart saves his family . the movie bombed at the box office , and i had never really liked the saturday night live sketch on which the movie was based . my real concern , though , was the general reputation of snl-related movies translating to the big screen with less-than-stellar results ( half-baked , anyone ? ) i was surprised to discover a truly entertaining , often hilarious yet also touching little film . it is an al franken production through-and-through , who not only created the title character but also wrote and starred in the picture . for those of you who don't know , al franken plays a guy named stuart smalley , who has a really annoying show on a public-access station about increasing your self-esteem , etc . although not a licensed therapist , stuart smalley is , as the program proudly boasts , " a graduate of several 12-step programs . " stuart is doing well enough with his tv show , but he keeps getting distracted by family troubles . stuart's relatives are a mess : his dad and brother ( harris yulin and vincent d'onofrio , respectively ) are alcoholics , his sister is overweight and getting over another divorce , and his mom is in constant self-denial and solves all perceived problems by baking . then , disaster strikes . stuart accidentally insults the manager of the station and gets his show revoked . he is forced to move back in with his family after he can no longer support himself , and there the comedy truly picks up . franken wrote all of the characters not just as cliches or stereotypes , but as sharply-drawn , real people . although smalley's dad has always imbibed too much , stuart can still recall times when his father seemed like an okay guy . also , after an accident towards the end of the movie , both stuart and the audience learn that there is more to his mother than previously thought . although filled with small , very funny scenes , stuart saves his family also has its share of dramatic moments , especially towards the conclusion . for a lightweight comedy , it handles these scenes especially well , often better than many so-called " serious dramas " of today . all the more amazing is that such a movie comes from a saturday night live sketch that is essentially a one-joke bit . if you feel like renting a comedy , and you haven't seen this film , i definitely recommend you try this one out . you'll laugh . . . you'll cry . . . . it's all there .
0	all through its production and into the early days of its initial , aborted pre-release publicity , hard rain bore the appropriate moniker of the flood . ultimately , however , paramount pictures , nervous that this movie would be confused with 1996's other , underperforming disaster films ( dante's peak , volcano ) , changed the title and shifted the release date by nearly a year . but , to paraphrase the bard , swill , by any other name , would smell as rank . no number of name changes can help this picture . it's not just about a disaster , it is a disaster . hard rain is the case of a movie that gets progressively worse with every passing minute . the best shot occurs during the opening credits , as the camera pans over the streets and byways of huntingburg , indiana as the water level slowly rises . the community , protected by an overworked dam , is being evacuated as the rain continues to pour relentlessly from the cloud-choked skies . from that moment on , it's all downhill . whatever initial entertainment value the film possesses has long since drained away by the halfway point . it takes forever to get to the end credits -- this is one of the longest-seeming 95-minute motion pictures i have recently endured . basically , hard rain is one extended , dull chase sequence punctuated by occasional shoot-outs . there's a lot of water , broken glass , gunfire , and explosions . it's all very routine and uninteresting because there aren't any real characters and the plot only occasionally makes sense . the film's conclusion is so preposterous that it's almost worth watching for the sheer masochistic enjoyment of seeing the monumentally idiotic way that the film makers decide to resolve the myriad subplots that are floating around . action films are supposed to become progressively more invigorating as they rush towards a conclusion . graham yost , the writer of both speed and hard rain , surely understands that principle . unfortunately , neither he , nor cinematographer-turned-director mikael salomon ( a far off place ) , applies it . the action in hard rain grows tedious through repetition . we see the same kinds of things -- speedboat chases , flood damage , shoot-outs , etc . -- over and over again . the movie constantly recycles about twenty minutes worth of material to pad the running time out to an acceptable movie length . the storyline gives us a number of paper-thin characters in contrived circumstances . there's tom ( christian slater ) , the one- dimensional action hero who works as a security guard driving an armored car full of cash . he and his partner , charlie ( edward asner , tv's " lou grant " ) , get stuck on a street that's rapidly turning into a river . a group of men , led by jimmy ( morgan freeman ) , arrive on the scene not as rescuers but as robbers . after charlie is killed in a shoot-out , tom hides the money , then runs . as he swims and boats his way through huntingburg's roads , he encounters some of the locals : karen ( minnie driver ) , a would-be love interest ; a bickering old couple ( richard dysart and betty white ) , who are on hand to provide comic relief ; and the easily-corrupted sheriff ( randy quaid ) , whose seeming helpfulness hides sinister ulterior motives . there isn't any real acting in this film . christian slater utters a few lame one-liners and does a lot of mugging for the camera . tom is easily one of the most lifeless characters the actor has brought to the screen . randy quaid sneers a lot , and is totally unconvincing . morgan freeman and minnie driver both attempt to give legitimate performances , but they are defeated by the script . freeman , one of the best cinematic thespians working today , looks suitably embarrassed to be here , but i suppose everyone needs a good paycheck from time-to-time . following in the wake of twister , this is yet another natural disaster movie that doesn't trust nature's fury as the chief engine of conflict . as a result , we are saddled with an idiotic good guys/bad guys story that effectively ruins any potential that the flood tale could have had . titanic proved that there can be a wealth of drama in a movie where everything goes under water . hard rain successfully demonstrates that the opposite is equally possible . thus far this year , hollywood has already subjected us to its unique brand of moronic mayhem by fire ( firestorm ) and water ( hard rain ) . fortunately , there are only two elements left .
0	contrary to popular belief , not every single foregin film released to an american market is a masterpiece . some of them aren't even good . some examples of this principle are the aboslutely dreadful " un indien dans la ville " ( presented as " little indian , big city , " and remade into that crap tim allen flick , " jungle2jungle " ) , and this . what could have been a clever little sex comedy turns into one mess of a french flick . " french twist " ( the " cool " american title , not the real one , which was " gazon maudit , " literally meaning " twisted ground , " or something like that ) deals with a married couple with kids , and the intrusion of a stranger who kinda screws things up for them . loli and alain chabat ( victoria abril and alain chabat ) are not exactly happily married . always on business trips , alain chabat more than once cheats on her , and she eventually finds out . and one day , she meets a butch mechanic , marijo ( the co-writer/director josiane balasko ) , and they two kinda hit it off . so she decides she will get back at alain chabat by doing the obvious : sleeping with marijo . but she soons starts to not only fall in love with marijo , but she's also realizes she's still in love with alain chabat . so , of course , she does the obvious from that : she decides to keep them both . she'll be ( and sleep ) with each of them for 3 days each , then on sunday , she'll rest by herself . after all , she needs it if she's gonna have more sex than sylvia kristel . the film goes on for over an hour and a half , through stupidity after stupidity , moronic twist after moronic twist , and soon there's the little ironic ( ! ! ! ) ending . i know it's a completely different culture , and i'm quite familiar with the french and their cinema , but this is just bad . none of the characters are more intelligent than peter stormare in " fargo " ( a movie where stupid characters were backed up to make a point ) , and any action they do is pretty much just to get a hopeful chuckle from the audience . what's shocking is this was not only one of france's biggest hits , but it was nominated for a lot of cesars ( french equivalent of oscars ) . the writing and directing is really the big problem with it . josiane balasko does a good acting job with her role , but her little sex comedy isn't very humerous , entertaining , or even deep at all . even woody allen's not-very-good " a midsummer night's sex comedy " is intelligent , well-written , and possesses some depth . this is shallow , unfunny , and pretty annoying to watch . the film moves at the pace of a snail , and is damn-near painful to watch . thank god for the fast forward button . the acting , however , isn't bad at all . the actors do the best they can with the bad material , and victoria abril is pretty likable despite the script ( and the fact that she's stupid enough to try to divide herself over two people when she has kids ) . and alain chabat has some funny moments as the neurotic husband . but " french twist " is just pretty lame . it's not overly horrible , and has a couple very , very , very brief moments . but it's just a really crap film , and an example of an ill-advised distribution of a foreign film .
0	do the folks at disney have no common decency ? they have resurrected yet another cartoon and turned it into a live action hodgepodge of expensive special effects , embarrassing writing and kid-friendly slapstick . wasn't mr . magoo enough , people ? obviously not . inspector gadget is not what i would call ideal family entertainment . younger viewers will likely be taken in by the abounding goofiness , but their adult companions may feel a wave of nausea sweeping over them as they attempt to endure this appalling 80-minute exercise in glaring stupidity . the movie is poorly edited , grossly manipulative , and the finished product resembles somewhat of a failed jigsaw puzzle . all the elements are there , but the manner in which director david kellogg pieces them together is laughable and trite . as a huge fan of the 80's animated tv show , the first thing i must express is my anger toward the treatment of the main villain . in the cartoon , dr . claw was a frightening , raspy-voiced presence who remained a total mystery to the viewer . we never saw his face ; he simply sat back in his arm-chair , watching surveillance cameras and gently stroking his loyal cat . as a child , i always imagined what dr . claw would appear as - and this curiosity kept me watching for many years . with the release of the live-action movie , the face of this once intriguing villain has been unrightfully exposed - it's . . . rupert everett ? ! only now , dr . claw is simply known as claw ( `one word , ' he explains , `like madonna' ) . he sports a shiny clamp instead of the steel glove , and seems far less interesting than the animated version . it helps that the dashing everett is enthusiastic , but he overplays the role entirely too far . when all is said and done , this wasn't a very wise move on the part of the screenwriters - the infamous dr . claw has been turned into a wisecracking game show host who makes cheap attempts at being suave and cool . he does still have his cat , though . in the title role , matthew broderick looks lost . the actor , while usually downright charming , doesn't know exactly where to take his character - a fault that again can be blamed on the hapless writers . broderick first plays a friendly , naive security guard named john brown , who dreams of becoming a cop and upholding the law for the good of the people . he has a mad crush on pretty scientist brenda ( joely fisher ) , who has stumbled upon a new wave of technology involving the interaction of human tissue and electronics . but one fateful night , her lab is destroyed and her experiment is stolen by a fiendish millionaire ( everett ) who wants to take over the world . john courageously pursues the limousine from the scene of the crime , but loses the chase when his vehicle bursts into flames . in a full body cast , he is chosen to be the first human prototype for brenda's work ; a revolutionary crime fighting tool with numerous fancy gadgets to dispatch bad guys . and so is born inspector gadget . as bad as this movie is , it does have a certain charm in isolated scenes . broderick actually fares better playing robo gadget , an evil and destructive clone that claw has set loose on the city . and there are about two or three amusing punch lines , the funniest being when robo gadget impersonates a rampaging monster with shadow puppets on a brick wall , and a japanese man flees the scene while screaming , `this is why i left tokyo ! ' alas , the hit ratio of the ongoing gags is about 20 to 1 in favor of not even cracking a slight giggle . there are so many tired plot additions . gadget's talking car ( voiced by d . l . hughley ) is the same type of character as zoot the suit from my favorite martian . both are wisecracking , non-human additions designed to coax laughter from smaller children . well , it just doesn't work ( in fact , zoot functioned marvelously in comparison to this ) . and don't even get me started about the villains . i didn't mind everett's performance , but his bumbling assistants will make every adult cringe with disgust . the characters from the cartoon have been reduced to thankless supporting roles . penny ( michelle trachtenberg ) and brain the dog now have little to do with the action , and chief quimby ( dabney coleman ) has lost considerable appeal in the transition of animation to live action . the special effects are everywhere , but not so annoying they will cause your eyes to peel over . the problem here lies solely in the script . perhaps the next time disney attempts a remake like this , they will invest more in the screenplay than the fancy-schmancy visuals . here is one critic crossing his fingers , anyway .
0	the original babe gets my vote as the best family film since the princess bride , and it's sequel has been getting rave reviews from most internet critics , both siskel and ebert sighting it more than a month ago as one of the year's finest films . so , naturally , when i entered the screening room that was to be showing the movie and there was nary another viewer to be found , this notion left me puzzled . it is a rare thing for a children's movie to be praised this highly , so wouldn't you think that every parent in the entire city would be flocking with their kids to see this supposedly " magical " piece of work ? a tad bewildered , but pleased to not have to worry about screaming kids and other disruptions that commonly go along with family films , i sat back for 97 minutes and watched intently and with a very open mind , having great expectations for the film . looking back , i should have taken the hint and left right when i entered the theater . believe me ; i wanted to like babe : pig in the city . the plot seemed interesting enough ; after the events that took place in the original , babe the sheep-pig has become a legitimate national phenomenon . but after a fateful encounter with a water well , arthur hogget ( james cromwell , who the movie could have used alot more of ) has been rendered bed-ridden for a number of weeks and the farm begins to go under financially . the only solution that his wife ( magda szubanski , going from delightfully charming to downright annoying ) can come up with is to make an appearance with their new celebrity pet at a national fair ( i think ) and to use the money they earn to pay off the bank ( set aside for the moment the fact that they could get more than enough cash from donations if they just made their case known to the public ) . problem is , the fair is being held in the middle of the dreaded " city " , a completely foreign place to both the pig and his companion . setting the main plot in motion , mrs . hogget and babe travel to the unnamed city and shack up with a sweet lady who just happens to love to help animals , despite the law that you cannot keep them in hotels . it is here that we meet an array of eccentric characters , the most memorable being the family of chimps led by steven wright . here is where the film took a wrong turn . up until this point , i had being having a rather enjoyable experience . the beginning featured some smart writing and funny situations involving the farm animals from the first one and even an inspired moment at the airport where mrs . hogget is accused of smuggling drugs . unfortunately , the story wears thin as we are introduced to a new set of animals that reside at the hotel , none of them being even one-tenth as interesting as the characters from the previous babe . the main topic of discussion surrounding babe : pig in the city is the question of whether or not it is to dark and disturbing for small children , and i believe it is . at one point , a dog is hung from his neck and slowly starts to drown . at other times , we are treated to surrealistic flash-backs to mrs . hogget's full cavity search at the airport . in fact , the overall tone of the movie is rather bleak and depressing . however , that is , as they say , neither here nor there because kids will probably not like the movie anyway . the animal characters and their plights were simply not intriguing enough to sustain my interest for an hour and a half , let alone entertain a child . another problem i found with the film was it's sudden change of pacing and tone near the end of the story . if you're going to make a darker and more sinister sequel , fine . it may not be my cup of tea , but at least it is a noble ambition . but to go from the downbeat feel of the rest of the movie and all of a sudden have slapstick finale with mrs . hogget swinging from wall-to-wall of a ballroom in elastic overalls ? it just didn't feel right and was more painful to watch than it was funny or entertaining , and the same goes for the rest of the movie .
0	roger ebert asks in his review of sexy beast , " who would have guessed that the most savage mad-dog frothing gangster in recent movies would be played by . . . ben kingsley ? " my response would be that anyone who has seen alan arkin in wait until dark , henry fonda in once upon a time in the west , or anthony hopkins in the silence of the lambs should have guessed it . they should know that the way for a film to create a really creepy sociopath is cast someone who generally plays mild , sympathetic , or even ineffectual character roles . the same characteristics that make an actor seem gentle in most of his roles can work in his favor when a role calls for him to be fierce and vicious . that is the principle that works for kingsley in sexy beast . gary " gal " dove ( played by ray winstone ) has retired from a london career of crime and is living on a luxurious villa in spain . life has become a routine of sunning himself and relaxing . but his paradise is about to be shattered by a one-two-punch . the first punch is a boulder that comes rolling down the hill next to the villa . the second punch comes from gal's past . back in london gang boss teddy bass ( ian mcshane , tv's lovejoy ) is planning to break into a safety deposit room in a bank and he wants gal . he sends his most rabid henchman don logan ( ben kingsley ) to fetch gal . don will accept any decision gal makes from " yes " to " certainly . " however , if gal says " no " don will do whatever it takes to turn it into a yes including threatening guy's ex-porn- star wife deedee ( amanda redman ) . in the meantime don knows just how to get under everybody's skin . kingsley makes don a compact package of fury and nastiness . there are some serious problems in louis mellis's and david scinto's script that should have been caught before filming . when we see the actual crime we have no idea why gal was so important to its success . beyond an ability to use skin-diving gear , no special talents are required of him . any local hood could have done what gal is needed for . additionally the crime involves digging from a swimming pool to the bank vault , flooding the vault . no only could they have let the water out of the pool and avoided the complication altogether , but there is by far too much water to be accounted for by what was in the pool . in spite of the provocative title , the story is cliched and overly familiar . i know i have seen all the plot elements of sexy beast in old westerns like the law and jake wade . the story is usually of the reformed outlaw , a robert taylor type , who has hung up his guns and is trying for a life of peaceful respectability . the old gang , however , wants to do one more job with their old buddy and sends a rabid richard widmark type to go and git ? im . it is not a great plot . in sexy beast even the plot twists have gray beards . perhaps the film has a little more respectability because it was made not as a western but as a stylish british gangster film . it is an old plot dressed up to look new . if the plot is old , at least the style is creative . this is director jonathan glazer's first film , but he has reputedly done some notable tv ads for guinness stout . his style does have some unexpected touches including some very odd dream sequences . cinematographer ivan bird uses a lot of half lit scenes . we see one side of a person's faces . but the other side fades into the darkness , a sort of metaphor for the half-world these characters in-habit . half of everything that is happening is also kept hidden . us yanks will have a hard time with some of the dialog . at least in my theater it was difficult to make out the words with the quiet speaking , the heavy accents , and the cockney language . sexy beast is a very and familiar minor plot lent respectability in the us by being done in what is here a still somewhat novel genre , the london crime film . the plot may be new to british crime films , but it would be overly familiar as a western . further respectability comes from ben kingsley's high-powered performance . i give it a 4 on the 0 to 10 scale and a 0 on the -4 to +4 scale .
0	georges polti once wrote a paper called " the thirty-six dramatic situations , " in which he asserted the fact that all drama could be defined by no more than thirty-six different situations . this may be the modern restatement of the biblical prophecy from ecclesiastes , " there's nothing new under the sun . " the faculty , the latest movie by from dusk till dawn director robert rodriguez , certainly proves this in typical hollywood fashion . there's not a measureable fraction of original material in this unworthy outing . drawing elements from both the puppet masters and invasion of the body snatchers , screenwriter kevin williamson ( of scream 2 credit ) gives us a horror tale set in middle america ( ohio ) one eventful fall . making use of a cast of unusually stock characters , williamson designs an alien invasion that will not be done independence day-style but rather " through the back door . " parasitic aliens take over the faculty of a run-down high school and soon have infested most of the student body , leaving it up to the ensemble of principal characters to win the day . the lack of gusto is the movie's major stumbling block . even though the genre has seen movies that have a lack for quality such as this , they've been saved by an energetic approach . this casts more than a shadow of a doubt on williamson's ability , who enjoyed success with the wes craven-directed scream but couldn't pull anything solid in for this outing or i know what you did last summer . although he designs the faculty with more of a sci-fi bent than his typical slasher picture , it still comes down to the same results : throw the stock characters in a steel cage match and see who comes out alive . on that level , the main roles are played by virtual unknowns . only the recognizeable elijah wood ( deep impact ) is at the front ; other than that , the screen veterans are saved for the minor roles of the alien teachers . perhaps williamson has it in mind to champion these up-and-comers to the fame that their scream and last summer counterparts achieved ; but to do that , they'd all need to star in their own wb television show about the horrors of puberty a la " dawson's creek . " needless to say the acting is far from top notch , nor does necessity ask that it should be . there is a moment or two of genuine horror , but unfortunately williamson and rodriguez did not take the story far enough in the sci-fi direction to make any use of it . in sum , the faculty was just one long shot that did not pay off .
0	there's a 1 , 000-foot tidal wave at the end of deep impact . i'd say it pretty accurately represents the towering flood of the last two years worth of disaster movies , which are getting more irwin allen- esque with every release . the early wave of this revival , while just as cheesy and laughable , at least knew to include thrills every five to ten minutes . deep impact tries to disguise itself as a human drama , with endless filler comprised of disaster prevention plans the country keeps taking . the repeating cycle is as follows -- the president ( morgan freeman ) will go on tv and tell the country that there's a remote chance a comet will strike the earth , but that the nation's crack scientists and astronauts have some brilliant plan to stop the problem . then we get to see the plan in action , in some sequence utterly lacking suspense . the mission will barely fail , and freeman will tell the country that the comet is still headed toward earth , and there's a remote chance it will strike , but that the nation's crack scientists and astronauts have some brilliant plan to stop the problem . it goes on and on throughout the movie , but every time freeman goes on tv , we know his plan is going to fail . how do we know this ? because we've seen the tv ads for deep impact , ads that feature freeman telling the nation that " the comet is still headed right for us " and show disaster shots of the comet striking earth and the giant tidal wave spreading . ladies and gentlemen , that is the movie . successful disaster movies have the main disaster toward the beginning and more little disasters that follow , but deep impact saves its one disaster for the end and discloses all in its 30-second tv spots . television is what's wrong with deep impact . the main character , played by tea leoni , is a low-level broadcast journalist for msnbc ( and that's the mere tip of the product-placement iceberg ) who stumbles upon a huge government conspiracy . she thinks it's an instance of an ex-secretary of something or other ( james cromwell ) resigning because of a mistress , and that maybe he took the fall for the president in the same area . when she goes nosing around cromwell , he begs her to keep it under wraps . " i know you're just a reporter , but you used to be a human being . " she figures out what's really going on after getting roughed up by some fbi men and doing an internet search , where all good journalists learn the difference between a mistress and an extinction- level comet . upon a top-secret meeting with president freeman , leoni agrees to keep the story under wraps until the president can hold a press conference , at which she gets to ask the first question . and everyone knows , if you get to ask the first question , baby you're a star . leoni ends up in the anchor chair , broadcasting every step of the comet's collision course with earth . and i'm sure it's comforting for her to know that , even though the world's ending in a matter of months , she's a cable news personality . so there she is , narrating the six-astronaut mission to blow the comet up . such personalities as robert duvall , jon favreau and blair underwood cash their paychecks and go through the motions of this dragged-out process . but as anyone who's seen the commercials knows , the astronauts fail . they only end up breaking the comet into two pieces , which means even more destruction to the earth . yeah , thanks , nasa . that's when freeman has to come on tv for the last time and say goodbye to all the people who aren't picked to live in the missouri cave site for two years . they even have animals , two by two , ready to climb into the cave . if the focus had been on people living inside these caves after the world had been destroyed , deep impact could have been a far more interesting movie . instead we watch as a lovestruck elijah wood defies all odds to chase down his young wife , while people pack the highways out of town . the reasoning is , of course , that if a comet is going to strike , they might as well be out in some scenic rural location . and , amusingly , the highway is spotted with people in u-haul trucks . i'm sure it's comforting to know that , even though the world's ending in a matter of minutes , the u-haul people are doing the most business of their lives .
1	when i saw the trailer for this film , i laughed harder than i had in quite some time . while i was therefore pretty well psyched to see it , i was ever mindful that a trailer can make even the most mediocre film look good . i'm happy to say that there's something about mary is not one of those trailer let-downs . in fact , watching this film was quite a fine way to spend two hours . the film opens up in flashback to 1985 , at a high school in cumberland , rhode island . ted stroehmann ( ben stiller ) is a social reject who can't seem to get a date to the upcoming prom , until he comes to the defense of the mentally retarded warren ( w . earl brown ) , who's being harassed by one of the school jocks . it seems warren's sister is the campus queen , mary jensen ( cameron diaz ) , who is impressed with ted's willingness to stand up for her defenseless brother , despite a very real chance of getting beaten up . mary takes an immediate liking to ted and asks him to the prom . ted was just flattered that she even knew his name . unfortunately , prom night is ruined when ted has an accident with his zipper ( at which every man in the theater will wince ) , and is sent to the hospital . fast forward to the present , where ted has cleaned himself up , now writes for a magazine , but has weekly therapy sessions in order to deal with his obsession of the past 13 years : mary , whom he hasn't seen since that fateful day . with the help of his friend dom ( chris elliott ) , ted hires slimy private investigator pat healy ( matt dillon ) to track down his only love . however , when pat finds mary , he falls for her too , and soon the both of them are competing for her affections . there's something about mary is directed by bobby and peter farrelly , who brought us dumb and dumber and kingpin . not exactly intelligent comedies , they are of the guilty pleasure variety where you might not want your friends or co-workers to think you had such a great time watching them . with their current film , the farrelly brothers have come up with something you'll not only enjoy , but also won't mind talking about the next day at the water cooler . the film succeeds in employing a pretty wide range of comedic styles , from the subtle to the ridiculous , and while a few of the gags might be offensive to some ( seeming like residuals from the farrelly brothers' last two films ) they almost all work . i have not seen many movies in the recent past that shoot for the mark and so often hit it dead on . one minute you'll be laughing at something ted says , and the next you'll be howling at the sight of a dog dragging him across the floor of mary's apartment . one of the great things this film has going for it is ben stiller . he is perfectly cast in the role of ted , because he's a guy who just looks awkward in almost every situation . ted's a nice fellow and tries to do his best , but for some reason or another things just don't always work out . it's comical , but also has that kind of appeal where you really feel for the him and want him to come out on top . actually , i've liked stiller since he did a short which aired on saturday night live back in the mid-eighties . the film was like a theatrical trailer for a spoof on the tom cruise/paul newman film the color of money , entitled the hustler of money . in it , stiller played wince ( not vince ) who is taken under the wing of an older man ( played by john mahoney ) to become a big-time bowling hustler . it was parody at its finest , more of which showed up in the short-lived " the ben stiller show " on the fox network in late '92/early '93 . like " the critic " ( which aired on abc , then fox ) , i still mourn that show's cancellation . cameron diaz is absolutely enchanting for most of the film , although her character seems obsessed with perfection in the men she dates , and some of the qualities she looks for make mary look paper-thin at times . however , diaz pulls the role off with such panache and charm , that you can still see why she's got guys just falling over each other to be with her . heck , i even found her laugh to be cute , even though i thought it was annoying during an appearance she made on the tonight show last week . my girlfriend remarked that matt dillon doesn't change , and you know , it's really true . he and ralph macchio must hang out or something . maybe they live in dick clark's pool house . anyway , here's another good piece of casting , as dillon slips beautifully into the role of the guy who tries to worm his way into mary's heart . the supporting performances are also good . chris elliott has a bigger part than in the abyss ( yes , check it out next time ) , and less annoying than in cabin boy . lin shae , who plays mary's neighbor magda ( and also appeared as the landlady in kingpin ) , provides some good laughs , especially in scenes with her benji-like dog , which acts as the focal point for a few of the funniest moments of the film . lee evans , as mary's friend tucker , displays a flexibility in acting and accents which surprises and contributes to an interesting plot twist . the farrelly brothers and scriptwriters ed decter and john j . strauss keep the comedic pacing going so that there aren't any noticeable times where the film drags . the only problem i saw was their use of a couple of musicians who provide segues between several key scenes . they appear out of nowhere and actually sing plot-relevant information right toward the camera . it's a device which was amusing for about three seconds when they opened the film . after that it got a little annoying , and it's unfortunate that those spots interrupt what would otherwise be a smooth flow . fortunately , filled with sight gags , humorous lines , and solid comedic acting , there's something about mary will still have you laughing after you leave the theater .
0	susan granger's review of " session 9 " ( usa films ) sometimes you just get more than your bargained for . . . like when boston-based hazmat elimination , run by scottish actor peter mullan and his trusty assistant , david caruso , assures a town engineer ( paul guilifoyle ) that they can remove insidious asbestos fibers from a victorian hospital facility in a week . erected in 1871 , deserted and decomposing since 1985 , the danvers mental hospital , is one of the most malevolent " locations " ever chosen for a film . the structure is so massive - with its labyrinth of rubble-strewn corridors , collapsing floors , stagnant pools of water , isolation cells , and ominous surgical chambers where experimental pre-frontal lobotomies were performed - that their task seems impossible within that time frame . and each member of their inexperienced crew ( stephan gevedon , brandon sexton iii , and josh lucas ) is coping with his own personal demons as , one by one , their minds seem to be affected by the grim areas in which they're working . the film's title is derived from salvaged reel-to-reel audio-recorded sessions involving the demonic possession of a young woman who is suffering from multiple personalities . by the time session 9 occurs so do dreadful disasters . filmmaker brad anderson obviously envisioned this as a gruesome chainsaw-massacre-type ghost story but the script lacks structure and isn't particularly scary . the conclusion is more ludicrous than convincing . on the granger movie gauge of 1 to 10 , " session 9 " is a dark , gloomy 4 . silly me . . . at first , i thought that the original name of the danvers lunatic asylum bore some reference to mrs . danvers , the creepy housekeeper played by judith anderson in alfred hitchcock's truly terrifying " rebecca " that also involved a cavernous mansion called manderley .
0	it was with a huge lack of something to do that i decided to watch this on good old upn on sunday afternoon , when the only good things on tv are the second-rate movies they show ( some are good : they showed " total recall " before this one ) . if you know me , i think seagal is probably the most boring action star to ever live . and this includes keanu reeves . what do i hate about seagal ? i hate how he uses one facial expression for every single threatening and non-threatening situation ( the squint ) . i hate those scenes in every movie where he goes around , bullying people up , saying stupid lines with a brooklyn accent more fake than burt reynold's hairpiece in " boogie nights . " i despise how he never gets a bruise in any of his fights . i hate how every single plot twist leads to just a melodramatic fight between he and the chief villain . i hate his non-satirical messages ( in the beginning of this one , he slaps on a quote from arthur miller , which has nothing to do with the film , except it's about brooklyn where this film takes place ) . and i hate how he's so narcissistic that he thinks that he can actually fucking sing ( during the end credits , he has a good old hill billy rock tune sung and penned by him ) . sure , the guy's probably a nice guy in person ( i actually found him very non-threatening when he was on letterman not too long ago ) . but the guy makes worse films than reagan did . so what's the plot of this shit-terpiece ? well . . . something about him trying to catch a stupid-ass crook ( william forsythe ) who shot and killed his partner in broad daylight . i couldn't believe how bad this scene was - the guy was conveniently with his family so we get the maximum emotional effect ( ahem ! ) . and forsythe even said some stupid lines to him before he took off . i'm sorry , did anyone ever hear of concealing one's self ? so in comes ex-brooklynite seagal , who dedicates his life to catching this guy . and i just wished he had caught him in the beginning , then ended the film . but noooo , this drags on , as he bullies forsythe's family members ( including a stupid bar-owner , and none other than gina gershon as his other bar-owner sister ) . and forsythe more than once threatens his family . at one point , he actually comes to their house and stalks them like a non-threatening nicholson in " the shining " ( complete with them all hiding in the bathroom , but with an added bonus of one girl conveniently loosing her cool and screaming to give them away ) . seagal paints himself as a lovable person , with a son , and a fiancee . he even shows him hanging with his son , checking up on his homework , and then about to take him out for a bit of " catch , " when he's conveniently called away on assignment . i dunno about you , but playing " catch " with seagal was one of my childhood nightmares . he also shows him as that bad-ass he wants to be , with scenes of him bullying crooks around , and taking out people who are stupid enough to attack him even after he's unarmed a chinese guy swinging bats with a pool cue . serves them right . this film , as some of his do , has an interesting supporting cast of actors who are actually talented , but don't appear to be in this film . i already mentioned gina gershon ( who's pretty horrible in this one ) , as well as william forsythe , who over-acts terribly . i know this guy can act : he was awesome in " raising arizona " as goodman's partner in crime . but he's just awful here . jerry orbach gives the only credible performance in the film as the police chief who checks up on segal after things have gone down . why is he the only one who gives a good performance ? well , because his role is small enough and sporadic enough to not tarnish his credibility . he seems to be in here just to give it a cool " law and order " feeling ( even if it's not a " cool " feeling ) . and in cameos are b-rated erotic-thriller-cinemax-style stars , shannon whirry ( as " terry malloy , " which is more of a bad joke than a clever one ) and athena massey . oh ! and " er " 's julliana margiulles has two scenes . " out for justice " just proves once again that american action films just suck . i know that there's such a good thing as good action - he's called john woo . but if you're in the mood for some good old no-brainer , fun-yet-dumb action , don't bother watching this . it's so stupid that it's boring .
0	ever since wargames , the first real computer hacking movie , hollywood has attempted to produce more and more films about hacking . these films usually show the audience a look into computers that really is not impossible and is usually ridiculous . if it's not this , the exaggeration about what is real is usually greater than you would expect . hackers is guilty of all of these crimes . to anyone familiar with computers and/or the internet , most of the movie is so incredibly stupid that you can't take it anymore . those of you who frequent one of the greatest sites on the world wide web , the internet movie database , are probably aware of the section for movies entitled " goofs " . this is the section for mistakes in the movies . well , imdb sums up hackers extremely well with the first goof listed : " generally ill-informed and ridiculous to the extreme regarding the capabilities of computers and technology " . and truthfully , this is one-hundred percent correct . the plot , obviously , centers around computer hacking . more specifically , it follows the exploits of dade murphy , a young computer hacker played by jonny lee miller . miller should be extremely thankful for the film trainspotting , because if it were not for that , who knows where his career would be now after hackers . the film opens with a young dade murphy being arrested for hacking computer systems . he was forbidden to use a computer until he turned eighteen years old . the film then picks up at that point , an eighteen year old dade murphy hacking away at the computer . dade later meets up with fellow hackers acid burn ( angelina jolie ) , cereal killer ( matthew lillard ) , lord nikon ( laurence mason ) , and the phantom phreak ( renoly santiago ) , who are basically trying to do what is next to impossible : hack the gibson computer and not get caught by the fbi . oh , and as a little sub-plot , dade also tries to woo acid burn , the only female hacker in the film . really , i can't think of much more to say about the film's plot aside from what i've said . it's just a bunch of computer geeks ( no , obsessive compulsive computer geeks a little too advanced for reality ) running around hacking computers and staying away from the fbi . thanks to this movie , the public unfamiliar with computers now has a distorted viewpoint of computers and what they can do . this movie makes computers look a little bit too advanced for their time , and the frivolous suggestions it makes are too many to list . to sum it up , hackers is a terrible computer film . if you're looking for a film about computers closer to what goes on in the real world , i suggest sneakers . although at times it too may seem a little far fetched , it should be much more believable than hackers to regular computer users . hopefully , this film didn't influence too many young computer users out to think they can do what is portrayed in this 105 minute waste of time .
1	" last night " could have an " aka " tagged on the end of it that says , " it's the end of the world , and we feel fine " . " last night " is about just that . the last night of planet earth's existence . the world is going to end at precisely midnight , january 1st , 2000 . how scientists were so accurately able to predict when this catastrophic event would occur is never explained . nor is the event itself . throughout the entire movie , no explanation is given as to why this is happening . in doing this , mckellar ( who also wrote and directed the film ) seems to be trying to transcend the genre . he's attempted to make a film about people , and how each of them deals with their last night of life . the film contains no science fiction elements , which allows the viewer to concentrate on the feelings and actions of the characters . mckellar is largely successful in his attempt to rise above his material . the film is set in toronto , and follows several people in their various escapades on the last night of existence . there's mckellar , who plays a man who just wants to be alone when the moment occurs , but keeps getting interrupted by a woman ( sandra oh ) in search of her husband . her husband , played by david cronenberg , is spending the day working at the gas company , informing people that they will attempt to keep providing gas right up until the end . finally , there's mckellar's friend , played by callum keith rennie , a man who has spent his final months trying out every sexual perversion you can think of . mckellar has crafted a gang of the some of the most interesting characters i've seen in a film in months . these people all felt real to me , especially the character played by sandra oh . we can see her desperation , her utter need to be with her husband in the final hours . rennie is good , too , as the man who wants to literally try everything before he dies . he exudes such charm and likeablity , it's not surprising that we're rooting for him to get what he wants . but for me , the biggest surprise in the movie is mckellar . i knew that he was a talented director , but i had no idea he could act as well . his insistence to be alone , much to the dismay of his parents , is something that most people would find difficult to understand , but as played by mckellar , we can understand his reasons . he doesn't buy into the whole notion that just because everyone's going to die , he should immediately find some companionship . he realizes the relationship would be forced , and they would only be together for the sake of being together . mckellar gives a brilliant performance , and i hope he alternates between directing and acting . my only quibble with the film is that we never find out why the world is ending . i really wanted to know , and my need to know was hanging over the film at all times . i appreciate the fact that mckellar didn't want the material to rule the film , and that he wanted the movie to be more of a study in human behavious . however , in not telling the audience what the cause of earth's destruction is , he's left a big question that is in their minds throughout the film . another problem is we never see anybody panicking . i would imagine if the world was ending , and there was nothing to be done about it , a large segment of the population would be going out of their minds . instead , we are treated to shots of a giant crowd partying like it's new year's eve . i just didn't buy the fact that everyone had completely accepted their fate . no one had the urge to " rage against the dying of the light " . despite these small problems , " last night " is one of the best movies of the year . as opposed to the moronic " armageddon " , " last night " treats the subject at hand with maturity and believabilty . and bruce willis never shows up to save the day .
0	this film is worth seeing for those who want to see what mick jagger looks like when sporting an abe lincoln beard . the rock and roller is asked to carry the film as the action antihero of australian legend . . . ned kelly , the so-called robin hood of the aussies . but he fails to be convincing , in my opinion he is better suited to play gene kelly than ned kelly . the film opens to a b/w prologue of ned kelly bravely going to his execution . then it goes to technicolor and ned is seen in what goes for flashback , coming home from jail after a 3-year sentence to see his mom and reacquaint himself with the large kelly family . this scene is set in 1871 . in the background we hear the booming voice of waylon jennings , as he sings shel silverstein's lyrics , which tells -- of ned's hatred for the british rule and hope for ireland to be a republic . ned says a debt must be paid . . . as he hears voices from his dead father , his class-divided country , and his conscience , all telling him to get revenge . so begins ned's romp through australia's outback , seeking justice for all the wrongs his people have suffered . he begins by stealing horses , after complaining about the unfair tax law on horses that stray , which favors the rich landowners . when he's only 20 he forms a gang , causing him to hide the rest of his life from the police , who put a price on his head of two thousand pounds . when ned's mother ( clarissa kaye ) is jailed on a false charge of abetting criminals and sentenced to 3-5 years , ned offers to surrender in exchange for his mother's freedom . when the authorities refuse , the kelly brothers go on a robbing rampage , burning mortgages of the poor found in postal vaults and murdering some soldiers . rampaging through the outback , they gather sympathy among the poor and lower classes , who don't trust the traps ( police ) . spoiler to follow in the next paragraph . in the climax , kelly and his gang plan to ambush a train with british police , but someone kelly trusted tips the police on the train and kelly is trapped in a saloon and captured . ned's brothers commit suicide rather than be taken alive . but kelly's gang escapes , as ned heroically has the police go after only him and his brothers , as they become decoys . this was a flat presentation , hardly touching an emotional button on what all the fuss was about over ned kelly's call for justice . jagger didn't have a prayer in succeeding in this dry script offered by ian jones and tony richardson . the story failed to focus on australia , seemingly a more british film than australian . under richardson's lackluster direction , all jagger seemed to do , was proclaim his innocence and vow revenge , which soon became a shrill cry . if you want to see a better film about ned kelly , catch " mad dog morgan " ( 76 ) , a much truer and more daring version , with dennis hopper giving a much better characterization of ned kelly's madness , something this film could only do in a ho-hum manner .
0	'bicentennial man' is a family film without any external motive with the exception of providing the minimum dose of entertainment . chris columbus , the director who gave you " mrs . doubtfire " , plays on sentimental strings and mushy dialogue to make his point . based on the short story by isaac asimov , it is supposed to be a science fiction story about a robot who wants to be human , which as you can imagine is very difficult . starting in a not too distant future the film concentrates on a wealthy family that buys an android to help them with the house and children . soon this robot , called andrew ( robin williams ) shows abilities that makes his owner mr . martin ( sam neill ) very curious . andrew is interested in art and music , he " enjoys " making clocks , which clearly shows that he has genuine emotions . it shows out that because of a small failure in the " electrical circuits " and " positronic brain " andrew has accidentally gained a soul . this makes him unique and his evil creators worried . then mr . martin decides to teach andrew all the things he wasn't programmed to do . soon andrew wants to leave the house in pursuit of freedom , destiny and love . this film can be described as a disney version of blade runner , a film that still shines as the biggest gem in the crown of science fiction . ever since that film , the subject of humanity still stands as one big controversy . what makes us human ? the thoughts ? the emotions ? is it possible to become human ? at what point can we say to a robot " now you are one of us " ? these are very tough questions that require a serious and thurral approach . it is obvious that columbus didn't take them very seriously . when you think about it , this film is not really meditating on the question " when is a robot no longer a machine , but a human being ? " , but tells a story about racial discrimination and lack of understanding . andrew is so complex and emotional from the very beginning that the audience immediately accepts him as a human being , and only the society has troubles with it . in other words , it is as far from reality as from the academy awards . further more , there are other annoying problems . to this day no serious filmmaker has dared to speculate about the future in more than 50 years from now . this has not been done for obvious reasons , because the filmmakers are well aware of the fact that they lack the knowledge and imagination to perform such a difficult task . columbus is the first to have crossed that line . the result is , as you might imagine , primitive , unrealistic and incredibly disappointing effort . the world is simply frozen in time . neither the society , fashion , culture or values have changed over 200 years . mom is still working at the kitchen , doing the dishes . when you think back to the late 17th century and then compare it to the world we live in today , you'll see a slightly bigger difference . i am not saying that everything should change . it is unlikely that the human rights will change , but it's even more unlikely that there will not be any progress in science , technology and fashion . i suppose it's possible to watch this as a some sort of bizarre fairytale , but it's really hard . robin williams is hidden behind c and speaking in a robotic way . as always he does a decent job , as does sam neill . but it doesn't really matter . it is the sentimentality and length that turns this picture into a tiresome experience . pretty much like last year's " meet joe black " , this is a primitive and unresolved story which is presented with a splendor and professionalism that it doesn't deserve . great actors and a talented crew have worked hard to achieve something that will be instantly forgotten . when isaac asimov wrote this story , the future seemed far away and magical . everything seemed possible . now is the future of asimov's time , and we know that it is not as magical and perfect as it seemed a long time ago . for the same reasons that the young generation of today can not be amazed by julius verne's " 20 000 leagues under the sea " , so can't we accept this story as a potential reality . let us hope that next year's " a . i . " will be more rewarding .
0	capsule : in 2176 on the planet mars police taking into custody an accused murderer face the title menace . there is a lot of fighting and not a whole lot of story otherwise . john carpenter reprises so many ideas from his previous films , especially assault on precinct 13 , that the new film comes off as his homage to himself . , 0 ( -4 to +4 ) . john carpenter apparently believes that action scenes in which people fight something horrible are the same as horror scenes . for a writer and director of horror films , supposedly an expert on horror , it is a very bad mistake to make . ghosts of mars is called a horror movie , but it is more just a drawn out fight between humans and a surprisingly low-powered alien menace . in addition if anybody but john carpenter had made ghosts of mars , carpenter would have grounds to sue . this film is just chock full of pieces taken from assault on precinct 13 , the thing , and prince of darkness . it is , in fact , surprising that carpenter managed to fit so many pieces of his previous work into this film in such an admittedly novel way . but that still does not make for a really good science fiction experience . ghosts of mars takes place in the year 2176 . mars has been mostly terraformed so that humans can walk on the surface without breathing gear ( which is good for the film's budget ) . it is never mentioned , but the gravity on mars has been increased somehow to earth-normal , again making it easier to film . society has changed a bit by that time , but it has advanced surprisingly little . apparently the culture has changed so that women are much more in positions of control . and from carpenter's view , women have really made a mess of things . society has stagnated under female control so that beyond some minor technological advances society has changed less in 175 years than we might expect it to change in ten . the basic plot of ghosts of mars has much in common with that of assault on precinct 13 except that precinct 9 ( yes , precinct 9 ) has been replaced by a somewhat tacky looking rundown martian mining colony . instead of having the criminal " napolean " wilson , this film has the criminal " desolation " williams . instead of facing hoodlums with automatic weapons the police face , well , ghosts of mars . because the ghosts are somewhat alien in nature they should behave in some alien manner , but they essentially behave as human savages , in another lapse of imagination . the story is told in flashback , flashback within flashback , and flashback within flashback within flashback . ghosts of mars takes place entirely at night and is filmed almost entirely in tones of red , yellow , and black . carpenter manages to give us a powerful opening scene , showing a mining train rushing through the martian night to the sound of music with a heavy beat . sadly what follows is not really up to the buildup . the terror he creates looks a little too much like fugitive wannabes from the rock band kiss . his idea of building suspense is having a bunch of sudden jump scenes that sucker the viewer into thinking something scary is happening and then prove to be just something boring . these are standard haunted house film shock effects that require no great talent to give the audience . somewhat newer but also unimpressive are the cgi digital decapitations in some of the fights . within a short stretch of time we have seen the release of mission to mars , red planet , and ghosts of mars . after mission to mars was panned by too many reviewers it looks better and better and better as time goes by . i rate ghosts of mars a 4 on the 0 to 10 scale and a 0 on the -4 to +4 scale . following the movie i showed my wife , who liked ghosts of mars moderately more than i did , carpenter's classic assault on precinct 13 . her comment is that it was seeing the same film twice .
1	a group of high school kids mix up with a group of hip-hop artists as a documentarian strives to discover why today's youth seem attracted to black culture . the review if black & white , the new film from writer/director james toback , is eventually remembered for only one thing , it will be the revelation that brooke shields , claudia schiffer , marla maples and mike tyson can act . however , this partly improvised gem will be remembered for more than that . black & white is a fascinating film ; it makes a statement about america's youth and hip-hop culture without getting heavy-handed overly serious . featuring a cast of known commodities ( ben stiller , robert downey jr . ) and hot newcomers ( singers bijou phillips ) , toback's is a complex film worth seeing . black & white has multiple storylines that are all related to each other , a la robert altman . there is dean the basketball player ( allan houston ) who is asked to rig games for money by mark clear ( stiller ) in exchange for fifty grand a game . this eventually spills over into the life of dean's long-time friend rich ( power ) , a gangsta who controls 20 city blocks of harlem . rich has to deal with the imminent opening of a white-owned club on his turf . meanwhile , the young white girls who like to hang around with rich and his homies get talked into being in a documentary by sam donager ( shields ) and her gay husband terry ( downey jr . ) . others who make appearances are william lee scott as the young white punk will , joe pantoliano as his district attorney father , jared leto as a high school teacher , marla maples as the mother of one of hip-hop crazed teens , claudia schiffer as dean's girlfriend , and mike tyson as . . . mike tyson . the stories ebb and flow through the film , losing and gaining prominence over time . friendships are lost , lovers are gained , and there is an occasional burst of violence . originally rated nc-17 in the united states , black & white features a lot of sex between black gangstas and young white girls . while the film was trimmed down to a tamer r rating , viewers will wonder what could be more explicit than what they are seeing . the three-way sexual beginning of the film nicely warns viewers of what they are in for , and several audience members got up and left at that point . the frequent sex is one of the film's few flaws as the titillation is overdone and at times completely unrelated to anything else going on in the film . to toback's credit , the level of violence in black & white is almost nil . these gangstas and hip-hop artists are given real problems and concerns , and only become gun-toting crazies when it benefits them to appear that way . whenever a character finds himself on donager's handheld digital camera , he starts spouting off righteous tirades on america and proclaims his independence , but not everyone has fully bought into the idea . charlie ( phillips ) is full of bluster about why she loves hip-hop , but admits that " in ten years time , i'll be way over this . " these youth know they are going through a phase , and are simply enjoying it . toback fills the spaces between these tirades with scenes that are lightweight and funny . most of the humour comes from mike tyson , who provides the film's comic relief without really trying . he is given big words like vernacular to say , and as rich tries to discuss a particular street problem with tyson , he frequently has to ask him to use smaller words and explain himself better , playing on tyson's image as a dimwit . but tyson also gets the film's scariest moment . as he is mercilessly hit upon by the very gay terry , tyson is a marvel to watch as he fights to remain calm . the scene is entirely improvised , with downey jr . being told to just keep at tyson until he gets a reaction . the reaction he gets , being slapped and then choked is astonishing , as downey jr's face turns a frightening shade of purple . black & white is a film about hip-hop culture , and the film's omnipresent hip-hop soundtrack strongly supports this . but toback keeps things from becoming too serious ; by moving from story to story as quickly as he does , toback keeps us from becoming attached to any one character's struggle . thus black & white's message about hip-hop becomes secondary to the film itself . toback just wants us to have fun and maybe learn a little about hip-hop along the way . and we do .
1	i didn't realize how apt the name of this movie was until i called the mpaa ( the motion picture association of america - the folks who decide what's g , nc 17 , pg , r or x ) to ask why the preview was rated r . so that we can make some sense of their response , let me tell you about the movie itself . " the celluloid closet " is a documentary about how homosexuality has been portrayed in the movies over the past several decades . it's brilliant , funny , naughty and extremely poignant . it tore at my heart to watch a gifted lesbian screenwriter explain that , as a rule , gay audiences hunger for any hint of homosexuality on screen . regardless of how veiled - or how sordid - the presence of a gay or lesbian person allows others to lessen their sense of isolation and makes them feel as if they're not quite so invisible as america seems to want them to be . the movie itself is rated r - and for good reason . it contains scenes of bloody , violent gay bashing and graphic , uninhibited , sex . as with any movie , i appreciate knowing about these things ahead of time , so i can decide for myself whether to see the movie with a friend , a date , my 11 year old niece , alone or not at all . but , that's the movie . now back to the preview . prior to this film being theatrically released ( it was originally filmed as a documentary for hbo ) i had seen the coming attractions trailer for it at least six times . there was no nudity , no violence , no bad language , nothing that i could see that would be offensive or inappropriate for a general audience ( okay , whoopi goldberg did refer to someone " boning " someone , but the last i knew that wasn't one of the seven words you can't say on tv ) . except for a scene of two fully clothed men kissing . hmmmmm . when i inquired about the rating on the trailer , a very nice woman at the mpaa quoted from " the handbook " that a trailer approved for all audiences could contain " no homosexuality or lesbianism and no going down on someone . " hello ? i was in the office and it was the middle of the day . bravely , i pursued . " i've seen that trailer , oh . . . probably half a dozen times , " i gulped . . . " and i don't remember that scene . " " well , " she chirped . " it's there . our little eyes are trained to see that . " no really . in the words of dave barry , " i am not making this up . " they are " trained " to " see that ? " when someone who was shocked at the rating the first time and made a note to watch it carefully the following five times or so managed to let it slip past her ? gosh , i certainly don't mean to question the mpaa , or " the handbook " . i would , however , like to suggest that it's they who are in the closet on this one . and the light ain't good in there . but , having seen " the celluloid closet , " and being one of a handful of straight people involved in a primarily gay and lesbian weekly bible study ( email me and i'll give you the details ) , none of this was any big surprise . the point of the movie was that homosexuality , even in the politically correct 90s , is ridiculously perceived as a threat to a mostly heterosexual society . a point well made in this candid and honest film . now , i could go off on the mpaa's ruling that a trailer must contain " no homosexuality or lesbianism " and ask how that is defined , particularly in light of some of the things , both sexual and non-sexual , that i've watched straight people do in trailers . i just don't feel the need to go there , because it seems so obvious . i'll instead suggest that the mpaa re-evaluated their evaluation criteria . let the ratings reflect not subject content , like " sex " and " violence " . let them reflect attitude content . in the future , i'd be interested in knowing whether the movie is rated d for disrespectful or s for stereotyped . then i'd truly be able to make an informed decision about how i spent my time .
0	before the remake of psycho appears , we've got to suffer through this remake of an earlier hitchcock film , dial m for murder . as usual , hollywood has filled it with glitz and big name stars , and it all amounts to a loud sounding nothing . the film opens with emily ( paltrow ) and david ( viggo mortensen ) 'having fun' in an loft apartment . the problem is , paltrow is married to stephen ( douglas ) , who is not too happy when he discovers this affair . if i was paltrow , though , i'd definitely go with mortensen . less wrinkles . anyhow , stephen approaches david with an interesting proposition : he'll pay him to kill his lovely wife . mortensen agrees , but the murder goes awry , and the twists keep on coming as the film progresses . unfortunately , the film dosen't progress very fast . in fact , it moves like a tortoise with arthritis ( read : very , very s-l-o-w . ) the plot moves nowhere fast , and only becomes exciting in very short bursts . not too good for a 'thriller . ' also , the performances , apart from douglas , are below par . paltrow , showing immense talent in se7en ( 1995 ) and sliding doors ( 1997 ) is strangely stilted , even unconvincing , in this movie . mortensen is a little bit better , coming across as a younger douglas , but his role isn't meaty enough to show all his talent . which leaves douglas to waltz away with the film , which is does . however , i doubt douglas finds it very hard to play a stogie smoking , drinking womanizer with a creepy underside . also popping up in the film is david suchet , playing a shifty looking detective . again , it's not a character we're seeing on the screen , it's david suchet . the director , who bought us the fugitive , piles on all the flash techniques , such as zoom-in's , quick cuts , etc . the lighting is also interesting . however , looks can't save this film from the depths of mediocre , and the film seemed to work better in a single set anyway . the screenplay is o . k , but there's some hackneyed sub-plot about douglas being a ruthless player on wall street ( again ) and the ending is surprisingly stupid and cliched . the characters also make incredibly dumb moves , especially paltrow , and stephen appears to lose all intelligence in the last reel . with a combination of no tension , drama , or decent characters , a perfect murder is a failure all round , and an incredible disappointment . there are a few bright moments , but they are far and few between . the last thing a thriller should be is boring , and although the film just barely manages to keep your interest thanks to michael douglas , you wouldn't be missing anything if you decided not to watch a perfect murder . overall rating= review by david wilcock ? 1998 " you know , for kids " - norville barnes
0	over 40 years ago , a japanese production company called toho introduced the land of the rising sun to gojira , a reptilian creature of immense proportions created by mankind's nuclear testing . partly flight of fancy , partly commentary on the exploitation of atomic power and weaponry , gojira emerged from the ocean to terrorize tokyo . a year later , gojira was marketed to the united states by adding three things : a new name , a dubbed english track , and raymond burr . as godzilla , the film took on the rest of the world . thirty years later , toho remade the classic film and once again took it to the american market by adding the same three things ( yes , including raymond burr ) and called it godzilla 1985 . now it's 14 years after toho's remake , and director roland emmerich has allowed the giant lizard to make an american first run . in emmerich's godzilla , matthew broderick plays dr . niko tatopoulos , a biologist who is called in to join other scientists in the south pacific already studying the existence of a radiation-induced super mutant which leaves footprints the size of livingrooms . when the mutant reptile suddenly appears out of the hudson river , tatopoulos and the rest of the team relocate themselves back to the states . meanwhile , tatopoulos's college girlfriend , audrey timmonds ( maria pitillo ) , works in new york city as an assistant to a big-time news reporter . she'd like to be a reporter herself , and when godzilla comes ashore , she figures this is her big break . of course , with the big guy running amok in the city , niko and audrey are bound to cross paths , and are joined by victor " animal " palotti ( hank azaria ) , audrey's trusty cameraman friend , and phillipe roche ( jean reno ) , an operative for the french government , whose nuclear testing started the whole problem in the first place . together they attempt to find and destroy the surprisingly elusive godzilla . with the resources of the most cutting edge special effects houses and the clout of one of the nation's premiere movie production companies , one would think emmerich could make a film truly deserving of the name godzilla . he didn't . right up there with the lost world , godzilla is one of the biggest disappointments in recent cinematic history . the plot is pretty much what we expect : the big dinosaur-like creature comes out of the water and starts smashing new york city , and it's up to our heroes to figure out why this thing is on its rampage and how it can be stopped , while the military makes futile attempts to bring the creature down . the script , however , is painfully bad . it's fraught with lines so corny , they don't even belong in b-movies , and includes many character actions which make you think , " you idiot , " or " you stupid girl . " i suppose when you've got a movie with a giant lizard loose in new york , any other semblance of reality goes out the window as well . why is it that godzilla topples some buildings by merely brushing against them , but is conveniently able to leap atop others ? why do helicopters have to follow godzilla by flying dangerously between buildings where they can lose sight of him , when they could more easily keep track of him by flying a little higher and in a straight line ? why do sidewinder missiles , which have small explosive warheads , blow up entire buildings when they miss godzilla ? why is a mission to bomb madison square garden carried out by three f-18 fighter-bombers , when flights of such aircraft are always comprised of multiples of two ? okay , maybe the last one was a bit nit-picky , but hey , i was on a roll . broderick is usually a good actor , but in this film he's weighed down by an unexciting character and an atrocious screenplay which seem to fight against him every step of the way . hank azaria does what he can , but don't expect to see development of any of the promise he showed in the birdcage . like broderick's , azaria's character is quite simply lacking in color . what really annoyed me was maria pitillo , who actually takes the bad script and makes it worse with her acting . casting must have been asleep on this one . the one bright spot here is jean reno , who oddly enough seems to fit well into a role which is often comedic , quite unlike what we've seem him do in the past . although his character is contradictory to the unfolding disaster , reno brings a style to the role of phillipe which makes him enjoyable . unfortunately , the same cannot be said of the other incongruities . the entire feel of the movie is tongue-in-cheek , and seems to pay comical homage to a dozen or so films that have come before it . this results in a significant amount of parody , which contrasts sharply with the threat of the monster , and ends up just producing a mess . most of the characters seem to be there for comic relief , and almost none are smart enough for the audience to take seriously . although emmerich obviously wanted to make a fun action picture , what good is it to sink millions into a cgi creature whose ferocity is undermined by the humans he threatens ? if we can't take the characters seriously , the threat they face is an empty one because we simply don't care what happens to them . godzilla simply pulls too many punches in its attempt to be a film more light-hearted than it should be . far be it from me to want to see more carnage in the theaters , but here's a behemoth running through the city ! there's bound to be a lot of casualties , but instead godzilla is afflicted with the after-school g . i . joe cartoon syndrome , where almost everyone seems to get out of harm's way just in time . in a couple of scenes , godzilla briefly breathes fire . none of the characters even remark upon this ability , nor is it used to any particular advantage by the filmmakers . it's as if the special effects people just wanted to show that yes , godzilla can do this , just like in the old movie . consider another punch pulled . through creative script writing , you can make a sequel out of just about any movie , but the final scene in this one doesn't just leave the door open , it opens into a hallway leading directly into a room where godzilla ii is waiting patiently . it made me want to gag . emmerich should have done away with 90% of the humor and in-jokes and played this one as a straight action film . with an intelligently written screenplay , godzilla could have been so much more . however , by confusing the viewer with a ton of add-ins and parodies , the movie ends up being something that just doesn't work . now if they only had raymond burr . . . .
1	" . . it's certainly more than just a monster story . . " - kenneth branagh , director/actor/co-writer of mary shelley's frankenstein . kenneth branagh's new motion picture had to compete with all the previous frankenstein-films made throughout the years in almost every part of the world , including the most controversial version of them all - directed by james whale . the dark and stormy nights , the lightning bolts , the charnel houses of spare body parts , the laboratory where victor frankenstein stirs his steaming cauldron of life are effectful . but the center of the film , quieter and more thoughtful , contains the real story . horror-fans will probably be disappointed by the total lack of horror . branagh has instead concentrated on serious issues : morality , philosophy and human elements of the story , and not on old fashioned horror cliches . his version is much closer to the book than all the previous adaptions of the classic novel . the film begins and ends somewhere in the arctic ocean . the year is 1794 . a bold captain is steering his ship through the unknown waters . his gole is to reach the north pole at all costs . as the ice closes around his ship , a figure appears on the horizon . it's a man . exhausted and on the brink of death he approaches the frightening crew . his name is victor frankenstein ( kenneth branagh ) and his story is so terrifying that it will scare everyone from venturing into the unknown . the myserious stranger begins his tale , or more precisely his confession , in geneva , 1773 . he is remembering his childhood and youth . laughter , banquets and parties - a happy life , without troubles or concerns . here victor lived with his father ( ian holm ) , mother ( cherie lunghi ) , his surrogate sister ( helena boham carter ) and his servants in happiness and harmony . this idyllic lifestyle is suddenly changed . like thunder from a quite sky , his mother dies , giving birth to his youngest brother . shocked , baffled and then gradually changed by grief and despair , victor ( already interested in science ) becomes obsessed with death . standing on his mother's grave he says : " oh mother . . you did not have to die . . . no one should ever die . . . i will stop this . . i promiss . . " after proposing marridge to his surrogate sister and promising to return as soon as his studies are finished , victor travels to ingolstadt , in presuite of a medical career . after a while his obsession totally overtakes him as he is working day and night , creating life from death . composing dead bodies , frankenstein wanted to create the perfect man - both physically and mentally . with strong electrical impulses , he managed to breeth life into his creation . the result was ugliness . realizing what he has done , frankenstein tried to undo his work , but it was to late . the creature has escaped . because of the epidemic , frankenstein hoped that his creation has died and returned to his home , making plans for the wedding . for a while everything is as it was before his mother's death . but then one by one his loved once are dying mysteriously . . . whale's picture , although powerful , never managed to capture the total depth of the novel . brannagh has more or less done that . another thing is characters and actors . branagh has developed every character and assembled a magnificent cast . the greatest performances comes from de niro - the monster , that has been played by ( among others ) charles ogle , karloff , lon chaney , bela lugosi , glenn strange , christopher lee , fred gwynne ( as herman munster ) , and now , robert de niro . alone , hated and feared , he is completely aware of his ugliness . at first he is like a helpless , abandoned child , desperately reaching out for love . later when he reads frankenstein's journal , and learns that he is composed of dead bodies , his love turns into rage as he is seeking revenge . he is capable of killing without regret . " i took him by the throughout and lifted him off the ground . . . . and then i slowly crushed his neck . . . and as i killed him , i saw your face . . " that is how he reveals his savage nature to his creator . and yet , he is never quite evil in our eyes and his vaulerbility and his loneliness are palpable : " for the sympathy of one living being i would make peace with all . " rarely has a cinematic interpretation of " the daemon " approached the level of three-dimensionality and humanity with which it is portrayed in the novel . another vital thing is the character of victor frankenstein . in most of the previous adaptions he was simply a mad scientist that trolls the graveyards for corpses and then creates a monster ( god knows why ! ) with the power of an electrical storm . almost no time was granted on his charecter , who is the most important and vital charecter in the novel . here , branagh introduces the character of victor frankenstein , establishes his obsession with the very nature of life and death , sets up the intellectual and ideological conflict between victor and the academic establishment , and somehow manages to build up to a rousing and horrifying creation scene . branagh plays frankenstein with a remarkable understanding of his character . on the outside he is strong , ambitious and talented scientist , but deep down he is unsecure , fragile and vaulerble , constantly haunted by the ghosts from his past . helen boham carter is equally wonderful as frankenstein's surrogate sister , who at the end becomes his wife for a little while , before death drives them apart . the rest of the cast , playing secondary characters , is solid and nothing less than convincing . visually the film is stunning ( especially the makeup ) . the spinning camera , the constantly building-up musical acore , the art direction , the production design , the costumes are all magnificent : from the arctic ocean to the swiss alps and dark forests , to the plague-riddled streets of ingolstadt , mary shelley's frankenstein is a wonder to behold . kenneth branagh directs his film as if the script was written by shakespeare : " . . all i once loved lies in a shallow grave . . . . by my hand . . " . and the film ends exacly as hamlet , when the creature sets both his and his creator's body on fire . the film ends with frankenstein and his creation burning in the almost hellish fire in the darkness . and a terrifying last close-up on the creature's smiling face . can a man create life , then abandon his creation because its appearance horrifies him ? to whom are its actions then attributable : the creature or the being who brought about its existence ? shelley did not answer these questions , but she certainly posed them . following her example , branagh does the same . his film is a tragic saga about playing god . victor frankenstein is not an evil man . he wanted to change the world to the better . in this he represents everything science stands for : acting without doubts , never considering the consequences of his actions . produced by francis ford coppola , frankenstein resembles in some respects coppolas previous film " dracula " . in comparison , i can say that " dracula " has visuals that even " frankenstein " can not live up to . but when it comes to story , characters and casting , " frankenstein " is stronger . but stronger than both of them , on every aspect , is neil jordan's " interview with the vampire " . although the film is not perfect ( the camera that simply refuses to stay still and the occasionally pushy score are at times more tiering than effective ) , these minor faults are easily forgivable , as the picture is otherwise captivating and stimulating . branagh has probably created one of the best ( if not the best ) adaptions of shelly's classic novel .
0	capsule : not as bad a sequel as crow 2 or batman & robin , but still horribly putrid , cheesy and ill-conceived . this one belongs in saturday morning cartoons . . . extended review : you know , about halfway through this movie , i realized that if you hacked out everything except the fight scenes , you'd have a damn fine 35 minutes or so of flashy , hong kong style martial arts . beautifully choreographed by robin shou , who also plays liu kang , the fight scenes are both mind-blowing and graceful , acrobatic enough to make olympic gymnasts weep . this is what made the original so fun , but unfortunately for the sequel , we are without the frenetic directorial style of paul anderson . instead , they got john r . leonetti , the cinematographer for the original mortal kombat . not a good choice . while the fight scenes are brutal and eye-popping , the rest of the movie looks like standard made for tv fare . the acting is sub-par , which i could endure if it were not for a . ) the director's style , b . ) the special effects , & c . ) the treatment of the story and characters . a . ) mr . leonetti should go back to lighting , in my opinion . i could say dozens of bad things about him : he way overuses slow-motion , he has no eye for action , he can't get even mediocre performances out of actors , and so on . but by far his worst move was the way he treated jumping . apparantly , everybody can now fly . hell , i'm all for the occaisional gravity defying flip kick and whatnot , but not when it happens every few minutes , and is done so poorly . better jumping and acrobatics has been seen in xena : warrior princess . in short , they should have gotten paul anderson back . or at least let robin shou direct . . . b . ) unlike the first one , whose sfx were vibrant and somewhat realistic , mk : a's special effects are bland , fake looking , and overall just plain bad . i counted at least half a dozen times that blue-screening was painfully obvious . had this movie been made in the 80's , it would have been ground-breaking . but in today's industry , it doesn't even look finished . c . ) now for the _really_ bad parts . i admit , i'm an avid fan of the mortal kombat series . the games are amusing diversions , an easy way to work off stress and anger . the first movie was a mindlessly fun thrillride . this could have been a really cool movie . it isn't . the writers apparantly deemed it necessary to lower the target audience from teens to preschoolers . some of the plot elements are just plain stupid . how stupid ? take , for instance , how our heroes move around . they use giants spheres the roll around underground , supposedly at thousands of miles per hour . . . oh boy . . . even worse is the treatment of secondary characters . blink and you'll miss 'em . most characters had more depth in the video games . if you thought batman & robin was bad about this , you ain't seen nothin' yet . a good 75% of the characters are introduced , kick somebody around a bit , then either die or are forgotten about . there's no explanation at all for this . and for the final blasphemy , the fight that all the fans were waiting rabidly for , the fight hyped to be the most intricate of the movie , lasted about 3 minutes and then just sort of . . . ended . it almost made me weep . to sum it all up , rent it on video , and fast-forward through everything except the fight scenes .
1	i don't box with kid gloves . i don't play nice , i'm not a nice guy , and i never , ever , go easy on a film . i consider it to be a breech of some sort of code of ethics for a movie critic . however , i do some favors , and these often come in the form of points that i hand to certain groups due to the artistic bravery . rigormortis , the production company that has been my prime example of how money does not need to motivate filmmaking , gets several of these points each time . i still , however , will not go easy on them . they recently sent me a vhs copy of their down with america trilogy ( which begins , quite wittily , with a disclaimer that they are not trying to undermine america with the making of this film . ) and i decided to spend an hour of my day watching it . in the famous lines of many martyrs , i have no regrets . well , i do have some regrets , but that is not the point in the previous sentence . the point of it was that down with america was a film that , from a critical standpoint , did not entirely disappoint me . sure , the risky use of vhs instead of super 8mm or 16mm was a pain , and the natural light was one of the most annoying things about public access films , but the movie itself was fairly enjoyable . down with america concerns a government agent , needless murder , and a book containing everything from the unabomber's manifesto to the 1995 apple computer profit report . like the previous films of rigormortis that i have reviewed , it displays an off-kilter humor and intelligence ? it succeeds in making me laugh where countless studio films fail . the best way to see this film would be as a parody of the countless conspiracy films that we have been drowned in since the paranoia of the 80s . a dying movement from the day they started , these paranoid `thrillers' had the government always covering up something and had the same favorite word : `roswell . ' in down with america , the line `roswell' is highly absent . with an about ten minute running time , down with america effortlessly sidesteps every clich ? that the conspiracy films fell into , makes jokes at them at the same time , and provides us with funny and memorable characters . again , i have seen movies that have gone on two hours with characters i couldn't care less about . the film , as previously stated , concerns a federal agent ( peter roach ) , an obsessed librarian ( meri stevens ) , a mystery man ( joe kaczkowski ) , and two people obsessed with silence in the library ( robb sherman , kevin flowers ) . the plot : a book containing the secrets of all anarchists is hidden in ? a public library where it can be viewed by all . from there we go into a delightful parody . the federal agent claims his sovereign right to alter the truth , the librarian goes on a diatribe about the sanctity of books . we spend our time laughing at fairly idiotic jokes that are performed much too well considering the lack of coaching of the cast . although the actors and actresses are in small roles and give a whole new meaning to `no-name' , it ends up being the no-name people who do a good job , delivering better performances as comic villains than half the crap that hollywood turns out . for once , i don't have a url that i know offhand to give you as to where to locate the film online . i can only say that you should find my previous reviews of l'auto and les x-files and look up the rigormortis productions site in and of itself . it's almost as much fun as the film .
0	jet li busted onto the american action movie scene , when he stole the show in 1998's lethal weapon 4 , with his wicked looks , his nasty moves and his undeniable charisma . it only took another two years for mega-producer joel silver to set him up in an all-american movie , primed to take over some of the empty action-hero seats left by alleged coke-head van damme and that pudgy guy named steven seagal . would this film take li past his rival asian action counterparts , namely chow yun-fat and jackie chan ? let's find out . plot : rival chinese and black gangster organizations fall further out of favor from one another , when members of their respective families start turning up dead . that's when badass jet li blasts into the picture to find out who the men were behind his brother's death and to exact some of his own style of revenge . critique : three words : not enough action ! simple enough ? not enough hong kong kickass jet li action to compensate for a horribly predictable screenplay , bad actors , crappy dialogue and oh-so many over-the-top melodramatic moments . and a romance angle ? why , one must ask . . . why ? i love fight scenes and i really dig jet li too , but this little ditty barely contained three memorable action sequences , and jet , well , the poor dude was barely in the movie . and i thought this was supposed to be his big break ? how 'bout giving the slickster some more opportunities to show us his kung-fu fighting chops , slap him in a few more scenes , and give him more chances to practice his acting/english abilities ? what a letdown . even black mask was more entertaining than this glossed up , empty shell of a film . in fact , i am sure that more time was spent gathering the " hits " for the soundtrack of this film , than were on the so-called " screenplay " . i felt like i was watching a soundtrack rather than a movie most of the time . the sad part about the bad script is that it wouldn't matter so much if the film actually had some decent actors spouting out the tacky lines . but no , save lindo and aaliyah , who weren't too shabby , i thought the rest of the cast was picked primarily from their inability to deliver lines convincingly . and what was the deal with the whole nfl franchise deal run by some 15-year old looking guy , acting like he's the overlord of a drug ring ? ! what a mess . then again , i don't want it to seem like i'm complaining solely about the story which was completely foreseeable , since we all go to see these movies for the action anyway , not the story . well , i guess that's what disappointed me the most out of this film . there were a couple of cool fight scenes with li , but simply not enough to satisfy my overall craving . also , as much as i love the way they incorporate wires and special effects in some of their stunts , a couple of the exaggerated fight scenes were simply too obvious a stunt . it should be seamless , fellas , not necessarily against the laws of gravity ! the one cool thing that was original in the movie was the way in which the director showed us some of the inside cracklings of the human body when penetrated by a blow , but that simple creative touch couldn't save the rest of this film's uninteresting plot movements . i'm disappointed for jet li that this film didn't give him the real opportunity to star in a good story with many great action scenes . hopefully , the next time will be a charm for this charismatic actor . for now , i just hope that for his sake , the film's title isn't a premonition of the movie's ultimate fate at the box-office .
1	hollywood has really done the whole dracula thing to death ( no pun intended - honest ) . it's a shame , too , because the good count was probably the most frightening out the old b-movie monsters . i mean , come on . are people really going to get that scared over a big green guy named frankenstein that moves at a speed of five miles per hour ? hell no . and not only was the idea of a vampire frightening as hell , but it also carried with it a kind of sensual feeling as well , not commonly associated with horror films . and not only has the idea been done too many times , but with the possible exception of from dusk 'till dawn , has not been done very well lately , either . this is precisely why it was so much fun for me watching the original nosferatu . i got to go back to the times when making movies ( even horror movies ) was considered an art form , and not just done to make cash like nowadays . and that is exactly what this film is ; art . i've been a horror fan since i was eight years old , and to this day i have not seen any horror film cover the intellectual ground that this film covers . let me backtrack a minute . when i say " intellectual ground " , i don't mean that nosferatu tackles philosophical questions or anything like that , i just mean that in order for the film to work the way it was intended to , a little bit of thinking is involved . with most modern slasher movies like friday the 13th and what-not , you can just simply sit back in your chair and be frightened by the gore that is shown . those movies could have been made by a fifth grader with a good makeup kit ; movies like this require the viewer to actually pay attention and ponder what is happening on the screen . you see , this movie has barely any violence in it and even less blood or gore . this is a thinking man's slasher flick . the " nosferatu " of the title is orlock ( max shreck ) , a strange , hermit-like count that , as the film opens , is looking for a new home to buy . he employs the help of hutter ( gustav von wangenhein ) , a real estate salesman ( or something to that effect ) who has a nice home and even a fiancee named ellen ( greta schroeder ) . upon orders from his boss , hutter treks to the transylvanian mountains to visit orlock's castle and speak to him about his new home ( which just happens to be right next door to hutter's ) . the next morning , he wakes up to find teeth marks on his neck . . . not really a good sign . he then discovers through some reading that the count is a " nosferatu " , or vampire , one of the undead that feeds off the blood of living humans . but by the time he pieces this together , he is too late ; orlock has already embarked to hutter's hometown via boat . will hutter reach his destination in time to save his fiancee from the deadly clutches of count orlock ? the character of orlock is , of course , dracula . the only only reason his name was changed was because this was an unauthorized account of bram strocker's novel . just thought that was an interesting little side note . . . probably the only way you will get to see this fine film is by purchasing a copy of arrow entertainment's digitally restored cut , now available in stores . however , this version is quite different than maunau's original masterpiece . the movie is now sporting a new soundtrack by band type o-negative and color tinting , much like the 1984 version of lang's metropolis . now , i really appreciate what arrow entertainment is trying to do here , bringing a classic like this to the attention of a wider audience that might have otherwise just skipped this one . but alas , i like watching movies the way they were originally intended to be seen . but that's just my bag ; you may like the newer , more " modern " version better . either way , i suggest investing your money in a copy . if you like what they have done with it , pop it in the vcr and enjoy . if you're like me , just do what i'll do during future viewings ; turn the color all the way down on your television , hit mute , turn on some bach or mozart or whatever , dim the lights and prepare to view what is truly one of the greatest films ever made .
1	most movies seem to release a third movie just so it can be called a trilogy . rocky iii seems to kind of fit in that category , but manages to be slightly unique . the rocky formula of " rocky loses fight/rocky trains/rocky wins fight " is carried out to the letter . also the 'tradition' of showing the last five minutes or so from the past rocky film is used as well . this movie begins with a series of clips showing how famous rocky ( sylvester stallone ) has become . . . even showing a brief appearance on sesame street ! ! then it moves on with rocky being in a fixed fight with thunderlips ( hulk hogan ) . a mysterious bad-ass known as clubber lang ( mr . t ) trash-talks to rocky about his stupid decision to retire from boxing and that he " pities the fool " for not coming out and fighting him outright . rocky's trainer ( burgess meredith ) tells rocky not to fight , but the italian stallion doesn't listen . naturally , he gets his ass kicked . somewhere along the line after this several things happen . rocky's longtime trainer dies , causing rocky to train with his former opponent apollo creed . rocky's wife complains to her husband that he should fight . the final fight ensues between clubber and rocky . guess who wins ? the winner's name rhymes with 'smocky' . the movie is entertaning mainly because of clubber lang's over the top performance . the dramatic aspect has been toned down considerably since rocky ii and now action seems to be the strong point of the film . which is good if you like fighting scenes . the last match is quite decent actually . if you liked the previous films , rent this one . it's well worth seeing if you are a fan of the series . but if you can't stand rocky shouting " adrianne ! ! ! " one more time , see something else .
1	is jimmy stewart the greatest actor of all-time ? it's quite possible . his career spanned over 40 years , and he acted in more movies than most actors ever could . yet , when he is talked about in the media , he is generally thought of as an actor who played one type of role : the nice guy . and that's really a shame . " the naked spur " features jimmy stewart in a role completely different than what people would expect from him . it's a western , which stewart specialized in around this period , and it casts him as a desperate man out to collect a bounty on a man who used to be his friend . before he finds that man , though , he runs into two men who agree to help him , thinking he is a sheriff . when the criminal is eventually caught , the two men discover stewart's secret , and decide they want a piece of the action too . the rest of the film is a suspenseful journey in which each man suspects the other constantly . also featured is the woman travelling with the criminal , well played by janet leigh . we're never too sure who's side she's really on until the end . leigh is an actress probably best known for her role as the " shower lady " from " psycho " , and that's unfair . she gives a strong performance as a woman who is pulled between these two men . stewart gives a performance unlike anything i've ever seen from him . he usually keeps cool no matter what occurs , but here , he gets downright hysterical at times . i think perhaps he took this role to prove to the public that he was more than just a " nice guy " . his performance borders on psychotic at times , but i loved watching every second of it . it's roles like this one that make me admire him as much as i do . he was an actor unafraid to take chances , and even ruin his public image .
0	a suave , cool , collected , rich , uptight bad guy = cliche . a clumsy criminal oaf to add to the laughs = cliche . a bad guy who owns a wild animal = cliche . a crooked , chauvinistic law enforcer type = cliche . at an intense moment , our main character tries to get away , but the car has trouble starting = cliche . complaining about cliches = cliche . ok , ok . so we always hear about cliches . but if there was ever to be a prime example , the real mccoy is it ! not one uttered word , not one frame of film , not one character in this whole movie isn't a cut and paste example of everything we've ever seen . they might as well use this as a training film : " how to make a bank robbery film in the 90's " . karen mccoy ( kim basinger ) is a bank robber who just got out on parole after a six-year stay at the state prison . she wants to make things right and go straight , especially with the fact that she has a six-year old son out there who doesn't even know she's alive . aware of mccoy's bank robbing expertise , sniveling bad guy jack schmidt ( terence stamp ) uses the same six-year old to coerce mccoy into returning to her past . he wants mccoy to pull off an elaborate heist of 18+ million dollars at the same bank she got caught trying to rob six years earlier , which , by the way , is somehow due to schmidt . and if she refuses ? who knows what he'll do to the kid . ( cue sinister laughter ) this movie is so pathetically pitiful that it's hard to know where to begin . the aforementioned cliches are brutally abundant . i can't stress enough how every single element , whether it be a character , the dialogue , a plot " twist " , etc . , is so damn generic that you'll wonder if * anyone * is working behind the scenes , let alone in front of the camera . basinger is absolutely vacant . and where do they get off trying to make us emotionally attached to her ? here's someone that spent their time robbing banks , and now as she heads onto the street , we're supposed to feel sorry for her . as she confronts her son , who doesn't even know who she is , are we supposed to break into tears ? ? especially when neither basinger nor zach english , who plays the kid , has any depth or emotional-radiance whatsoever . i suppose i should mention val kilmer . yeah , that's right - he's in it ! quite sadly too , seeing as how i can discuss everything about the movie and never mention his name . and he got second billing ! to be fair , i will admit that kilmer had potential in his role as the bumbling criminal wannabe j . t . barker . unfortunately the script doesn't allow much room for improvement , and when his character is used like bookends ( he never shows up in the middle of the film ! ) , we have no time to appreciate what he might have brought to this project . the real mccoy just can't keep it's head above water , and soon , * very * soon , sinks into a cliched mess of movie . the actors are like dummies being moved about by an unenthusiastic puppeteer , and the dialogue , particularly schmidt's trite dialogue , falls like the niagra . this is definitely one to avoid , folks . the real mccoy is anything but !
1	( dimension films , " scream 2 " 's distributor , has asked press to say extremely little -- if anything -- about the film's twisty plot . that's no easy task considering the wit that deserves to be mentioned here , but i will do my best to be vague ( now , there's a first ) . ) " the first one was [good] , but all the rest sucked , " said a cinematically-savvy teen in last winter's wes craven thriller " scream , " her statement referring to the films of the " nightmare on elm street " series but really putting down franchise overkill in general . the comment certainly carries clout : for every truly great sequel , there appears to be a couple of duds , making one wonder if writers are better off sticking solely with fresh ideas . but like it or not , along comes " scream 2 . " and believe it or not , it's a doozy -- a slick , sinister , madly subversive good time at the movies , as intent on sending up hollywood's sequel syndrome as much as its prequel poked fun at slasher conventions . " scream 2 " is definitely that rare movie thing -- a follow-up that can stand along side its original with pride . it's been two years since a pair of overzealous horror movie fans clad in edvard munch-esque get-ups carved their way through the young populace of woodsboro , california . those surviving the ordeal have gotten on with their lives . plucky heroine sidney prescott ( neve campbell ) is a drama student at the midwestern windsor college ; her pop culture-whiz pal randy meeks ( jamie kennedy ) has tagged along . trash tabloid reporter gale weathers ( courteney cox ) has written a best-seller based on their ordeal , the basis of which has been turned into a ( very bad ) movie called " stab . " and dewey riley ( david arquette ) , still suffering from wounds inflicted during " scream , " has left his job as a police officer for a while . life is tranquil . . . at least for a while . several sudden murders bring sidney , randy , gale and dewey together again , but with suspicious eyes cast on each other and most of those in their surroundings -- if these four people learned anything from the past , it's to trust no one . thus , the possible victim/potential killer list includes said quartet , as well as : derek ( jerry o'connell ) , sidney's new beau ; cici ( sara michelle gellar ) , a chatty sorority gal ; joel ( duane martin ) , gale's cameraman who's not too thrilled with her blood-soaked past ; hallie ( elise neal ) , sidney's sassy roommate ; debbie ( laurie metcalf ) , a local reporter who gives gale some not-too-friendly competition ; and mickey ( timothy olyphant ) , randy's good friend and fellow film student . cotton weary ( liev schreiber ) , the man sidney wrongly accused of her mother's murder in scream , also shows up on campus -- but why ? like the first scream , craven and screenwriter kevin williamson inaugurate things with a bang . this time , it's an extended sequence that finds an african-american couple ( jada pinkett and omar epps ) attending a sneak preview of " stab , " making sly references about everything from sandra bullock to the lunchmeat non-roles of blacks in slasher cinema . before tragedy ensues at the screening , the movie-within-a-movie setup allows for plenty of jokey moments , including a scene from " stab " which turns scream's now-famous drew barrymore prologue on its ear . ( " b---- , hang up the phone and star-69 his a-- ! " pinkett yells at the screen . ) it's funny , creepy stuff ( i don't think i'll ever feel safe in a movie theater again ) that effectively foreshadows the ratio of smart scares and spoofy laughs down the road . another flawless example of this is a riotous cell phone-assault of the killer on randy , dewey and gale in broad daylight ; it builds comedically and ends with genuine terror because of the emotional investment made on these delicious characters . there are other superb set pieces , but explaining them risks ruining their effect . there are more players this time around as to provide both a higher number suspects and a staggering body count . it's something of a trade-in -- the new characters are too large in number to be as fully-developed as the original " scream " gang , but this movie packs in knowing performances ( especially by kennedy and cox ) and more death for your dollar . it can be argued that , while the original might outclass it by a tad , scream 2 is both scarier and funnier . it certainly doesn't skimp with shocks -- a major one being the killing of one cast member very near and dear to my heart ( i actually questioned craven and williamson's judgment here , considering how much this person has added to these films ) . sometimes you wish that more could have been done with stab -- the two scenes we're shown are dead-on -- but for film fans , there are plenty of subtle nods to movies like " the usual suspects , " " aliens " and " the empire strikes back . " still , " scream 2 " does so many things right , it's petty to quibble . its penchant for parody is irresistible , discussions of the merits of film sequels and all . the attractive , solid cast is a definite bonus . and the denouement ( while not as shocking as " scream " 's ) is priceless ; the film's final revelation incorporates bits of a particular horror film prominently referred to in " scream " with one of the best bad guy motives ever put on paper . all this and a " scream 3 " is in the works . knowing the series' tendency for self-reference , perhaps one of its characters will again discuss the concept of sequel justice . mentioning " scream 2 " 'll help them in their argument .
0	" first rule of fight club is , don't talk about fight club . " this quote deals directly with my opinion of this film , because quite frankly , it's not even worth mentioning . director david fincher ( seven ) has completely gone over the edge . with crude humor , an intolerable script and 2 hours and 19 minutes of pure torture , i'm surprised i didn't walk out . this just goes to show that hype kills . it's very rare that a film so hyped up as " fight club " turns out to be noteworthy , and this is no exception . the story goes like this . edward norton is an insomniac trying to enlighten his dull life by going to a variety of disease therapy sessions , until he meets marla ( helena bonham carter ) . norton claims that she is wrecking his pleasurable lifestyle , when he spots her at a session that he also attended . apparently the disease sessions help them see what life is like , literally living in pain . why any person would think of such a thing is beyond me , but things do get worse . norton is soon assigned to a job that calls for traveling , and it's on a plane that he meets tyler durden ( brad pitt ) . the two men develop a bond , and go out to a bar , and by golly after they get drunk , the two pitiful characters fight . how do they come up with this stuff ? anyway , their fighting catches other pathetic loser's attention , and a club is formed . out of all this mess , there manages to lie a message . fincher shows us that society is like robots . we work in our jobs doing things step by step , and want out . our insanity gets to our brain and makes things worse than they really are , and we blame it on others . call me crazy , but this is common knowledge . i think fincher was acting as if the film is moodier and more poignant than it really is , which is probably one of the reasons it fails miserably . even with two good actors , and a solid actress , they only manage to weaken the story . i couldn't help but hide my face in shame when norton beats himself up into a bloody pulp . it just shows how desperate the script is for attention . i guess brad pitt was right for this role , because i felt like beating him up myself . his bothersome and depressing character , made me disgusted at his 20 million fee . it only showed me that he was in it for the money and nothing more . helena bonham carter however really had no purpose . she just popped up on screen , mumbled some lines , smoked and left . this continues for what seems like 6 hours . the film drags on and my headache gets bigger , while " fight club " nears what i think might be the end . unfortunately by then , the film hits rock bottom . though the conclusion kept my interest for a mere 5 minutes , it backs down again and continues to move at a snails pace . on a side note , the trailer shows the only redeeming elements of the film , that coincidentally lasts the same amount of time that they did on the trailer . fincher will hopefully regret making this film or at least learn a lesson . concentrating on the atmosphere or a particular key moment , won't do any good if everything else is in need of support . also , i'm afraid that immature men might respond to the film's violence . the last thing the world needs is people praising a leader of a pointless cult . when the film ends , i'm just glad to get home and take some advil . you'll either enjoy what the film has to offer , or agree with ed norton when he says " this is so f * * * ing stupid . "
1	of circumcision , psychic wounds and the family sitcom the opening segment is something of a foretaste of this film . there's a guy's voice telling us how he tries to imagine what his biological parents look like , and on the screen we see images of a variety of oldish men and women . as his imagination plays o n , he ( and we ) picture these motley characters in a mix-and-match shuffle of unlikely marriages , businesswomen with bums , matrons with paint salesmen , the images coming on in a faster and faster frenzy . it's not just a witty , funny summing up of the film 's themes - you might not guess it yet , but it sets the pattern for the way the story goes on . what starts out as a step in a fairly sensible direction , gets taken on a road trip , put through a detour or two and finds itself freewheeling towards an immin ent crash . that may not sound so different from the average family sitcom , and the general idea of the film doesn't , at first , seem so wildly distant from standard-issue hollywood comedy : man who was adopted as a child ( ben still er ) sets out on a journey to meet his real parents , along with his wife ( patricia arquette ) , his baby , and a pretty psychology-researcher ( tea leoni ) in tow . various mix-ups , shenanigans , oddball characters and , yup , disasters follow . but if you think you've been here before , the dialogue and the direction ( by david o . russell , who made spanking the monkey ) take it into another dimension . the dreaded t-name seems an inevitable reference point ( what with a drug overdose scene and the casting of arquette from true romance ) but really the point is that the foot-massage master hasn't got a monopoly on plot twists and fast , funny , irreverent lines , or on the absurdities of ordinary speech . whether it's about circumcision , psychic wounds , oral sex , carjacking , the beauties of the armpit area , or ronald reagan , the script never seems to run out of hilarious invention . the best thing is how these words aren't just there for the punchlines , but are great precisely because they're said in character , like tea leoni's neurotically-charged psychobabbler who's able to say under assault , " it's understandable if you find this threatening " . the cast is excellent throughout , and , rather than singling out anybody , kudos are due to the fine ensemble acting , with the sometimes frenetically overlapping dialogue and the sense of a dozen different reagents colliding to the point of fission . there are some elements of a woody allen film in this ( not to mention the hand-held camera and loose , improvisational feel of some scenes ) . like allen , russell's interests are in the volatile sexual politics of couples and the neurotic obsessions in both pare nts and children ( and everybody , really ) . still , if you're expecting a privileged moment of revelation and emotional outpouring a la " murphy brown " / " frasier " / fill-in-the-blank-american-comedy , well , it won't happen . the film sets up expectations like these , with the lead character's search f or his origins and his hopes of self-healing , only to knock them down . if the conventional sitcom structure is to put a slightly loopy family in catastrophic conditions only to rediscover their essential lovey one-ness , flirting with disaster's charact ers embark on a journey to seek that essential state but find themselves only plunging into more weirdness and dysfunctional chaos the further they go . and that , the film suggests , is the essential family state - and you better learn to love it . somehow , this is perversely feelgood cinema , right up to its manic end .
1	in october of 1962 the united states found itself on the brink of nuclear holocaust when u2 spy plane fly-overs of cuba revealed that the soviet union was actively deploying and installing medium range ballistic missiles 90 miles from the us . president john kennedy ( bruce greenwood ) and his staff must face this major threat to world peace and stop soviet expansionism in director roger donaldson's dramatic recreation of the most dangerous crisis in american history in " thirteen days . " one of the highlights to come out of made-for-tv movies was a 1974 entry called " missiles of october " that also recreated the historic event that almost embroiled the us , ussr and the world in an all out nuclear showdown . that teleplay , starring william devane and martin sheen as john and bobby , showed the political tensions of the period that brought to the fore the danger the world faced in those two weeks in 1962 . now , a quarter of a century after the landmark tv movie , director roger donaldson and producer kevin costner team together again ( the last time was for the taught spy thriller " no way out " ) to re-enact the events of that most dangerous time in america's and the world's history . taken from the viewpoint of special assistant to the president kenneth p . o'donnell ( costner ) , donaldson and crew recreate that volatile event , once again , as the country is plunged into what could have been total nuclear war . as o'donnell gets ready to head to work one october morning , he deals with the usual family crises and problems . meanwhile , a u2 spy plane photo mission over cuba has produced some startling images - medium range nuclear missiles in the first stage of deployment . suddenly , ken's routine day switches into crisis mode as the president and his key advisor bobby begin to muster the considerable forces of the us military to face the soviet threat . where " thirteen days " differs most from " missiles of october " is , as expected , in the scope of the project . there is a big difference , budget-wise , between making a television docudrama and one that goes to the big screen . it shows as the makers of " thirteen days " craft a recreation of the cuban missile crisis that encompasses not only the political intrigue within the white house , it also depicts the events that took place as america girds itself for nuclear confrontation . the cast , a true ensemble , is led , surprisingly , by bruce greenwood as jfk and not by kevin costner . costner's o'donnell represents the family guy thing as the drama of the crisis has its impact on him and his family . this puts a personal spin on the film as we see both the crisis and america's preparation for war and the pressure it brings to bear on those in the know . kenny reassures his wife and kids that all will be okay and they will be safe , but he knows that , if the crisis comes to a head , his family will be no more . the meat of " thirteen days " is in the big picture , not the microcosm of family , though . this is where the film stands out as we see the workings of our government on the highest levels . the story does not just cover the face-off between the world's two most powerful countries ; it also depicts the animosity between the president and the military/cia . the disaster of the bay of pigs invasion the year before left a distrustful taste in the mouths of the generals and admirals who blame the kennedys for not backing the cuban expatriates fighting fidel castro . the missile crisis becomes a struggle for power as the army/navy/air force want to flex their might and invade cuba , while jfk wants to end the confrontation peaceably but with america's dignity and world leadership intact . while the internal battle for power rages in the white house , with air force chief curtis lemay ( kevin conway ) advising the president to bomb cuba into the stone age , our armed forces are set into motion to stop the soviets with a blockade of offensive weapons to cuba . this is where the political intrigues of high office are replaced by exciting action . when the first confrontation takes place between a us warship and a soviet freighter , the tension is palpable . the most involving action sequence takes place late in the game as another u2 is sent up to shoot some snaps of the buildup and the fully prepared soviet forces launch an anti-aircraft attack on the hapless pilot of the spy plane . this is a sweaty palm sequence to say the least , making you squirm in your seat as you try to help the pilot avoid those missiles . the ensemble cast places greenwood as the first among equals with like weight given to all the principle players . greenwood does not play act at being a caricature of jfk , foregoing the typical kennedy boston accent . instead , he plays the man as a powerful figure who has to maintain the dignity of the office , directing his subordinates but giving them the latitude to make clear all of his options . kennedy used this decision by committee method to good effect as his senior staff uncovers all the options available to the president . costner , as ken o'donnell , is really a supporting cast member as a kennedy crony brought on board as a personal political favor . costner plays o'donnell as if he crammed on old jfk speeches with a forced kennedyesque twang to his speech . the rest of the players are first rate from start to finish with steven culp looking and sounding just like robert kennedy . the rest of the familiar players in this drama are uniformly well cast , too . standing out are michael fairman as the beleaguered us ambassador to the un , adlai stevenson , who was forced to become the challenging voice of the united states in the united nations and i remember the confrontation vividly . the filmmakers capture the accusations laid down by stevenson with accuracy , using old style video footage to good effect . dylan baker has the look and feel of the intelligentsia as the brainy secretary of defense robert mcnamara . kevin conway gives his general lemay the right " bomb them to hell " attitude . also notable is christopher lawford as navy pilot william ecker who , with his wingman , takes on the dangerous mission of a low-level photo recon into the heart of cuba , bravely challenging kenny o'donnell's admonition , " don' get shot . " tech credits are superb across the board with an admirable depiction of the us armed forces being placed on a war footing . it's an impressive production with the careful use of period aircraft and ships that gives the film a veracity fitting the event . solid costuming by isis mussenden is subtle but has the look of the kennedys . there is the usual array of vintage cars from the period to make things look right . the special f/x of the u2 sequences are a nice crafting of computer imaging . the cuban missile crisis is probably the most intense two weeks that the united states has ever faced in its survival as a world leader . helmer donaldson and his fine crew and cast have given the depiction of this crucial event with the care and attention to details that make this one of the finest docudramas of the year . i give " thirteen days " an a- .
1	film adaptation of hunter s . thompson's infamous semi-autobiographical hallucinogen-fueled book of the same title . director terry gilliam of twelve monkeys ( 8/10 ) and brazil ( 7/10 ) fame , took over the helm of this project after fellow director alex cox ( sid and nancy ( 7 . 5/10 ) ) " apparently alienated everyone associated with the movie " , according to gilliam . plot : writer thompson ( depp ) heads down to las vegas with his attorney dr . gonzo ( del toro ) to cover a motorcycle race . during their trip , they systematically consume " two bags of grass , seventy-five pellets of mescaline , five sheets of high powered blotter acid , a salt shaker half-full of cocaine , a whole galaxy of multi-colored uppers , downers , screamers , laughers , a quart of tequila , a quart of rum , a case of beer , a pint of raw ether and two dozen amyls . the movie presents us with the results of that heavy drug use . critique : i have given this movie two separate ratings because i believe that the enjoyment of this psychedelic picture is highly correlated with the amount of drugs or alcohol that would be floating around in the viewer's own mind , whilst inhaling this cinematic vision of excess . if you are prepared to get high or intoxicated before watching this film , i would say that this is one picture that you will thoroughly enjoy on a multitude of colorful levels . if , on the other hand , you decide to stray from the addition of nefarious elements to your system , i could not imagine you truly appreciating much of this drug-induced picture's entire ride ( 5 . 5/10 for all those sober dogs ) . note : i have not read thompson's book . having said that , joblo did engage in an alcohol-based consumatory session before ( and during ) the viewing of this film , so his critique of the film should be appreciated on that level . this movie relies heavily on style and peculiar humour , rather than substance or plot . it moves admirably from one scene to the next , without much basis of their being , while presenting us with the two days in the life of writer hunter s . thompson during which he seemed to consume more drugs and alcohol than anyone could ever imagine . it was 1971 , and the times were apparently " a' changing " in the states . johnny depp chews into his role like an overgrown child sucking on a chocolate lollipop . during the filming , depp apparently become fast friends with real-life writer thompson , and was known to wander off the set from time to time , for the sake of checking out the newest barmaid at the local watering hole . i thought he did seem to exaggerate his walk a little bit too much , but then again , this movie is supposed to be a wild exaggeration of everything and anything , so who am i to talk . the one thing that did blow my mind was the actual physical transformation endured by actor benicio del toro for his role as dr . gonzo . i couldn't believe that this fat , samoan lawyer , was the same guy who played the slick mumbling criminal in the usual suspects ( 7 . 5/10 ) . word on the street is that gained over 40 pounds for this role , and i must say that his look was deliciously reprehensible . plenty of cameos also pepper this kaleidoscopic moving picture in the form of ellen barkin , christina ricci , tobey maguire and cameron diaz , along with a bunch of others . other than that , the soundtrack was expectedly eclectic , the style was not as wild as i thought it would be , and the ending was certainly not much of a barn-burner , but then again , who really noticed . this movie is about visions of bats floating through your head , johnny depp looking goofy and being bald , and the cornucopia of drug-ravaged scenes filling your own intoxicated system with ideas of anarchy , rebellion and the lost american dream . and for all those who plan on seeing this movie without the partnership of a mean drink or a mighty doobie , i suggest you move further down the aisle , buy yourself a ticket to godzilla ( 6/10 ) , and enjoy the visual fabrications manufactured for the unstimulated mind . little known facts : depp and del toro snorted plenty of powdered milk instead of cocaine . bill murray also portrayed a thompson-based character in the film where the buffalo roam . johnny depp turned down roles in the three musketeers , speed ( 7 . 5/10 ) , and legends of the fall ( 7 . 5/10 ) , for smaller and quirkier roles in benny and joon ( 6 . 5/10 ) and what's eating gilbert grape ? ( 7/10 ) . in 1988 , depp told rolling stone magazine that he'd tried every drug by the age of 14 . johnny hung out with some of the members of oasis while filming the uncompleted divine rapture in ireland , and later played some slide guitar on the 1997 album , be here now . johnny was born in kentucky , is a high-school dropout , has nicknamed himself " mr . stench " , has been engaged to four women until now ( including actress winona ryder , whose " winona forever " tattoo had to be altered to " wino forever " after their breakup ) , currently plays guitar in a band called " p " , and owns the viper room nightclub in l . a .
1	you don't want to be like mike . mike has been doing badly . embarrassingly bad . he broke up a six-year relationship six months ago to move from n . y . to l . a . and he's still not over her . as a result , his jokes fall flat when he tries to impress , and he's a comedian . well , an unemployed comedian , one of hollywood's little fish , and it has gotten so bad he's asked for an application at starbuck's . actually , the starbuck's thing gets even worse . and worse . you won't fail to like mike , however , played endearingly by jon favreau . swingers revolves around mike's half-hearted and awkward efforts to get back in the social swing of things . to this end he is enthusiastically assisted by his equally underachieving twentysomething actor friends , such as trent ( vince vaughn with the film's most animated performance ) , who has the gift of gab bordering on the disturbing side of motivational speaking , gun-toting sue ( patrick van horn ) , and rob ( ron livingston ) , who once played hamlet but now longs to work as goofy in disneyland , but doesn't succeed because of his lack of " theme park experience . " together they talk about women - how to make eye contact , which involves avoiding it , and when to call so as never to appear desperate , two days being " industry standard . " after talking the talk , they walk the walk , strutting like the cool swingers they aspire to be , always to laughable effect . to get mike out of his funk , his friends persistently convince him to get outside , whether it be to a quickie night trip to a seedy vegas casino or a cutthroat hollywood party with the beautiful people or a 50s swing lounge . everywhere they encourage mike to look for a replacement " honey " and then keep vigil over his progress , or lack of it . like dotty doting parents , mike never leaves their company without being the recipient of their confidence cheerleading ( " you're money , mike , and the honeys know it . " ) or equipped with their eccentric dating philosophies , such as an analogy of flirting with the bear and the bunny . with the unwavering support of friends like these , maybe mike's not doing too badly after all . favreau also doubled as the film's screenwriter , and he proves he has the gift for creating engaging characters and witty banter that goes beyond today's bon mot . there is a reassuring honesty to the friendships , even when it hits its low points and the friends commiserate . when mike gets the gumption to look for love , you will join his cheerleading section as well . swingers is light , unassuming fare , sweet candy you will want to bust your gut with - laughing - again and again .
1	denzel washington is among the many actors this holiday season to give very impressive milestone performances . this perhaps may be washington's very best to date . he joins matt damon and jim carrey in having the talent , this season , to become his character , copying mannerisms and personal styles perfectly . his very believable performance makes the long and uninteresting " the hurricane " a much better film than it actually is . when his rubin " hurricane " carter feels pain and is tormented by racism , he creates for the audience a great sense of sympathy , disgust , and maybe even some embarrassment from the fact that this is our very own country that is breaking laws to support silly prejudices . the horrific true events carter suffered from all of his life are slightly more disturbing and terrifying because they only took place a few decades ago . the powerful expressions of denzel washington alone , as his tortured carter , sum up the troubles of racism in america's history . he is that amazing . the problem with " the hurricane " is that when compared to washington , all of the other actors are not nearly as memorable in their roles . mainly because the script focuses so much on carter , that it leaves little interest or room for the other actors . this is , without a doubt , washington's movie but in order for any film to be completely satisfying , it must utilize everyone in the cast to their highest potential not just the stars . denzel washington is the only reason to see this film for his inspirational and very depressing tour de force performance . as rubin carter , we see a black man whose existence has been a punching bag for the white american court system . >from the age of eleven to twenty one he was sent to a juvenile prison for a crime he did not commit . then after a successful marriage and boxing career , he was harshly imprisoned again for life after being framed for a triple murder . carter's second term in prison seemed almost inevitable when faced off against jealous , powerful white men who refused to let him succeed . from these past experiences in jail , carter realized that he must make his case heard for all of america . after several court appeals , an autobiography , and many public marches for his freedom , carter remained locked in prison . it was not until a young black boy from brooklyn being educated in toronto read carter's book in the 1980's , that a serious battle for freedom took place . the young boy and his three canadian guardians decide to dedicate all of their time to the case until carter is released . the greatest scenes in the film are when carter begins to lose his mind after spending three months in isolation . washington really shows the breakdown of carter when after swearing he would never go to jail again , he is unfairly framed at the height of his innocent career . the devastation in washington's eyes show a man who has struggled to do the right thing his whole life only to be punished for it . in the hole , carter attempts to maintain emotional balance but he cannot . his anger is heightened to a point of no control . we see multiple carters , a violent angry one , a silent passive one , and a mediator . we see an emotional boxing match inside carter's head . from this point in the hole to the end of the film , this fight continues . it is very apparent at times which side is winning the battle and in some scenes there is a direct switch from angry to caring or the opposite . when carter sees that white canadians want to help him get out of prison , the angry carter at first erupts . white people have been trying to hurt him his whole life , this reminder leads to anger in his head . however , as the film continues and the canadians continue to help carter we see the calm side him . he realizes that society is changing . that racism is decreasing and now carter wants to leave jail immediately and become a part of this world . very rarely have i seen such determination to perfect his role as washington has done here . if only the other actors had this same determination . dan hedaya , ridiculously plays the man who sends carter to prison twice by forcing witnesses to lie and switching evidence around . it felt like his character was taken straight out of a " scooby doo " episode ; he would have gotten away with it if it wasn't for those annoying little kids . " the kids " in this film are the three canadians who are terribly underused making their relationship with carter underdeveloped and unbelievable . the lawyers who help release carter also are underused , as is clancy brown as a kind prison guard ( the complete opposite of his character in " shawshank redemption " ) . there is a great amount of talent in this supporting cast but it just never appears . hedaya was superb in " clueless , " same for david paymer in " get shorty , " harris yulin in " ghostbusters " and liev schreiber in " the daytrippers . " it is a mystery how this many actors signed on to such shallow roles . on the other hand , it is absolutely no mystery why denzel washington agreed to play rubin " hurricane " carter . this role is about as far off from shallow as you can get .
0	movies don't come much more ridiculously titled than " i still know what you did last summer , " but since the movie in question is best described as ridiculous , the title sort of works as a warning . more than a silly-sounding mouthful to blurt out to the ticket vendor , this horror sequel's moniker also contains a grievous oversight that anyone who saw the original will be able to spot : what " you " did _last_ summer " you " actually did the summer _before_ last summer , and since " i " knew about it _this_ summer as well as _last_ summer , it's really illogical to say that " i " _still_ know what " you " did _last_ summer . the filmmakers would have at least made sense with the shorter " i still know , " the longer " i still know what you did two summers ago " or the appropriate " stupid people getting hacked to bits . " that last suggestion is the preferable one since the characters in this film do things that are the polar opposite of smart . for example , if your roommate is plagued by terrible nightmares as a result of being stalked and nearly murdered not long ago , would you sneak into her room late at night and hide in the closet , even if it was just to locate and borrow a cute little dress ? probably not , but that's precisely what college student karla ( pop diva brandy ) does to best friend julie ( jennifer love hewitt ) , resulting in the first in a long line of phony frights . julie , you'll recall , was one of the sole survivors at the end of 1997's surprise hit " i know what you did last summer , " after a slasher with a grudge to bear - it's a _long_ story - began trying to pick off her , her buddies and various others in their coastal carolina village . in this installment , the plot picks up as karla wins a trip to the bahamas , and julie , yet racked by guilt , decides that maybe a tropical getaway will help ease her mind . yeah , right . their island paradise has room , of course , for one more in the form of the still-alive killer ( muse watson ) from the first film . he sports the same gorton's fisherman get-up , a heavy hat and rain slicker that mask his identity , but why he's still trying to stay anonymous is a mystery this movie never solves . . . though i suppose his hook-hand would look funny protruding from the sleeve of a leisure suit . in a sense , that's the movie's glaring flaw - everybody knows who the bad guy is , thus evaporating the level of paranoid tension nicely sustained by its prequel . the murders and attempted murders in that film were vivid and scary , but trey callaway's derivative " i still know " screenplay makes the fisherman just as dumb as his pretty potential victims . when julie lays blissfully unaware in a tanning bed , giving him a perfect chance to wreak vengeance once and for all , what does he do ? he twist-ties the lid shut and cranks up the uv rays - you'd think he'd want her gutted now instead of a skin cancer victim later . even prequel " summer " lovers might balk at how little there is here beyond sporadically amusing absurdity and a few neat-o shots of blood flowing from toned teenage flesh . the innovative gallows humor that scribe ( and " scream " wunderkind ) kevin williamson injected into " i know " 's unfolding story is sorely missed , replaced with the grating antics of a white rastafarian cabana boy who smokes weed and tosses off slang like " yo " ; you'll cheer - not shriek - when he ends up with a pair of hedgetrimmers firmly implanted in his chest . if " i know what you did last summer , " however effective , was just the kind of movie that those subversive " scream " flicks poked fun at , then the deadly " i still know what you did last summer " deserves a full-blown roasting on " mystery science theatre 3000 . "
0	long ago , films were constructed of strong dialogue , original characters , memorable plot points , and solid acting . one of the best examples that hollywood now completely ignore these qualities is found in the new film where the heart is . this opus about the power of love and the redemption of family follows the tragic , and i mean tragic , life of novalee nation ( natalie portman ) . hitting the road with her hick , guitar-playing boyfriend in a rusted-out gm , novalee dreams of the blue skies of bakersfield and sipping chocolate milk beneath a plastic umbrella with her unborn baby , due in a month . stopping off at a nearby wal-mart for a quick rest , novalee's boyfriend decides to take off and leaves her there . novalee then decides to secretly hole up in the wal-mart ( because she's not the brightest bulb in the stagelights ) . a wacky librarian ( keith david ) comes to her rescue when she goes into labor one night while she is camped in the outdoors section of the store . then the she moves in with a family , befriends everyone in town -- including ashley judd's character ( who has five kids and still can work part-time as a nurse ) -- fights off religious freaks , survives a tornado , breaks the heart of the wacky librarian that saved her , receives an inheritance , builds a martha stewart-esque house , becomes an award-winning photographer , and manages to always look like she stepped out of a cosmo shoot , all while not once doing anything with her kid . this film is terrible . the directing is awful : it seems director matt williams had an index card with six angles written on it and used every one of them , over and over and over again . we get pathetic and ugly acting by natalie portman , who can do good work . a disjointed pacing of key scenes and a time structure so confusing that it would throw steve prefontaine off . a subplot that actually validates the actions of the boyfriend who abandoned novalee in the wal-mart parking lot . an embarrassing display of emotions by the characters , making the audience ill . taking two great comedic screenwriters , babaloo mandel and lowell ganz , and forcing them to write drama on par with oprah's book club . altogether , it has the feeling of being trapped at home , watching a very bad television mini-series and wishing it to end , only the remote is broken . however , the main problem with the film is that it never answers the most poignant question brought up : where is the heart ? no one ever seems to find it in this piece of junk .
1	you may not have heard of lucas , or if you have , you might not think much of it . probably because it stars corey haim , or maybe because it's about a little geek who collects insects , or maybe because it doesn't feature slick one-liners or the chart topping soundtrack albums that were almost a requirement for teen films in the 80's . however , you have been missing out on a true masterpeice , the best film of 1986 , and the best film about adolescent life ever made . corey haim stars as lucas bligh , a tiny 14 year old with scruffy hair , thick glasses , and an interest in insects and other outdoor life . one day he stops by the tennis courts and sees what must be an angel to him . her name is maggie , a 16 year old who certainly is a beauty , with lovely red hair and a sweet , innocent complexion . maggie seems to be a little disturbed by this little kid watching her , but somehow he interests her , and soon they are talking and getting to know one another . they gradually become good friends , and spend the summer together doing various things , such as studying insects ( namely locusts , who come out of hiding once every 17 years ) , playing tennis , and listening to a symphony orchestra through a manhole cover . lucas is obviously in love with maggie , and while she is charmed by him , it's clear that she would never consider him anything more than a very good friend . this is not clear to lucas , however . he still beleives that maggie is his soulmate , and he dreads the impending start of school because he knows what's about to happen . we soon find out why in a painful scene where lucas is humiliated by the jocks during a pep rally . they throw him on stage , right in front of his beloved maggie . surprisingly , he turns the tables on the jocks with some clowning around , but he takes it too far , and is embarassed in front of the entire school . the next scene is brilliant . maggie follows lucas outside of the pep rally . she tries to talk to him as if nothing happened . he rails back against her , in a cruel unfair fashion . in lesser movies this would've turned into a confrontation between the two characters . but maggie is written smarter than that . she understands what lucas is feeling and knows exactly what to say to console him . next we are introduced to another great character named cappie ( charlie sheen ) . he is a jock with a typical cheerleader girlfriend . what's interesting about him is that he sticks up for lucas and protects him from the other jocks . of course anyone with a brain can tell what's gonna happen next . cappie will cause conflict in maggie and lucas' relationship . this begins in classic scene in the school laundry room when cappie and maggie are alone . she's been assigned to show him how to operate the washer/dryer so he can clean his shirt . maggie is charmed by cappie's tender undertsanding demeanor , not to mention his shirtless body . this scene is so delicate and sweet , but cappie still has a girlfriend , preventing either one from acting on their desires . desperately trying to puncture the tension , cappie begins to kick basketballs around the room . it's not long before cappie does break up with his girlfriend ( in the films only subpar scene ) . lucas finally figures out what's going on when he tries to pick maggie up for the dance . this causes him to take severe actions to prove himself to maggie and himself , such as try out for the football team . the last third of the film revolves around this attempt . while the idea seems cliched , the way it is executed is not . there are many surprises during the last half hour which lead to an ending so emotionally involving it should make the most heartless of cynics get choked up . dave grusin's memorable score , played at the perfect moments , certainly helps . lucas is filled with great performances . forget everything you know about corey haim . back in 1986 he had talent , and that is proven here as he delivers a perfect fully 3-dimensional performance filled with anger , humor , and pain . kerri green is very appealing as maggie , showing us why she cares about lucas so much and why he is so attracted to her . sheen's cappie is almost too good to be true , but sheen makes him beleivable , especially when he explains the reason why he protects lucas . there are other wonderful minor characters such as ciro popitti's ben , a friend of lucas , whose diminutive stature does not mean he will take crap from the jocks . also turning up in a few key scenes is winona ryder as rina , the girl who admires lucas from afar . when people talk about the great teen angst films of the 80s , you hear john hughes this and john hughes that . lucas seems to be lost among the crowd of his so-called classics . but hopefully , like with heathers and say anything , lucas can begin to find it's own loyal following and help people realize there were more to the 80s than anthony michael hall and molly ringwald . it deserves more than that , but i don't want to be greedy .
0	after seeing blaze and driving miss daisy , i was ready for some mindless fun--oh , maybe something like tango & cash . maybe not ! mindless fun is one thing , but brain-dead slop is another matter altogether . tango & cash has " lowest common denominator " written all over it . the movie stars sylvester stallone and kurt russell as rival undercover cops in l . a . russell plays cash , a reckless slob who dresses in jeans and tee shirts . stallone plays tango , a wealthy investor who works on the force strictly for the thrill of it ; he doesn't need the money . in an effort to change his image , stallone goes for a yuppie , gq look in the film , wearing spectacles and three piece suits . the two detectives reluctantly become partners after they are framed for murder and have to break out of prison to clear their names . tango & cash is unbearably noisy . for starters , there's harold faltermeyer's annoying synthesized score , which gets old after four notes . to make matters worse , the filmmakers seem to think that when it comes to loud explosions and screeching cars , the more the merrier . in fact , the movie begins with not one but two car chases . there's nothing like a good old car chase to introduce the characters in a movie . screenwriter randy feldman's brain must have gone to mush from watching too many cop shows on tv . his shockingly stupid screenplay undermines anything and everything the movie has going for it , such as stallone's efforts to convince you that tango is an intellectual . in a movie with the iq level of an amoeba , even a great actor is going to have trouble looking intelligent--and stallone is no lawrence olivier . it's hard to imagine anyone reading feldman's script and thinking , " i want to be in this movie . " the film's plot doesn't have one original bone in its body , and--again--you have to point your finger at the screenwriting . feldman's story line succumbs to every crime thriller cliche in the book , making tango & cash altogether generic and predictable . they simply could have called it " action movie . " every character , every twist and turn , is stolen from television or from other movies . adding insult to injury , tango & cash is about as believable as a " road runner " cartoon . action movies don't have to be realistic , but they should absorb you enough so that you're not thinking about the lack of realism . the only artistic aspect of tango & cash is the cinematography . there are some spectacular shots , especially during the rainy nighttime prison break in which tango and cash slide to safety on electrical wires . the film's main draw is the chemistry between stallone and russell . unfortunately , their relationship rarely progresses past macho competition as they endlessly bicker about who packs more meat in his pants . the dialogue consists of nothing but one-liners , and consequently the attempts at character development are embarrassing . it's a shame because with a workable screenplay , russell and stallone could have turned tango & cash into a charming " lethal weaponesque " adventure . tango & cash tries to maintain a light tone , and you do laugh about once every five minutes . seeing russell in drag is the movie's funniest moment , but you probably already have seen it in the commercials . furthermore , the light tone does not sit well against the relentlessly brutal violence . machine guns and torture generally don't mix well with comedy . jack palance appears in tango & cash doing what he does best : playing a sleazy , conniving villain . his character , however , is run-of-the-mill , except for his strange obsession with mice . like many movie villains , palance likes to play games . in fact , he sets a ridiculously elaborate trap for tango and cash , a trap which sends the two detectives to prison so they can be beaten and electrocuted by some meanies in the boiler room . you have to wonder why palance doesn't just shoot the detectives in the head ! the story would crumble if any of the characters were to do anything intelligent . teri hatcher plays stallone's sister and russell's love-interest , and she is just as pretty as can be . but regrettably , hatcher's acting is not on par with her exceptional beauty . every time she opens her mouth , you cringe ; corny dialogue and atrocious acting are always a fatal combination . there's really very little , if anything , to recommend in the film . and , more to the point , tango definitely isn't worth a penny of your cash--so don't bother .
0	the haunting , a film so confusing that it forgets the true meaning of a horror film : to scare us . if you've ever seen a movie , which you probably have considering you are on this website , you should know about all of the trivia they post before a movie . they have things like illustrations and you have to guess the movie or facts about the film . but , the one i always like are the &quot ; other name&quot ; joke that try and rename a particular film . for instance , the one playing before the haunting had different titles for the film , small soldiers . they had titles like little infantry and can i get those fatigues in a smaller size ? well , after seeing the haunting , i had a few particular names for it as well . unfortunately , i can only post one of them , otherwise , i'd be getting some pretty angry e-mails from overprotective mothers . that title would be the confusing . ok , that is a pretty bad title , but it fits this film perfectly . it basically serves up no purpose , and combined with dry dialogue and a boring and confusing plot , it completes the formula for a cinematic bomb . liam neeson once again gets wrapped up in a film without any depth , but at least the phantom menace was exciting and had some depth . the haunting is nothing but trash , but unfortunately , will still make a boatload of money . before i rant and rave about how bad this film is , let me point out the few , and i stress the word few , bright spots in this film . first , the house is great- looking . it looks beautiful , but this is also a dark spot . it looks so great that it is hard to be frightened by it . this is something that rears its ugly head at all points of the film . things look so great , that you are looking on in awe instead of being scared straight . haunted house films have to contain one element to even be slightly successful and that is being eerie . the hill house is not eerie . it is beautiful , but not the least bit frightening . ever heard of lili taylor ? before this film i did not , but i am glad that i do now . she gives the only satisfactory performance in the film . despite the dry dialogue and boring/confusing concept , she manages to light up the screen every time she appears , but unfortunately , her co-stars are usually following right behind . owen wilson , who plays luke , is the only other cast member even close to giving an admirable performance , other then taylor . he is basically there for the comic relief , and his character development is poor in all other areas . all of the characters are desperately underdeveloped . wilson had potential as luke , but it seems they just needed him to add a few laughs . liam neeson and catherine zeta-jones suffer from the dialogue and plot and should not have been in this film . their characters must suffer from wicked mood swings because in each scene they turn from ruthless to compassionate to scared to brave and whatnot . they just are not believable and this is the final nail in the haunting's coffin . the plot is terrible . the opening scene of the film is very important , but the director makes it too obvious by getting close-ups of all the things that will play a major role in the end of the film . as i sat through the film , i kept wondering what this film was trying to accomplish . nell , lili taylor's character , goes from the hunted to the savior . it makes no sense and the director gives the audience no reasoning for the ridiculous changes that take place in the film . he forces the viewer to make various assumptions and does not give any in-depth information . for instance , the beginning of the film gives us a sense of why nell is getting involved in the program . but , we get zilch for the other four . plus , two of them get wiped out in the first ten minutes . and the worst part : most horror films have killings . for some reason , they kill off luke at the end of the film . no reason whatsoever , just off with his head , literally . overall , the haunting is the epitome of a bad movie . bad plot , confusing storyline and a waste of good talent . hopefully , liam neeson can rebound and get into a good film and be used to his full potential . hopefully , lili taylor will be recognized for doing such a great job in such a bad film . and hopefully , other horror films , such as the blair witch project and the haunting of hill house , will not be as bad as this one .
0	* * * be warned . . . the following review contains some harsh language * * * the blair witch project . quite possibly the least scariest movie of all time . if you want to see real terror on the big screen go back and watch any scene with jar jar binks in the phantom menace , because this movie is not scary or even remotely creepy . my colleague and friend chuck dowling wrote that if less is more , then the blair witch filmmakers must have thought that nothing is more . and this worked for him . well , i'm sorry , but nothing . . . is nothing ! ! ! ! ! nothing is not more . it's nothiiiiiinggggggggggg ! ! ! ! ! ! . i do not pay 5 dollars to see nothing . " nothing " is free , available all around the world at a location near you . i am absolutely in amazement that some people find this movie scary . i could just discount them and say , " well , i guess they are just pansy chicken shits who are probably scared of their own shadow . " but i have intelligent friends who like this movie and so that doesn't hold water . there must be some other reason . ( then again , maybe my first thought is correct , i think i'll try pointing their shadow out to them one day and test their reaction . ) when i hear people praising this film , i never hear them talking about what makes up about 97% of this movie : three kids bickering with each other about being lost . they only talk about what might make up possibly 3 to 4 minutes of screen time . this being a few very short night scenes where the kids hear some unscary sounds and another where they shout " josh ! ! " over and over . this film should not be called the blair witch project , it should more accurately be called three dumb and pisspoor filmmakers get lost . . . and argue with each other . oh ladies and gentlemen you will be so scared when you hear them shouting " josh ! ! " . and if you thought that was scary , wait till you see a pile of rocks , and then some tinkertoy lincoln logs , oh my dear lord you will be pissing in your pants with fear . oh yeah , and some goo on one of their backpacks . you've never seen terror like this folks , and you don't want to . the chevy chase/goldie hawn comedy foul play is creepier than this film . ( for current films , i highly recommend the sixth sense or a stir of echoes for a creepy filmgoing experience . ) this film is an example of marketing with no substance . the marketing was brilliant , and the whole nation is in awe of just the premise for the film . they want this film to be good . and i think they are reaching and praising the wrong movie because they don't have anything else to praise . that wonderful film that rejuvenates the horror genre may come along , but this is not it . this film could have been so much better . just think , if maybe there had been only 10 minutes of arguing about being lost , and 80 minutes of nighttime stuff . i saw this movie with a girl who was extremely pumped for it . she was sold on this film . and then , at one point during it , she turned to me and asked ' . . . are we supposed to be scared by this ? ' . i've heard one opinion that you " have to use your imagination " to create the fear in this movie . well , i thought that was what the filmmakers were supposed to do . use their imagination and create a good movie . i mean anyone can use their imagination and not pay 5 bucks for it . but even if you like this idea , then what are you imagining ? an entity called the blair witch ? some rednecks fucking with these kids ? are either of these things really scary when you think about it ? ? ? i've heard several people say that this movie makes them recall how scary it can be to be out in the woods and hear something . well sure thats scary in real life , but there are a lot of things that are scary in real life that are not scary in a movie nor even interesting . you could sit in your house and see a snake or a spider and it could be scary , but in a film it wouldn't be . and no , a movie does not need a big budget or cgi special effects to be scary or creepy . actually the less the better ( see the equally awful remake of the haunting ) . but you have to do something . you cant just count on us all having nostalgic memories of how something like this could be scary , if it were real . and by the way , about the shakycam filming in blair witch . aren't these supposed to be " filmmakers " who should know how to point a camera and shoot something without shaking the camera constantly ? i'm not even talking about the couple scenes where they are terrified , that's justified . i'm talking about the other 87 minutes of the movie where they can't seem to shoot anything smoothly at all . minor quibble there . there is a feeling in me that the people that like this movie are suckers . that the filmmakers are just laughing their asses off all the way to the bank . and i think there is a good chance they will see this film again and say to themselves " what was i thinking ? ? " . but , if they don't , then thats fine . if it works for them then that's okay i guess . i just lament that by making this movie a hit , we are going to be subjected to more of the " nothing is more " approach . pretty soon we're going to get some movies like this : just a still shot of a prison jail cell . for 90 minutes . and we'll have to use our imagination and think to ourselves , " my god , wouldn't it be scary to spend life in prison ? ! ! this movie is the scariest movie of all time ! ! ! ! ! " . or , a shot of a coffin , with some funeral directors arguing with each other . " man , do you know how scary it would be to die ? ? ? ! ! ! ! now this is the scariest movie of all time ! ! ! ! " [r]
0	* * * warning - the following review contains spoilers * * * cast : gary sinise , don cheadle , connie nielsen , jerry o'connell , kim delaney , tim robbins , elise neal , jill teed , jody thompson , bill timoney written by : jim thomas , john thomas and graham yost directed by : brian depalma running time : 115 minutes the first big event movie of 2000 turns out to be anything but . gary sinise stars as an astronaut who is removed from a mars mission when his astronaut wife , maggie ( kim delaney ) , becomes ill and passes away . don cheadle is then given the mission along with a russian couple and a young hotshot . when a strange whirlwind shot from the top of a mars mountain range attacks the crew of the mission , sinise and robbins convince their superior to let them , neilsen , and o'connell perform a rescue mission for whatever crew might be remaining . what they discover on the surface of the planet will dramatically change their lives forever ( although no one watching the film will come away profoundly affected ) . before i ever saw the film , i was aware of the promotional campaign with dr . pepper . every time i would see a bottle of the soft drink , the mission to mars logo was emblazoned upon it . little did i know that the plot would be taking a back seat to the product placement of the drink and several other products . dr . pepper saves the day at one point , and a dream sequence/flashback features jerry o'connell shoving m&m's in our face . these are but a couple of the ridiculous examples of product placement scattered throughout the film . clich ? s are also the order of the day with mission to mars . dialogue and character motivations are all lifted directly from countless other science fiction films that have all done it better and with more style ( even independence day , which lifted all of it's premises from other sci-fi films was better than this film , and i don't like independence day ) . films like 2001 : a space odyssey , the abyss , and close encounters of the third kind are all blatantly stolen from ( and poorly at that ) . there is even a sequence where a rover is traveling through a canyon , and i couldn't help but whisper " u'tinni " to myself and wait for a jawa to quickly hide in the rocks before the rover could get a glimpse of it . this film also features one of my all-time least favorite movie clich ? s : the " he would have wanted you to have this " moment , where one character gives another a trinket that yet another character is established as constantly having ( and is usually made fun of by the character who ends up getting all sappy over it later on ) . scenes like these always bother me when they come out of nowhere in regular films , but in a film as clich ? ridden as this , it is particularly irritating . ennio morricone's music is usually considered to be some of the best stuff in the projects he works on , but here it is dreadfully overbearing . his music sounds like it came straight out of a vincent price movie in certain scenes . at other times his music is unbearably over-dramatic . one sequence involving a daring spacewalk rescue is given a particularly cheesy sting when it is discovered that the grappling hook device used for the rescue won't reach its intended target . mission to mars is push button filmmaking to the greatest extreme . events are set into motion that are obvious to anyone who has ever seen a movie and seem like they are just there to evoke an emotional response in the audience . we are apparently supposed to be upset that tim robbins character removes his helmet in deep space and kills himself to save his wife , but i felt extreme boredom coupled with a twinge of disinterest . what makes it all worse is that fact that there is no real reason that robbins' character needs to turn himself into a popsicle , except to invoke an emotional response ( i could think of at least one way to save him , and the nasa clowns in this film are supposed to be " smarter " than i am ) . during the finale , when we are finally introduced to the translucent , conehead , kitty-faced aliens that we ostensibly sprung from , we are presented with some of the most ridiculously cartoonish cgi ever put to film ( just slightly worse than the plane crash at the end of air force one or the hell scenes in spawn ) . a brief history lesson about " where we came from " is proffered , then sinise is whisked away to be with " the rest of our people " ( he does this because his late wife proclaims in a video he watches early on that " this is a chance to step foot where no one else has " ) . >from the press i've been seeing this film receive , it is apparent that mission to mars will be dying a quick death at the theater . i'm sure the first weekend or two will be huge , but once word gets out people will stop going . let's just hope the upcoming red planet is better than this and isn't hurt by the negativity this film is generating . i'd venture to say it won't be worse than this waste of time . [pg]
1	is evil dead ii a bad movie ? it's full of terrible acting , pointless violence , and plot holes yet it remains a cult classic nearly fifteen years after its release . explaining why this movie stands out from others with similar plots ( including the original evil dead ) is extremely difficult . `well what's it about ? ' `five people stranded in a log cabin in the middle of nowhere struggling to survive vicious attacks from a variety of ugly , hairy , wart covered monsters . ' `come on i saw a movie just like that on monster vision last week . why should i see it again ? ' `no evil dead ii is different , it's funny . ' `it's funny to see people die ? are you sick or something ? ' maybe i am and maybe director sam raimi is as well to create such an enigma of a movie . his unique execution is as sarcastic as subtle , as disturbing as it is hilarious . an example of raimi's odd approach : a monster ( formerly protagonist ash's girlfriend of all people ) is cut in half by a chainsaw and a tidal wave of blood comes from the open wound . sure it's over-the-top , but it is so over-the-top that it is laugh out loud funny ; just try watching ash with a straight face as he unexpectedly is showered with ten gallons of blood , staining his face and knocking him back a few feet . the whole movie is like this , watch ash get beat up , watch ash defeat the monster , watch ash get beat up again by another even zanier monster . the more repetitive and unrealistic the movie gets , the more amusing it becomes . no matter how sick it may sound , it is funny to watch bruce ampbell's ash get his butt kicked every five minutes . and raimi takes advantage , he has ash tormented by the head of his girlfriend , by the body of an old lady , even by his own right hand . like the less superior idle hands , we watch ash uncontrollably hit himself over and over again until he is forced to cut off his own body part . but it doesn't end , ash now has to fight his severed hand which now moves with the same celerity as thing from the addams family . all of these events , thrown at you from minute one with roller coaster- like camera movements , at first become shocking , then inexplicably funny . raimi expects the audience to laugh and as the film progresses , he seems to be enjoying himself even more by borrowing the classic mirror scene from the marx brothers' duck soup , then bringing more characters into the picture to comically kill them off . with a running time of less than an hour and a half , raimi gets away with the impossible , making a horror film with more gore than plot and intentionally more laughs than scares . ending evil dead ii with an opening for the third film in the series , raimi obviously had a lot of fun making this movie and couldn't wait to make it's sequel .
1	after sixteen years francis ford copolla has again returned to his favorite project , making the third installment in the godfather-trilogy . this new film has been underrated for no reason . it is as intellectual and majestically made as copolla's pervious films . it is also more psychological , pessimistic and more tragic than the first two . the only regret is the unconvincing performance by the newcomer sofia copolla and some " unfinished " developments of some characters . the film elegantly begins with nino rota's recognizable musical score , the beautiful skyscrapers of new york and michael's voice as he is writing a letter to his children : " the only wealth in this world is children . more than all money and power on earth , you are my treasure " . the year is 1979 and michael corleone has used the time since the ending of " part ii " to make his father's dream come true - making the corleone family legitimate . michael sold all his casinos and invests only in gambling . constantly haunted by the past , his only reason to live is his children . the family has amassed unimaginable wealth , and as the film opens michael corleone ( al pacino ) is being invested with a great honor by the church . later that day , at a reception , his daughter announces a corleone family gift to the church and the charities of sicily , " a check in the amount of $100 million . " but the corleones are about to find , as others have throughout history , that you cannot buy forgiveness . sure , you can do business with evil men inside the church , for all men are fallible and capable of sin . but god does not take payoffs . the plot of the movie , concocted by coppola and mario puzo in a screenplay inspired by headlines , brings the corleone family into the inner circles of corruption in the vatican . there is a moment in " godfather iii " where michael says : " all my life i have been trying to go up in society , where everything was legal . but the higher i go , the crookier it becomes . . " . visually this film is as spectacular as the first two . gordon willis' rich cinematography , carmine copolla's beautiful composition and alex tavoularis' wonderful art direction could not be better . but copolla's first two godfather-films were more famous for their deep , intellectual plots , tree dimensional characters and incredible acting , than for their visual perfection . the third installment has only the plot and visuals . some characters could be much more developed and the acting , although good , never accomplishes to reach the same height of the first two films . the biggest miscasting is sofia copolla , who is so unconvincing and unemotional that she manages to ruin several scenes throughout the movie , that could have been grander and more emotional . the best performance comes unsurprisingly from al pacino , who should have got a nomination for best actor at the oscars . andy garcia is powerful as sonny's son , strong , focused and loyal . violence is natural to him . he suffers no pangs of conscience when he takes revenge on his family's behalf , and in this he is supposed to be strong in the uncomplicated way don vito corleone was . however both kay ( diane keaton ) and connie ( talia shire ) are useless . and characters like vito corleone and tom hagen are really missed . the good part is that michael is again reunited with old friends , that you remember from the first and second films . in the third film michael has become almost like his father , vito in the first film and vincenzo resembles michael when he was much younger . this parallel could be more interesting if vincenzo's character was more developed . many have pointed out that making the third film , was unnecessary . i disagree . it is a beautiful film of great importance , completing the tragic saga of the corleone family . the first film showed some horrible results of corleone's life . it showed michael making a choice ; the second showed a man damning himself for his choices and feeling the impact of changing times . a man desperately trying to keep his balance , focus , family and sanity , while everything is crashing all around him . the third film is a terrifying conclusion - a result of michael's life . the life he chose for himself is like quicksand - one wrong step and you are doomed . there is no turning back . and no matter how hard you try to get out of it , to free yourself , no matter how powerful and wealthy you are , you are helpless - sinking deeper and deeper till it swallows you completely . the beautifully directed last sequence is also the powerful climax of the film , when michael is sitting alone in his chair , left by everyone , surrounded by emptiness and memories of his friends and family members long dead . here he dies - alone , miserable and unforgiven
1	lean , mean , escapist thrillers are a tough product to come by . most are unnecessarily complicated , and others have no sense of expediency -- the thrill-ride effect gets lost in the cumbersome plot . perhaps the ultimate escapist thriller was the fugitive , which featured none of the flash-bang effects of today's market but rather a bread-and-butter , textbook example of what a clever script and good direction is all about . the latest tony scott movie , enemy of the state , doesn't make it to that level . it's a true nineties product that runs like greased lightning through a maze of cell phones and laptop computers , without looking back . although director scott has made missteps in the past , such as the lame thriller the fan , he's generated a good deal of energy in pictures like crimson tide and top gun . that vibrant spirit is present here , shown in well-timed and carefully planned chase scenes that give the movie an aura of sheer speed . enemy of the state also features an unprecedented use of amazing cinematography -- director of photography daniel mindel throws a staggering amount of different views , angles , lenses , and film stocks at the audience that goes a long way toward involving the audience in the movie . enemy is truly a visual experience , and that's only one of the reasons it's such a fun watch . the movie lights up with an aging senator visited by nsa deputy chief thomas reynolds ( jon voight ) . reynolds wants a new communications act passed to allow the government free reign in the use of surveilance equipment , but the senator plans to bury the bill in committee . reynolds has the senator offed , but not before the murder is caught on a naturalist's camera . by an extremist chain of events , the tape ends up in labor lawyer robert dean ( will smith ) 's posession , and it's not long before he's running from reynolds' cronies . it's only with the help of an ex-spook named brill ( gene hackman ) that dean is able to get to the bottom of things . the acting is top notch , and the three principles - smith , hackman , and voight - are generally more mature and excellent all around . smith puts aside the wisecracking act and becomes a normal human being ; voight tones down the amount of sneer he puts into his character for greater ominpotence ; and hackman is simply over the top in the mysterioso role . smith's regular joe comes off particularly well , as he runs from authorties for reasons that he knows not . the supports are also in fine form , lending credibility to the main roles and advancing the plot in key areas . this is , for the holiday crowd , the hot ticket ; as well as anyone looking for a serving of genuine action in a market that is otherwise lacking .
0	note : some may consider portions of the following text to be spoilers . be forewarned . to assess alex cox's film the winner as a loser would be so indolent . it would be derisive . it would be glib . it would be dismissive . it would be entirely accurate . rarely have i seen a film as excruciatingly annoying as the winner , a would-be comedy which quickly proves to be tedious , unfunny , and unengaging . the film attempts to be fresh and quirky , utilising a myriad of colourful characters to weave its absurd tale , but appears to overlook the fact that nobody in the film is remotely interesting and that all of the characters are essentially preposterous . the film is set in las vegas , and the focus in the winner is on philip ( vincent d'onofrio ) , an aloof , naive young man blessed with the odd gift of luck ; he virtually cannot lose at the tables . despite this prodigious talent , philip is perpetually mournful and quite indifferent about his gambling fortunes , neither taking joy in his winnings nor having the foresight to mask his abilities . consequently , he becomes an easy target for those who would ride upon his coattails and take advantage of his talent . louise ( rebecca demornay ) , a sultry lounge singer , insinuates herself into philip's life for the purpose of swindling him , while philip's estranged brother ( and , conveniently , louise's ex-beau ) johnny ( michael madsen ) arrives on the scene . ( to add some colour , johnny also happens to be toting their father's corpse , sans one hand . ) meanwhile , philip is also befriended by a trio of low-rent , opportunists ( frank whaley , billy bob thornton , and richard edson ) , who have every intention of taking advantage of their new buddy's gift with the dice . serenely overlooking the chaos from behind the scenes is the casino owner ( delroy lindo ) ; it is probably not giving away much to reveal that his role in the winner is essentially that alluded to at the end of the flashy sequence in martin scorsese's casino which details the organization hierarchy of a casino's operations - he * is * the eye in the sky . it could be maddening to endure a film whose central protagonist is so oblivious of the ongoing blatant manipulation , but fortunately this is not the case in the winner , if only because our sadsack hero is such a sap ; not even remotely sympathetic or compelling , it becomes impossible to root for philip or even care about his fate , and the would-be swindlers of philip's fortunes are all drawn out as such ludicrous , transparent buffoons with entirely unimaginative and uninteresting schemes that one watches the winner with a complete sense of disinterest . it is a shame , as the winner features a talented cast - mr . d'onofrio is an underrated and gifted actor with a huge range ; mr . lindo has a remarkable screen presence which infiltrates every film in which he appears ; mr . madsen , ms . demornay , and mr . whaley have all done good work in the past . none of the actors in the winner are in top form here , and this film won't likely be a prized addition to their respective resumes . director alex cox does what he can with wendy riss' screenplay , and it is to his credit that this film at no point feels like an adaptation of a stage play ; i was startled to learn that the winner was in fact based upon one . while tedious , the film is well-paced and does not meander , but it would be near-impossible task for mr . cox ( or , for that matter , virtually any other director that comes to mind ) to overcome the film's widespread shortcomings in plot and characterization . to his credit , my understanding is that he has chosen to distance himself from the project in acknowledgement of its deficiencies . i caught the winner at its world premiere at the toronto international film festival in september 1996 , and in fairness it is entirely possible that the film has been extensively revamped since then due to the lacklustre audience reaction generated - there were more walkouts on this film than any of the others i screened . to be honest , though , i couldn't begin to isolate what could be done to this film to improve it - i assume that throwing the whole thing out and starting over is out of the question . the winner has apparently played on cable television in the united states and is beginning a limited theatrical release at the time of this writing . the film has a nice upbeat score by pray for rain , but i am honestly not being facetious when i state that the thing i treasured most about my screening of the winner was the bag of popcorn upon which i was munching .
0	i can imagine how good krippendorf's tribe must have looked on paper . it does not surprise me in the least that a group of extremely talented actors , led by the great richard dreyfuss and a good director ( todd holland ) , all wanted to make this film . in fact , it is only the expertise by which this excruciatingly bad script has been executed that keeps me from suggesting that you stay as far away from krippendorf's tribe as possible . in retrospect , i can imagine how bad this film could have been . i shudder at the possibilities of awfulness had it starred an actor less able than dreyfuss . dreyfuss plays james krippendorf , an anthropologist who is granted $100 , 000 by his university to find an undiscovered tribe in new guinea . halfway into his two-year expedition , his wife ( apparently ) dies . i say apparently because when or how she dies is never truly established . later , we find out that much of the grant money was spent on big-screen tvs and other such pleasures . so , when krippendorf finds out what happens to professors who do not use their grant money wisely , he decides to construct an elaborate lie . he makes his own tribe , using his three children as actors in a video . he simply makes up certain incredible facts about this tribe ( which he calls the shelmickedmu ) . audiences at krippendorf's lectures are amazed by his findings that the shelmickedmu practice circumcision . and proof that the typical family unit is led by a single father is truly amazing to the anthropological community . like all films like this , the lie becomes more and more complex , and the suspense is generated with us wondering at what point it is all going to fall out from under our hero . dreyfuss is a funny , talented man , and he is funny in this film . he has lots of positive energy and , unlike most comical actors , really manages to play people like this realistically . this film also requires a lot of physical humor that i've never seen dreyfuss perform , and he does a great job . jenna elfman , who plays veronica mecilli , a scientist who wants in on krippendorf's work , is also very funny and appealing here . and the kid actors are great , as well . but we're talking about the script from hell . this is one of those stories that requires such extreme suspension of disbelief that they might as well have established that the story just takes place in an alternate universe where things like this can happen . but the ridiculousness of the story is not really what is so bad about it . all the cliches and the irritating plot devices could have easily been overcome by dreyfuss and crew . no , the script is plagued with so many clueless stereotypes and mean-spirited characters that i was in disbelief as i watched . furthermore , the manor in which all of this material is covered up is truly shameless . take , for instance , the scene in which krippendorf gets veronica drunk so he can tape them having sex . they get all decked out in the tribe getup , complete with paint to darken their skin . krippendorf does this because he needs footage of the mating rituals of his tribe . now , i saw this scene coming from a mile away , but i said to myself , " no , that would be far too tasteless . there's no way they'll do that . . . oh god ! " they did do it . it's there . i was almost more appalled by the fact that this didn't bother the other audience members with whom i saw this film . i found it deplorable . and when krippendorf is forced to admit that he did it , he simply apologizes without the slightest hint of conviction in his voice . the film is filled with scenes like these . they not only insult the audience , but they insult the types of people that the film portrays . it would take some truly professional work to create videos convincing enough to fool an entire community of scientists , yet krippendorf does it easily in an afternoon . and watching dreyfuss stumble over a completely unprepared speech is funny and entertaining , but i think that most members of the on-screen audience would be able to see that he is making everything up as he goes . if i were an anthropologist , this film would insult me immensely . moving right along , the film plays off every stereotype our culture has ever learned regarding african tribes . sure , dreyfuss dressing up like a chief is really funny , and it allows for some entertaining scenes , but the heart of this material is deeply clueless as to the themes and thoughts that it provokes . it is because of dreyfuss as an actor that i was able to watch this film . his character here is not a good subject for a film because he is a shameless liar , and never once does he show any kind of penance for what he does . i suppose it was interesting to see the formula defied in this case , but for the purposes of good taste , i would have expected something . no , this man sets a terrible example for his kids and colleagues , and the writer of the film ( charlie peters ) didn't include a single scene in which krippendorf takes his kids aside and tells them that what he is doing is very bad . in fact , it's his eldest daughter that frequently tells him that he is doing the wrong thing , and he continually shrugs off her warnings . i suppose it's important to admit that this is a funny film . dreyfuss and elfman , and many of the contrived and insulting scenes , add up to a picture that is anything but boring . and if you're less serious than i , you probably will enjoy it . i , however , can't get past these elements . krippendorf's tribe is being marketed as a family comedy , but this is the kind of film that teaches the kids of our society faulty lessons that they shouldn't be learning . with a little more insight into its story and themes , this could have been a good movie .
1	it is often said by his fans that hal hartley movies are an acquired taste . indeed . while perhaps less dangerous than tequila shooters or bungee-jumping , they require no less amount of physical stamina and concentration . i felt rewarded at the end of henry fool ; this movie creeps up on you-at a slow 139 minutes , i mean creeps-and despite the final shot's ambiguity , i left completely satisfied . henry fool ( " used to have an ? e' " ) arrives at garbageman simon grim's house , claims the vacant basement apartment , and almost instantly inspires simon ( urbaniak ) to take up writing-henry ( martin donovan look-alike ryan ) is an ex-convict , a once-great author who has been " exiled and marginalized " by the publishing community because of his criminal activity . simon's poetry turns him into a local sensation , as it causes mute women to sing , high-school girls to swoon , and councilmen to rile against its " pornographic " content . meanwhile , henry seduces both simon's dependent mother ( porter ) and immature sister ( sundance queen posey ) with philosophical babble ( which is by turns brilliant and inane ) and breathy animal lust . these story elements result in climaxes both inevitable and unpredictable ; the teacher-student relationship formed between henry and simon eventually reverses itself . henry fool is sprinkled with hartley-ian flourishes : simon drinks milk from " udderley's " ; the big teen hang-out is called " world of donuts " ; simon wears his garbageman's uniform throughout ; the editing style is decidedly elliptical . . . ( which is key to the conclusion's said ambiguity ) . the performances by the three leads are abrasive at first , self-consciously " quirky " ; the introductory scenes are a chore . these people do grow on you because they convey genuine passion , a belief in themselves , and because they have long-term goals ; henry and simon may drink a lot of budweiser and hang out on the streetcorner , but they aren't pop slackers . the story is rather classical : the tutor is a better talker than a doer , raised on books ; the timid tutee has innate talent his master only dreams of . ( shades of film school . . . ) the finished film is epic in its proportions for a story so small , and the final third does test one's patience , yet henry fool is tight , hardly excessive in its length . how refreshing to see a movie this long in 1998 devoted entirely to character . and unless i nodded off , not a single building exploded . this , hartley's seventh feature , is contemplative about " the artist " ; fortunately , we never get a sampling of simon's work , and it's a testament to the actors and the screenplay that by the end we can surmise what sort of thoughts would pour from these writers' pens .
1	the postman delivers but not first class the postman a film review by michael redman copyright 1997 by michael redman [warning : my opinion of this film is definitely in the minority of reviewers perhaps because it hits so many of my cinematic buttons : post-apocalypse stories , hope in a desperate situation , grassroots uprisings and kevin costner . even worse , i thought that " waterworld " was watchable . read the following with those particular grains of salt . ] it's the year 2013 and things have fallen apart . due to a world war in the late nineties , the resulting three-year winter and a devastating plague , life in the former united states has been reduced to isolated primitive fiefdoms . although this is the future , it looks like a western . as the film opens , kevin costner ( his character's name is never revealed ) is wandering the utah wastelands with only his mule bill for company . giving extraordinarily bad shakespearean performances in exchange for food and lodging , costner is an outsider in a land of outsiders . running into even worse luck , he is forcibly conscripted into the racially pure holnist army of general bethlehem ( will patton ) . the rag-tag retro-futuristic cavalry is the descendent of militia groups and is even called the " clan " after a brutal boot camp , he ( and you can see this coming a mile away ) escapes . taking shelter in a wrecked postal truck , he liberates the uniform and mail bag from the skeleton in the cab who no longer has a use for either . once he reaches oregon , land of beautiful women , bright youngsters and rock and roll ; he pretends to be a representative from the " restored congress of the united states of america " . this scam gets him inside the walled towns where the promise of mail delivery renews optimism in the hearts of the inhabitants . food and other opportunities come his way in the form of spirited abby ( olivia williams ) who wants him to father a child because her husband is sterile . shortly her husband is killed by bethlehem and she and the postman ( as costner is referred to for the rest of the film ) become a reluctant item . although the postman knows he's running a fraud , the concept of renewed communications sets the kids' imagination afire ( especially ford lincoln mercury ( larenz tate ) , his second-in-command ) and they form a new pony express dedicated to getting the mail through . the revived postal service doubles as an army to fight the holnists' tyranny . the postman has become a symbol for hope in a rube goldberg manner . although the movie appeals to my sensibilities , there are so many things wrong with it that they can hardly be counted . it's derivitive of costner's own " waterworld " and clint eastwood westerns . there's little here that we haven't seen dozens of times before . the film is often down-right corny . a scene where the postman is on horseback and grabs a letter from the hands of a bright-eyed child is embarrassing in its slow-motion banality . the film's final few minutes should have been left on the cutting room floor . despite the film's excessive three hour length , several things are never explained . what was the war about ? how did civilization change so rapidly ? everyone has horses : where did all they come from ? the " law of eights " that bethlehem lives by seems to have its origins somewhere beyond the film , but where ? are we to believe that the rest of the world is in the same shape and hasn't made their way west to help or conquer ? there is some jumbled symbolism here that doesn't appear to make sense . the tale is obviously saying that communication can defeat evil in much the same way that the internet has the potential to topple governments , but beyond that there are some oddities . the evil army is called " holnists " which sounds coincidentally like the new age " holism " , but why ? is it another coincidence that it takes place in 2013 , just one year after many ancient prophesies ( including the ending of the mayan calendar ) predict a new world for mankind ? why is the general named " bethlehem " ? there seems to be some reason for that , but what ? sometimes the movie feels like a joke . an army of postal workers armed with guns ? considering the headlines of recent years , it takes a tremendous leap of faith to cheer for these guys . it's even more difficult to accept those re-powering the federal government as the heroes . given the current climate of the country and the distrust of big government , it's asking a lot for the audience to get behind the film's nationalism . even with its numerous flaws , the movie all comes together , if only for those who have the same weaknesses that i have . it's doubtful that " the postman " is going to find much of an audience , but a few of us are going to have a good time . besides we're all awaiting the fall of civilization caused by the year 2000 millennium computer bug . ( michael redman has written this column for over 22 years and would like to announce that the " michael redman " arrested near indianapolis last week for accepting an illicit package from federal express is , to the best of his knowledge , not him . perhaps this similarly-named person should have used kevin costner's postal service . )
0	i've heard it called " jaws with claws " and that's a fair summation of the plot , though that tag line does little to quantify quality . director stephen hopkins ( blown away , predator 2 ) and screenwriter william goldman ( maverick , misery ) would have you believe that this is an epic historical drama about man against nature , based on what really happened in africa to the railroad workers trying to build a bridge to the 20th century . they've stacked the deck with two big stars ( val kilmer , michael douglas ) , a bigger production design , beautiful photography ( by academy award winner vilmos zsigmond ) , and a score so overblown that it makes the lion king soundtrack sound like chamber music . the movie doesn't make a lick of sense , though , either as an epic or as your basic boo-fest . in fact , some of the bits are so laughably ludicrous that you may think you've stumbled into the sequel to mystery science theater 3000 : the movie . how about the three guys with rifles , who trap a lion and then can't even hit the damned thing ? or the ham-on-wry acting of michael douglas , who chews more scenery than the animals ever do ? ? or , my favorite , lions so agile that they can even climb onto rooftops ? ! ?
0	america's favorite homicidal plaything takes a wicked wife in " bride of chucky , " and their unholy matrimony is something old , nothing new . the burning question on the minds of most moviegoers , however , has nothing to do with nuptial specifics or even how the movie stacks up , but rather whether or not the duo gets down and dirty on their blood-soaked honeymoon . the answer is a sick-and-twisted yes - and viewers are treated to a shadowy glimpse of some hot-enough-to-melt-rubber ( or at least singe it ) lovin' . guess they're anatomically correct . chucky ( again voiced by brad dourif ) , of course , is the star of the " child's play " series , a my buddy-type doll possessed by the spirit of a slain serial killer . in " bride , " the plot ( heh ) picks up with his girlfriend tiffany ( jennifer tilly ) resurrecting chucky's remains ( he was blown up at the end of " child's play 3 " ) with the help of a black arts manual called " voodoo for dummies . " silly mortal . before long , she's also been reduced to shin-high figurine status , and the plastic incarnations of these one-time lunatic lovebirds hit the road to scope out some potential new human bodies . the rest of this rocky horror puppet show plays out as tiff and the chuckster stalk a young couple ( nick stabile and katherine heigl ) with conjugal plans of their own , leading them towards a new jersey grave where a magical , soul-transferring amulet allegedly lies in wait . along the way , our murderous barbie and ken go through post-marriage motions similar to any given pair of newlyweds - bicker , argue , kiss and make up . but when they squabble over who's going to do the dishes , watch out . hey , even faux people have got to work through their problems . director ronny yu keeps the mayhem flashy and stages an inventive scene or two , but not even visual flair can make up for the fact that these creepy kewpies are neither scary nor menacing . when one of them charges , it's nothing a good forward punt couldn't take care of . and when a climactic chase scene is needed , one of the dim-bulb protagonists must _pick_chucky_up_ so the demonic toy can force his hostage to run at gunpoint . throw in some silly casualties and a ridiculous ending ( will " son of chucky " be next ? ) and this is a bizarrely bad 89-minutes at the movies . as is the thing to do in post- " scream " slasher cinema , don mancini's screenplay slathers on the in-jokes and genre-parody . but little of the humor succeeds , proving self-reference can be completely worthless when it lacks bite . to be fair , though , most of " bride of chucky " is on auto-pilot , so it's not quite right to single out one misfired aspect of the film . similarly shaky , the acting ranges from screeching camp to boring bland , the effects aren't that special and the story is one big groaner . here's hoping chucky and his entire clan - past , present and future - rest in peace .
0	stephen , please post if appropriate . " mafia ! " - crime isn't a funny business by homer yen ( c ) 1998 on a particular night when i found myself having some free time , i had a chance to either go to sleep early or to see " mafia ! " , a spoof of mafia and crime films such as " the godfather , " " goodfellas " and " casino " . at 84 minutes in length , i thought that i could enjoy a few laughs before getting a good nights sleep . but by my account , i think that my laff-o-meter only registered a few grins , one giggle , and maybe one chortle . i suppose that you could justify your time as homage to the venerable hollywood star , lloyd bridges , who just recently passed away and whose last performance was in this film . " mafia ! " chronicles vincenzo cortino's ( lloyd bridges ) life . separated from his family when he was young , he escapes to america and tries to live an honest life . but as fate would have it , vincenzo grows up to be a powerful and klutzy crime lord . following in his footsteps are his two sons , joey ( billy burke ) and anthony ( jay mohr ) . like all siblings in powerful crime families , they squabble over power , the future of the family , fortune , and women . " mafia ! " is co-written by jim abrahams , who also contributed to some gut-busting funny spoofs such as " airplane " and " the naked gun . " but these previous movies were funny because the jokes seemed more universally understood and there was more of a manic silliness at work . as i write this , i also wonder how many people have actually seen the movies on which this spoof is based . crime movies in general contain a lot of profanity and violence . it's a tough genre to parody . i was kind of hoping that they could somehow spoof the profanity used in all of those crime movies , maybe by having all of the tough crime lords say " please " as they decide which sector to take over , but this opportunity was never explored . there were one or two moments that made me smile such as the scene where vincenzo is dancing with his newly wed daughter-in-law . a gunman shoots him several times . the impact of the bullets cause him to make these wild contortions that force the wedding band to change music styles to keep up with him , from the samba to disco to the macarena . i think that i just gave away the best part of the film . oh well , that just means that you can go to sleep a little earlier .
1	ingredients : pouring rain , small flooded town , damn about to burst , bad guys going after millions of dollars synopsis : at one point in the story townsperson karen asks hero tom what happened to her church . he replies something like : " the church is flooded but at least the floodwaters put out the big fire . well , the fire wasn't that bad , since , while the church was burning , looters apparently thought it was safe enough to break through all the priceless stained glass windows . " in hard rain a small town is nearly deserted due to flooding . everyone has had to evacuate because it's raining , and now floodwaters are rising so high that buildings are being submerged and the nearby dam is about to break . enter a working class smart-alecky new armored car driver named tom ( christian slater ) . suddenly his security truck carrying over three million dollars gets stuck on the flooded street and is waylaid by armed looters . tom has no choice but to grab the bag full of money , hide it , and swim for his life . this makes for an action movie full of jet skis , speedboat chases , and gun battles , as tom tries to evade and outsmart corrupt cops and armed looters until the national guard can answer his distress call . he is befriended and aided by a spunky churchgoing young woman from town named karen ( minnie driver ) . but unknown to tom and karen , the national guard never heard tom's initial distress call . will tom and karen survive the natural and manmade disasters ? opinion : don't expect thought-provoking issues or dramatics . there's not much more to this movie than hiding , running , swimming , shooting , and saving handcuffed heroes from drowning , but that's what makes it escapist and fun . relax , take your shoes off , and break out the popcorn .
1	every year--every year at the festival , i wait for that film to come along , that one that just pulls me out of my seat , sticks its face up next to my nose , and roars " sur-prise ! " into my bewildered visage . it's almost always a surprise . it sure as niflheim was this time . amazing grace and chuck is being advertised as a modern fairy tale , of a boy in montana who quits his little league team for a very unusual reason . and , in the hands of anyone less careful than the creative staff of this film , it might very well be nothing more than a fairy tale , where we roll our eyes occasionally , smirk to ourselves , and maybe get a forced tear out of the eyes and a " boy , i wish that could happen " sigh out of the lips upon exiting the theater and tossing the empty pepsi cup into the trash . another e . t . another short circuit . this film floored me , for the simple reason that while it has a fairy tale concept , the rest of the film takes itself seriously enough , and presents itself well enough , to make it more of an american folk tale , with characters who are both icons and real people at the same time . america has always had its mythical heros , its paul bunyans and john waynes ; this film presents us with more general , but still universal , ideals : the honest , innocent children who have their own inner wisdom ; the athletes who seem to be amalgamations of courage , honor , and love for their respective sport ; the venerable elected official who leads with kindness and understanding , but has the grit to get things done when they need doin' ( does the latter sound familiar ? ) . amazing grace and chuck is a showcase for these characters , but it never leaves you with the feeling that it's artificial , that it stands behind glass , or that any sharp breeze--or , more importantly , sharp thought--will shatter the wax facade of the panorama . this is a very sturdy scenario . the principals are always given dialogue , and always give performances--always ( it just blows me away ) -- which made them seem real , yet enforces their particular mythic role . the writer/producer , david field , seems to literally take all the " yeah , but in real life , this would have happen " thoughts you get in your head , sticks them in the movie and uses them to bend the plot around to his original heading , in a stronger way then before ! astounding ! he uses obstacles to the plot to * enforce * it ! i am truly impressed ( indeed , envious ) with the skill in which he wrote the story and screenplay ; it's so very unusual , especially in a hollywood film . i don't want to give too much away , but the basic premise is that chuck ( joshua zuehlke ) , the little league pitcher , decides to give up baseball because of nuclear weapons . his decision begins an unlikely series of events that involve another athlete , a boston basketball player ( alex english ) , " amazing " grace smith , and , well , i'm leaving it at that because i wouldn't spoil this film for you for the world . let me just say this , though : i am not recommending this film because i think it has a great message or because of any political positions it might imply . i don't give a rat's ass for the political point-of-view this film expresses , one way or another ; i'm recommending you go see this film because , and only because , it's an excellent story , told with excellence . no , i don't believe what happens in this film could happen in real life ; while i tend to believe the arms control policy of this country is stilted , i believe in careful negotiations , mutual verification , etc . screw what i think . the point is , this film is able to suspend my disbelief and tell a story that is one of the most finely crafted pieces of american dream i have ever seen on the movie screen . this is the natural and more--all the mythic qualities without the pretentiousness or the forced feeling of the conclusion , and a much better script to boot . it carried me into the beliefs and ideals of my boyhood--and , more importantly , without any bumps or jolts that would snap me out of the trance with some hint of self-consciousness . special kudos to : both zuehlke ( a real-life little league pitcher who was picked for the part ) and english ( a forward for the denver nuggets ) for their seamless personification of their characters ; jamie lee curtis , who takes a surprisingly small role and makes it exceedingly memorable as amazing's manager and friend ; william l . peterson ( in a * big * change from his role in to live and die in l . a . ) as a father who shows principles without having to stand up and wave a flag doing it ; and gregory peck , as the guy we wish ronald reagan really was ( and who some numbskulls still probably think he is
0	after enduring mariah carey's film debut , glitter , i'm reminded of a bit from chris rock's bigger and blacker . in response to women saying that they can raise a child without a man , rock says , " you can drive a car with your feet , but that don't mean it should be done . " to that i say , you can give mariah carey a movie , but that certainly don't mean it should be done . sure , there are plenty of pop star film vehicles out there -- from the beatles' a hard day's night to the spice girls' spice world -- but none have been so vapidly pointless or laughable as glitter . everything about this complete tripe is ludicrous . start off with the story , which -- as gruesomely predictable as it is -- is the least offensive part of the movie . the film is inexplicably set in the 80s , a period piece that really shows no sign of its period except for a few chicks in leg warmers . worse yet , everyone's speaking late 90s hip-hop slang in what should be 1983 . meant to be partially autobiographical , carey plays billie frank , a young singer in new york who struggles to overcome a rough childhood and abandonment by her alcoholic mother . influential club dj julian dice , a . k . a . " lucky 7 " ( max beesley playing a bad mix of puff daddy and robert de niro ) , hears her sing on a track , and decides to make her a star . in predictably rapid succession , billie and dice fall for each other , she starts hitting it big , dice gets jealous and starts acting like an ass , and suddenly billie's on " the roller coaster of superstardom . " in the meantime , billie is on an emotional hunt for her missing mom . i won't give away the ending , but -- honestly -- just think of unicorns and rainbows . . . you'll figure it out . the movie screams to be made with camp , and that could've been fun . but the filmmakers thought making the bulk of glitter weepy and dramatic would be better . what a mistake . the brief attempts at comic relief -- as in a scene where an effeminate russian-sounding director gets wacky with filming billie's first music video -- go over like lead balloons . instead , the audience at my screening tended to laugh loudest during mariah's most dramatic scenes . which brings us to the performances , of which there's nothing good that can be said . mariah is primarily seen with a wide-eyed deer-in-the-headlights look frozen on her face . she actually looks scared during her one love scene . but you have to wonder if the writing isn't even worse . so much of the dialogue is so hackneyed and watered down for carey's virginal target audience that it's probably impossible for any actor to pull it off with aplomb . even the characters couldn't have been written more absurdly . they're all members of a barbie playset : the important film director who swoons , " billie , i'd love to put you in a movie i'm making , " and the big-time record executive who takes billie's demo tape and says , " oh , i'll make sure the whole team listens to it in the morning . " everyone in the film is a device , and it's painful to keep watching just to see another one appear . to say more would be a waste . there's so much wrong with this film . and , it pains me that mariah carey -- with her ego and sanity in such fragile condition these days , as evidenced by her multiple hospital stays -- will have to suffer through all the negative reviews she's likely to get . but , then again , i had to suffer through her movie .
1	some critics , including siskel & ebert , are on the record stating that martin scorsese's raging bull , the story of boxer jake la motta , is the best film of the '80s . since there are still a number of '80s films that i haven't seen , i don't feel qualified to make such a judgment , but i'll say this without hesitation : raging bull is a great motion picture , and i would be surprised if more than a handful of films released between january 1 , 1980 and december 31 , 1989 come close to its level . bio-pics often fall into one of two categories : overblown hero- worship or a dry , dull textbook account . it's rare that a movie with the moniker " based on the life of ? " comes across as anything more than sporadically energetic and marginally entertaining . raging bull is the perfect counterexample , and a brilliant argument for film makers to continue to work in this genre . the picture takes the life of boxer jake la motta , a middleweight icon from the '40s and '50s , and develops one of the most compelling character studies ever to reach the big screen . for all 129 minutes , director martin scorsese and actor robert de niro ( in the title role ) have us mesmerized by this individual who is by turns sympathetic , sad , and horrifying . historically , raging bull is said to be mostly accurately , with the lion's share of the details culled from la motta's own autobiography ( which was co-written with joseph carter and peter savage ) . however , although la motta is credited as the movie's " consultant , " he was reportedly unhappy with the final result , because it portrays him as nothing short of an uncouth , insensitive lout . the la motta of the movie is a man of extreme appetites who is driven by base , bestial impulses ? paranoia , jealousy , and blind rage . sex and violence are inextricably linked . the title is apt ? la motta is a raging bull . in the ring , he is a terror , not just beating his opponents , but destroying them . outside of it , he is no less vicious or more easily controlled . the two people who spar with him on life's canvas are his wife , vicki ( cathy moriarty ) , and his brother/manager , joey ( joe pesci ) . these are the two who mean the most to jake , and who , as a result of his inability to trust himself or others , he loses . he beats vicki mercilessly because he suspects her of infidelity , and , when he inaccurately believes that his brother betrayed him , his lets loose with an explosion of violence . raging bull opens in 1941 when la motta , an up-and-coming fighter , is battling his way into the upper echelon of the middleweight class . over the years , he wins several key bouts , including one against his arch-rival , sugar ray robinson ( johnny barnes ) , but his unwillingness to capitulate with the local godfather keeps him from an opportunity to participate in a championship match . meanwhile , away from the ring , la motta falls in love with 15-year old vicki , who he marries after discarding his shrewish first wife . vicki becomes jake's greatest prize ( a wife , in his view , is not a companion , but a possession ) and the source of his most extreme pain . his own insecurity is so great that he cannot accept that a woman as beautiful as vicki could be faithful to him . hence , he is constantly haunted by a belief that she is sleeping with someone else ? perhaps even his brother . ( this leads to the famous line parodied in waiting for guffman and elsewhere : " are you f * * king my wife ? ? ? " ) in the late '40s , la motta gets his first shot at a championship fight , but with one huge condition : he must take a fall . he does it so badly that an investigation is launched and he is almost thrown out of boxing . two years later , he wins the championship , only to lose it in a subsequent bout to sugar ray . by the late '50s and early '60s , when the film ends , jake has become a pathetic figure ? a broke , overweight loser who has spent time in jail for corrupting the morals of a minor , has lost his wife and children , and is trying to earn a few bucks by doing a cheap standup routine . raging bull is the other side of rocky . sylvester stallone's tale of boxing triumph was released to great critical acclaim in 1976 . it won the 1977 best picture oscar , and a sequel arrived in theaters before raging bull went into production . but , where rocky romanticizes boxing , raging bull takes a cold , unflinching look at the violence both inside and outside of the ring . while scorsese's primary aim is to present a riveting deconstruction of la motta the man , he never backs away from showing the seedy , ugly underside of a sport where gambling , greed , and organized crime force fighters to throw matches to continue working . rocky shows boxing at its noblest ; raging bull shows it at its most diseased . there's little i can say here that hasn't already said about de niro's performance . in a career that has included many fine roles , this is his most outstanding . the level of intensity de niro brings to la motta is unwavering . and , although there's a lot of travis bickle ( de niro's character in taxi driver ) in la motta , scorsese and de niro go to great lengths to make sure that , if we never fully sympathize with him , at least we understand the forces that drive him . this is a complete characterization and a perfect example of acting . as the younger jake , de niro is trim and fit . as the fat , older man , de niro gained 50 pounds and turned his body into a grotesque parody of its normal form . how many actors would go that far ? the best oscar statue is only one testimony to the lasting power of the performance . cathy moriarty and joe pesci both earned nominations for their supporting work ( although neither won ) . their portrayals have the same raw energy that infuses de niro's . pesci , who has basically re-created the same personality in two other scorsese films ( goodfellas and casino ) , presents joey as a slightly more intelligent version of his brother . the misogyny and violence are still there , only better concealed . but , when joey snaps , as he does in one scene where he pounds on a mobster ( frank vincent ) , it's startling to behold . moriarty , on the other hand , must play the temptress with virginal qualities ? the only kind of woman who would ensnare jake . later , she's called upon to portray the battered wife and mother whose love has turned into fear . scorsese and cinematographer michael chapman elected to shoot the bulk of raging bull in black-and-white ( a few " home movie " segments are in color ) . the choice is perfect for the movie , giving raging bull a unique look in an era when a black-and-white approach is almost unheard of . ( one important recent exception , schindler's list , eschewed color for some of the same reasons that raging bull did . ) in black-and-white ( especially considering scorsese's choice of shots and use of slow motion ) , the violence is stark and disturbing . there's no room for romanticism in the ring with inky black blood staining the canvas . during fight sequences , the director also uses a number of point-of-view shots designed to show the world , however briefly , from la motta's perspective . scorsese could have chosen to end the film with la motta's loss to sugar ray , where he surrendered his middleweight crown . after that , his career was all downhill . yet the director allows the film to run for thirty minutes after this pivotal moment , stretching more than a decade into la motta's future . the reason is obvious : scorsese isn't as interested in boxing as he is in the character . following his retirement , la motta is still as violent and volatile as ever , but he has lost the arena in which he can legally unleash those tendencies . we see the results of this beast let loose on society and how the consequences of his actions reduce him to a parody of his former self . who cannot feel a surge of pity for la motta as he quietly recites marlon brando's speech from on the waterfront ? ( " i coulda been a contenda . " ) perhaps raging bull is indeed the best film of the '80s . and , if not , it's certainly perilously close to the zenith .
1	meet joe black is your classic boy-meets-girl , boy-likes-girl , boy-gets-killed-in-horrible-accident , supernatural-entity-takes-over-boy's-body , supernatural-entity-falls-in-love-with-girl story . based on the 1934 film death takes a holiday , meet joe black is a well acted romantic drama which explores the meanings of life and love . william parrish ( anthony hopkins ) is a billionaire businessman on the brink of his 65th birthday . he has built a huge media empire , and raised two beautiful daughters , allison ( marcia gay harden ) and susan ( claire forlani ) . william has been able to negotiate his way out of many tough spots . . . but he has suddenly begun fearing his own mortality , the one situation he won't be able to talk his way out of . and he has good reason to fear , for death himself is stalking him . however , death has a deal to make . death has taken possession of a man who has recently died ( brad pitt ) , and wants william to be his guide in a holiday among the living . in return , william gets to live a few extra days . of course , he agrees . death , under the human name of " joe black " , gets to experience life as a complete innocent . he never before has experienced the simple pleasures of a springy matters or peanut butter . and he's not quite compared for the more complex pleasures when he and susan fall in love . but , is their affair doomed to an early demise ? at nearly three hours in length , meet joe black is a little bit on the leisurely side , though it never gets boringly lengthy . instead , the film gets a chance to develop some nicely textured characters and situations . you get to soak in and enjoy the atmosphere , rather than being hurriedly rushed through it . the romantic angle works well , though , surprisingly , the interactions between joe black and william parrish are more interesting than those with his daughter . this is most likely due to anthony hopkins , who once again displays his superb acting skills . william is a desperate man who has had a seemingly ideal life , and doesn't want to let it go . by contrast , claire forlani is merely the romantic interest . she gets to show joe the ropes of love , but is hardly as interesting a character . as joe black , brad pitt seems a bit stilted . granted , he's supposed to be out-of-place , but the overly formal technique used by pitt begins to distract from the role . still , he is able to hold his own , and over the course of the three hours , his character begins to grow on you . the main character who seems out of place here is drew ( jake weber ) , an ambitious executive in williams' company who is joe black's main rival for susan's affections . weber plays the character with a hammy relish reminiscent of snidley whiplash . this cartoonish foil an aberration in a film filled many more dimensional characters . the supernatural elements of the film are handled murkily , but never distractingly so . we never learn what is the exact nature of death , or why he's never done something like this before . it actually gets a bit creepy when death talks to the dying in their own voices/accents . ( his initial conversations with hopkins sound shockingly like hannibal lecter . . . ) and the ultimate resolution to one of the film's supernatural problems seems , well , somewhat superficial . still , even with the film's length , it was a pleasant time at the movies , something you wouldn't necessarily expect from a film about death . . . but one which meet joe black delivers anyhow .
0	the happy bastard's quick movie review holy man more like holy crap . the film stars eddie murphy as a mystical-ish figure named g on a strange journey of some sort when he comes across two network execs ( jeff goldblum and kelly preston ) with a flat tire on their hands . somehow he ends up in their car and on their channel , a line-up of infomercial programs featuring the likes of betty white , morgan fairchild , and a slew of other celebrities and nameless figures . it's here that he seems to hit his stride , speaking of life instead and somehow boosting sales . at this point in the movie , of course , morality comes into play , particularly on goldblum , who suddenly feels he can market the magical g into megabucks to get in good with his boss ( robert loggia ) . it doesn't take long for the movie to unfold into sappy mush , with realizations taking place left and right and poor plot points . only a real zippy sequence involving frying morgan fairchild's face seems to have any interest in the movie . murphy lends nothing to his character and poor goldblum looks as if he'd rather be someplace else . some may argue that the movie has a message , but all that came across to me is that i could probably get more entertainment watching that informercial with the guy in the question mark coat . at least he has something for us to laught at . . .
1	" jaws " is a rare film that grabs your attention before it shows you a single image on screen . the movie opens with blackness , and only distant , alien-like underwater sounds . then it comes , the first ominous bars of composer john williams' now infamous score . dah-dum . from there , director steven spielberg wastes no time , taking us into the water on a midnight swim with a beautiful girl that turns deadly . right away he lets us know how vulnerable we all are floating in the ocean , and once " jaws " has attacked , it never relinquishes its grip . perhaps what is most outstanding about " jaws " is how spielberg builds the movie . he works it like a theatrical production , with a first act and a second act . unlike so many modern filmmakers , he has a great deal of restraint , and refuses to show us the shark until the middle of the second act . until then , he merely suggests its presence with creepy , subjective underwater shots and williams' music . he's building the tension bit by bit , so when it comes time for the climax , the shark's arrival is truly terrifying . he doesn't let us get bored with the imagery . the first act opens with police chief martin brody ( roy scheider ) , a new york cop who has taken an easy , peaceful job running the police station on amity island , a fictitious new england resort town where there hasn't been a murder or a gun fired in 25 years . the island is shaken up by several vicious great white shark attacks right before the fourth of july , and the mayor , larry vaughn ( murray hamilton ) , doesn't want to shut down the beaches because the island is reliant on summer tourist money . brody is joined by matt hooper ( richard dreyfuss ) , a young , ambitious shark expert from the marine institute . hooper is as fascinated by the shark as he is determined to help brody stop it -- his knowledge about the exact workings of the shark ( " it's a perfect engine , an eating machine " ) make it that much more terrifying . when vaughn finally relents , hooper and brody join a crusty old shark killer named quint ( robert shaw ) on his decrepit boat , the orca , to search for the shark . the entire second act takes place on the orca as the three men hunt the shark , and inevitably , are hunted by it . " jaws " is a thriller with a keen sense of humor and an incredible sense of pacing , tension , and horror . it is like ten movies all rolled into one , and it's no wonder it took america by storm in the summer of 1975 , taking in enough money to crown it the box office champ of all time ( until it was unceremoniously dethroned in 1977 by " star wars " ) . even today , fascination with this film is on par with hitchcock's " psycho , " and it never seems to age . although grand new technology exists that makes the technical sequences , including several mechanical sharks , obsolete , none of it could improve the film because it only would lead to overkill . the technical limitations faced by spielberg in 1975 may have actually produced a better film because it forced him to rely on traditional cinematic elements like pacing , characterization , sharp editing , and creative photography , instead of simply dousing the audience with digital shark effects . scheider , dreyfuss , and shaw were known actors at the time " jaws " was made , but none of them had the draw of a robert redford or paul newman . nevertheless , this film guaranteed them all successful careers because each gave an outstanding performance and refused to be overshadowed by the shark . scheider hits just the right notes as a sympathetic husband and father caught in the political quagmire of doing what's right and going against the entire town . " it's your first summer here , you know , " mayor vaughn warns him . dreyfuss , who had previously been seen in " american graffiti " ( 1973 ) and " the apprenticeship of duddy kravitz " ( 1974 ) gives a surprisingly mature , complex performance for someone who had literally only played kids and teenagers . however , most outstanding is the gnarled performance by robert shaw as the movie's captain ahab , a performance sorely overlooked by the academy awards . bordering of parody , shaw plays quint as a grizzled old loner whose machismo borders on masochism . he's slightly deranged , and shaw's performance is almost a caricature . however , there is one scene late in the film , when he and brody and hooper are below deck on the orca comparing scars . quint is drawn into telling the story of his experiences aboard the u . s . s . indianapolis , a navy ship in world war ii that was sunk by the japanese . his tale of floating in the water for more than a week with over 1 , 000 other men while swarms of sharks slowly devoured them them is actually more hair-raising than anything spielberg put on screen . shaw delivers the story in one long take , and it is the best acting in the film . of course , we can't leave out the shark itself ; with its black eyes , endless rows of teeth , and insatiable urge to eat , it is basically the epitome of all mankind's fears about what is unknown and threatening in nature . a shark is such a perfect nemesis it is real -- having survived sinch the dinosaurs , great whites do exist , they can be as large as the shark in " jaws , " and they are a threat . every one of spielberg's subjective underwater shots makes us feel queasy because lets us see how we look to the shark : a bunch of writihing , dangling , completely unprotected legs just ready to be chomped into . the shark in " jaws " was actually a combination of actual footage and five different mechanical sharks ( all nicknamed " bruce " by the crew ) built to be shot from different angles . many have forgotten , but " jaws " was a sort of precursor to " waterworld " ( 1995 ) , a movie's who soggy production and cost overruns had universal studios worried about a bomb . but , as we can see now , spielberg overcame all the obstacles , and delivered one of the finest primal scare-thrillers ever to come out of hollywood .
0	as you should know , this summer has been less than memorable . with a total of 4 decent films , it's not a surprise that these big budget failures keep appearing . with that said , you can pretty much predict what my opinion on " the 13th warrior " will be . the film is based on the michael crichton " eaters of the dead " , in which ahmed ibn fahdlan is banished from his country for looking at a wife of a king . after tarveling for many months , he comes across a gang of norsemen , who are forced to pick 13 men to protect a town from mythical monsters who travel in the fog . so , they start picking men , and are left without 1 , thus ahmed is choosen . so far it sounds interesting right ? not when all of this takes place in 15 minutes . after that , they basically run around killing . that alone shows how much a script is needed for a film , because once your story is introduced , you have the rest of the film to start developing it . obviously that's not the case here . even if you are going into the film expecting an action packed adventure , you will be disappointed . since all the action takes place in fog , it is constantly hard to see a scene clearly due to those circumstances , and to poor camera work . can't the camera men sit still ? i'd like to actually watch a film in focus , but again , they failed to deliver that as well . the film moves on and on until the point , where you can care less about anything but the popcorn you're eating . with corny dialogue , that the characters laugh at for some odd reason , a script that goes nowhere , dull action sequences , a predictable ending , and worst of all weak characters , there's basically nothing to like here , except for maybe the set designs . that's the only thing that honestly caught my interest . when i heard that john mctiernan , the director , wanted his name kept out of the project , that made me wonder why ? well now i know . crichton's greed forced mctiernan to edit his finished product , which led to a big arguement . what's there to argue about anyway ? the film couldn't be saved , no matter how much they spent or casted . seeing films like the haunting and big daddy making money , i wouldn't be surprised to see " the 13th warrior " become a hit . please do me a favor and save your money at all costs , or else you will be lost in the fog , like the film itself .
1	apocalypse now , based on the novel " hearts of darkness " , is an extremely striking , gripping , and horrifying depiction of the vietnam war from another angle . a long debate has surrounded this movie as if it is actually an anti-war film . in many ways , this debate could go either way . apocalypse now is probably one of the most memorable vietnam war films ever made . in addition , now film has gone to the extremes that this film does - a disturbing look at the corruption and terrifying effects of the most devastating war of recent years . apocalypse now follows the mission captain benjamin l . willard , played by martin sheen , to seek out and eliminate colonel walter e . kurtz , a green beret who is thought to have gone insane and set up his own militant base in cambodia . captain willard is ordered to assassinate kurtz with " extreme prejudice " because he has been deemed a murderer . willard accepts his mission , but not while pondering the accusation . accusing someone of murder in this situation is like " handing out speeding tickets at the indy 500 " , as he puts it . it doesn't make too much sense . escorting him on his mission are a group of men who operate a riverboat . the men are chef ( frederic forrest ) , chief ( albert hall ) , lance johnson ( sam bottoms ) and mr . clean ( a fifteen year-old laurence fishburne ) . willard is ordered not to let them know exactly what his mission is , but they all know it is something big . the men encounter many exciting , dangerous and bizarre situations . but no situation is more bizarre than the infamous napalm scene with a very eccentric robert duvall as lieutenant colonel kilgore . kilgore decides to attack and overtake a certain beach area so that his men can surf . surf . this is all inspired when kilgore is able to meet the famed california surfer lance johnson . duvall's portrayal as lieutenant colonel kilgore is terrific , and , he provides a number of memorable quotes . eventually , captain willard encounters colonel kurtz's frightening community full of strange things everywhere you look , especially his followers . one of his main followers is a freelance photographer ( dennis hopper ) who attempts to convey the situations to willard . but willard cannot understand the madness that encompasses the colony . kurtz is actually well aware of willard's mission , and refers to him as " an errand boy sent by grocery clerks to collect a bill " . yet willard is intent on completing his mission , no matter what shocking things kurtz does . apocalypse now , possibly one of the greatest films ever made , is a stunning vision into the madness that corresponds to the vietnam war . a movie that will hypnotize you with it's brilliant cinematography , apocalypse now is an outstanding epic drama about the controversial and horrifying ravages of war . definitely on the " do not miss " list . be prepared for a very memorable film .
1	there exists a litany of differences between a successful action movie and a successful suspense movie . action movies are typically devoid of plot other than a simple byline which can string together several explosive sequences , while suspense movies hinge on plot and subtlety and the ability to bring everything full-circle . for fans of both genres , however , realism is key . action fans want to know that the weapons and methods their heroes are using are authentic , and suspense fans want everything to fall into an explainable framework by the movie's end . on this advice , director john frankenheimer ( the island of dr . moreau ) strives for realism in an interestingly dynamic balance of suspense and action for his latest thriller , ronin . the depth of intrigue in ronin is quite amazing , considering the fare that's fallen into the same category over the last few years . the script , written by j . d . zeik in his big-screen debut , approaches levels of complexity that had people spinning away from mission : impossible two years ago . a certain number of people will be lost by this , but afficianados will appreciate it all the more and return multiple times . frankenheimer masters the script with poise , and tells us a dark but stoically realistic tale of a group of post-cold war mercenaries working to earn their paycheck . his ability to convey feeling and character while promoting explosiveness and tense atmosphere works well here , and ronin becomes a better movie because of it . robert de niro headlines this cast of noteworthies in a performance that is the most outstanding of his in quite some time . he takes command and offers much gravity as the ex-spy sam , a man who's called to france to help a shady operations controller named dierdre ( natascha mcelhone ) recover a package . the package becomes the central motivator for the entire cast , especially once the requisite double-crossing begins , and its role is skillfully penned by zeik . at times , however , zeik's tale becomes almost too reminiscent of mission : impossible - de niro might easily become tom cruise , the package might become cruise's computer disk . fortunately , the focus here is almost entirely on the package , whereas in mission the script was more concerned with the double-cross and why it happened . the action content is impressive , and it lives up to the hints given in previews . the only fans who will be disappointed are those who expect full-blown combat scenes and instead are forced to suffer through moments of slowness . ronin does take a degree of intelligence to follow all of the nuance from start to finish , but even the uninitiated will be able to keep a grasp on most characters mand subplots . the suspense tapers off considerably by the end , a bit of a drawback because of its height at the movie's open . considering these factors it's good to see that ronin was a project that turned out well , and it's another good bet this month . since quality is usually sparse during the early fall months , it's definitely worth the visit .
1	well i'll be damned , what a most excellent surprise . not to be confused with the campy and far inferior 1988 remake starring ex-porn star traci lords , this more recent attempt at remaking the 1950's drive-in schlockfest not of this earth is a real gem and was quite possibly the best sci-fi flick of 1995 . once again , b-movie king roger corman is behind this effort ( he directed the original ) but this time he appears only in the role of executive producer . the rest of the crew and cast are relative unknowns . it seems criminal that the film was released direct to video in most countries , because it's an absolute must-see for sci-fi fans and a treat for anyone who enjoys decently acted and written thrillers with a kooky bent . the plot in brief . paul johnson ( michael york ) is an alien posing as an eccentric millionaire who , though needing to kill people to live , is visiting earth for far from selfish reasons . his race is dying of a mysterious blood disease and he desperately is trying to find a cure , the key of which lies in the blood of humans . he visits and soon puts under his spell the respected blood physician dr . rochelle , whom he hypnotises into doing secret research on his behalf . he also has the doctor convince smart and sexy nurse amanda ( elizabeth barondes ) to move in with johnson as his private nurse so as to give him the blood transfusions which he constantly requires . but before long , amanda and johnson's sleazy chauffeur release that johnson is a lot more than just eccentric . i must admit , my first glimpse of the video cover for not of this earth was not encouraging . british actor michael york has appeared in some real stinkers in past few decades , a far cry from the quality fare of his younger days such as caberat ( 1972 ) . but his performance here as an alien in human disguise is nothing short of outstanding . the weird twitches and bizarre modes of speech , the dapper clothes and cool spectacles , the unexpected pathos which he invests in his character . york is by turns hilarious , menacing and tragic . this is a tour-de-force and quite simply the best performance i've seen from him . and while obviously made on a modest budget , the film boasts enormous strengths . the casting is spot on , the acting is terrific and the script is intelligent , witty and consistently engaging , cleverly updating the original . the balance of horror and humour is just about perfect , a marked contrast to the earlier remake from 1988 . the film doesn't drag for a second of its 90 minute running time thanks to tight editing and the sure hand of little-known director terrance h . winkless . and it doesn't matter one bit that the special effects are cheesy - this is schlock after all , even if it is high class schlock . in fact my only criticism of the film is that things get a tad weak towards the end . tighter direction could have given the climax more urgency and a few of the characters act rather illogically given their life-threatening situation . but these are minor complaints . just see it . not of this earth is one of the biggest sci-fi surprises in years . and michael york : in one cool swoop you've made yourself a b-movie legend , dude .
0	can you say " dated " ? you can if you've seen rosemary's baby which , like the exorcist , was a thrilling horror film in its time but seems boring and laughable in the decades that have passed since its original release . " mystery science theater 3000 " has skewered the bad films of the past , but let me tell you , it could do a number on the " good " ones too . rosemary's baby stars mia farrow ( from the time she was actually good-looking ) as an innocent housewife and her not-so-innocent husband ( john cassavettes ) , an actor who takes an easy , albeit evil , road to success . it all seems so harmless in the beginning . mia and john move into an apartment where several past murders have been committed . ( there's also a skull in the living room , but it's only for decoration . ) their elderly neighbors pop in for a housewarming . all's well for about the first hour of this slow-moving film , until mia eats some of the neighbors' chocolate mousse and passes out . when she comes to , she finds herself in a darkened room with a bunch of people yelling and dancing like savages and a big , evil man raping her -- a foreshadowing of her future life with woody allen . it seems like a dream and , when she finds herself pregnant , she almost forgets about it . and everyone's helping with the pregnancy . the neighbors have some wonderful vitamin potions for her to drink , a good-luck charm for her to wear around her neck , and the name of an obstetrician who's been in the business 66 . 6 years . meanwhile , mia begins having chronic stomach pains and losing a lot of weight . before too long she looks just like the lead singer of the cranberries . that's when you know your health's failing . the only person in the movie who's the least bit suspicious of all this is an old friend ( maurice evans ) who calls mia up to give her the bad news -- and immediately falls into a coma . by about the two-hour mark i felt the same way . rosemary's baby is way too long , and leads up to a payoff that's about as boring and laughable as the rest of the movie . i guess someone put a spell on this movie .
0	* * the following review contains spoilers * * " please someone stop joel schumacher before he vomits into a film canister again and tries to pass it off as a movie . " -- chuck dowling , the jacksonville film journal i wrote the above sentence in my review for 1997's batman and robin . apparently , no one heard my words . oh , how i wish you had heard them . oh how i wish someone had stopped him . . . because he's done it again . the plot of 8mm is similar to the 1977 paul schrader film hardcore , a surprisingly decent and engrossing tale . in fact , it was everything that 8mm is not . in the opening minutes of 8mm , we see private detective tom welles ( nicolas cage ) working on a case for a prestigious member of the u . s . government . keep this fact in mind , cage is trusted with an important case , which he solves . he returns home to his wife and new daughter , and even finds time to rake his yard ( keep that in mind too , it's important as well ) . he's hired by a rich elderly woman to solve a mystery . after her husband's death she comes across a film in his private safe . it appears to be snuff film , a sort of urban legend of the pornography industry in which someone is actually brutally murdered for the camera . the woman wants welles to locate the young girl in the film , hopefully to disprove that it is in fact a snuff film . so he sets off on a journey into the sordid underworld of sleaze to discover the truth about the film . the main problem with 8mm is that the whole film is completely pointless . welles is actually selected for the case by the old woman's lawyer ( anthony heald , an actor who always plays the same type of character , that being a bad guy ) . when you first see him , your first instinct is that he's behind the whole thing . the choice of casting does the film in . then , as welles begins his investigation , at times we will see a shadowy figure following him . the only person it could possibly be is the lawyer ( or someone sent by the lawyer ) because no one knows welles is even investigating anything yet . so your first instinct has now been confirmed . then , when it is in fact revealed that the lawyer is a part of the whole thing , he tells welles that he was chosen for the case because he was young and inexperienced ( in one of those ridiculous " since we're going to kill you anyway , why not tell you the whole thing " moments ) . but earlier when we see welles being hired for the case he's told that he was hired because he comes highly recommended . huh ? also , when the lawyer reveals himself to be a part of the whole thing , his main goal is to get the film back . so why did he give it up in the first place ? ! the lawyer had the film the whole time , then gave it away to the private detective thinking that he would just give up on the case and return the film ? ! it's totally absurd . . . and this is the screenwriter of seven ? late in the film there's a confrontation between all the main characters , and after a struggle one of the character's guns ends up underneath a car . cage , who has been handcuffed to a bed , is rapidly trying to get to his gun , which is on a table . james gandolfini's character goes for the gun under the car in what is supposed to be a scene of " suspense " . you see , the gun is just slightly out of reach from the side of the car he's trying to reach it from , and so instead of going around the car to the other side ( where he can easily reach it ) he just keeps stretching . go around to the other side of the car ! ! this goes on for minutes . then , after cage gets his gun , gandolfini then decides it would be best to go around to the other side of the car . boy , schumacher is really really getting on my nerves . i think the final straw would be when cage returns home , devastated by everything that he's seen on this case , and then is no longer able to rake his lawn ! we actually see a shot of him pathetically poking at leaves in his yard . other things that bugged me about 8mm : one would be the music , if you can call it that . whenever the score starts up , it sounds like techno music , and then this awful indian or middle eastern type music will accompany it . awful decision there joel . another is cage's performance . at this point he's capable of a wide range of performances , either good or bad . for 8mm , he delivers a very wooden one , and only shines when he's interacting with joaquin phoenix ( who gives a great performance as a porn shop clerk with a heart of gold who helps cage with his case ) . you're capable of much better mr . cage . now as for you mr . schumacher . . . i'm starting to doubt if you're capable of anything else besides urinating onto the institution of american cinema . [r]
0	plot : token director alan smithee steals the only copy of his film " trio " from the studio , after they complete the " final cut " without him . he threatens to burn the film reel if they do not allow him to keep his vision . critique : wow . i really can't remember the last time a movie sucked on so many levels ! the " comedy " in this film is pathetic , obvious and dated ( oj simpson jokes galore ) . the plot is uninteresting , boring and bad . the structure of the film is annoying , repetitive and pretentious . the acting is pretty bad , especially jackie chan , who can't act to save his life . the cameos are lame and seem forced , and the ending blows chunks . all in all , this movie believes itself to be a clever , humorous and edgy look behind the closed doors of hollywood , but comes across as a boring , stupid and completely unentertaining piece of shite . i love to see movies about hollywood shenanigans , but this one bites the big one . see it if you like to watch really bad movies , otherwise skip it , because it will just have you hating every star that makes an appearance in it . luckily for us all , this mess only lasts about 80 minutes , and miramax honcho harvey weinstein plays a lead-faced detective . by the way , is there any reason why the studio or the producer couldn't have cut another version of the film by the way of all the filmed stock that was left over ? who knows , who cares , this " satire " sucks the bag . little known facts about this film and its stars : ironically , the original director of this film , arthur hiller , also requested his name be taken off the credits and replaced by the dga's alan smithee moniker . this was after the film's production company , cinergi pictures , preferred the cut made by producer/writer joe eszterhas to his . the original script of this film included arnold schwarzenegger and bruce willis . eszterhas announced through the media during post-production that cinergi pictures didn't have the money to pay for soundtrack . he said that he would finance the soundtrack from his own money and asked to submit tracks for it to him . he received 9 , 200 cds and cassettes from mostly unknown and unsigned artists , listened to all that was sent ( at least a couple of tracks from each record ) and compiled the soundtrack . this film practically swept the " razzie awards " in 1999 , given out to the worst of all movie categories of the year , with no less than the " worst picture " award , the " worst screenplay " ( joe eszterhas ) , the " worst supporting actor " ( joe eszterhas ) , the " worst new star " ( joe eszterhas tied with jerry springer ) and the " worst original song " ( " i wanna be mike ovitz ! " as written by joe eszterhas ) .
0	when i watch a movie like mike nichols' what planet are you from ? i can't help but feel like everyone is looking at me . it's as if all the audience is gazing at the back of my head in the darkness , eyes shooting daggers , quietly blaming me for the fact that they paid hard-earned money to spend their time watching this . . . this . . . thing . i shift uncomfortably in my seat . i'm reminded of how i feel when i see a pair of second- or third-rate celebrities engaging in a teleprompted " funny " conversation to introduce the next blockbuster award . it's not my fault , i know it's not my fault , but dammit , someone's gotta be embarrassed , because it doesn't look like anyone on the screen is ready to take the blame . i'm about to give you a list of names of people who are gonna make a movie together : garry shandling , annette bening , john goodman , greg kinnear , mike nichols . do any of these names make you instantly shudder ? the answer i would have come up with before today is no , this is quite a list of talented individuals we've got here . granted , john goodman was in the flintstones , and greg kinnear has turned in some less-than-lackluster leading man performances in certified failures like a smile like yours , but even so , they've got proven power as excellent supporting players . garry shandling has two television classics under his belt , his ingenious little it's garry shandling's show and the larry sanders show . and for god's sake , mike nichols directed the graduate , and annette bening is just walking away from american beauty . so explain this . . . this . . . thing . what planet are you from ? purports to be a comedy exploring the relationship between men and women satirizing the whole pop-psychology mars/venus phenomenon . but what this movie winds up being is a collection of unfunny cringe-inducing moments coupled with uninsightful cringe-inducing moments ; the end result is , unsurprisingly , an unfunny , uninsightful , cringe-inducing , thoroughly icky embarrassment . garry shandling plays an alien from a planet populated by technologically advanced but emotionally vacant males ( they reproduce through cloning , of course ) . his leaders put a select group of males through a series of tests designed to determine which one is most fit to fly off to earth , find a female of the species , and impregnate her . they're taught how to pretend that they're listening by nodding and saying " uh-huh , " and how to compliment shoes . imagine my delighted surprise when , oh heavens , all their carefully practiced tactics turn out to fail miserably , producing comedic results ! the lucky winner is fitted with a penis ( since theirs , after generations of disuse have long since shrunk out of existence . . . i will restrain myself from mentioning the implausibility of such a scenario since the population has stopped evolving due to the fact that they're all just clones . . . whoops , too late . ) the penis , when aroused , tends to make a humming noise . the writers , when frequently strapped for ideas , tend to turn to this as a source of " comedy . " it isn't funny the first time . it isn't funny the eighth time . it isn't funny the eighteenth time . if anything , it made me feel vaguely self-conscious . garry meets up with a coworker at a bank played by greg kinnear , who turns out to be a generic , unlikable scumbag . he's meant to fill the part of unfortunate role model for shandling's alien character , but he's so flatly drawn that even the writers quickly give up and toss him aside . kinnear's scumbagginess is demonstrated by the fact that he claims other peoples' work as his own to worm his way into a vice presidents' position and goes to aa meetings to pick up chicks . wow . what a magnificent bastard . nearly every man in the movie , in fact , is played as the same sort of sex-driven slimeball . when kinnear's wife walks into the office , there isn't a single guy who doesn't trip , bump into a wall , or otherwise pratfall as if they'd never seen a woman before . the few guys that aren't particularly slimeballs , such as john goodman's detective character , are simply uncommunicative workaholics . shandling meets up with annette bening , who will inevitably prove to be the love he never knew existed , at one of kinnear's aa meetings . shandling's mission is to have a baby , and when he reveals his desires to her , bening instantly falls for him , and the next day . . . they get married . yup . the next day . cuz ya see , it turns out she wants a baby too ! bening's character perhaps was the most difficult to watch , especially after seeing her come apart at the seams so effectively in american beauty . . . if her character here is supposed to be representing the female of the species as a whole , then woe , i say , to the species . she's unfathomably insecure , and succumbs so easily to all of shandling's lines and lies that it borders on tragic . there's a point where , after thinking she may not be able to bear children , she learns that she is indeed pregnant . when garry comes home after nearly cheating on her , she strolls into the kitchen and sings " high hopes " ( you know , the uplifting ant and the rubber tree plant song ) to deliver the news , and then says to him , " now you can't leave me . " we're supposed to empathize with shandling's discovery of the feeling of " guilt , " but instead i wanted to weep for bening that she was placing her entire life and soul firmly in the lap of a great big nothing . and eventually , shandling falls in love with her . . . for real , i suppose , though i'm not sure exactly what prompted it . what's the message i derive from all this ? men are liars , inherently empty creatures , but if you hang around long enough . . . well , maybe something will click . ha ha . . . ha ? i'm thankful such broad cynicism isn't frequently allowed to run so rampant . let's all join hands and pray that the planet these folks are from is not this one . there's also a subplot involving john goodman as an airline incident investigator that wades in the bog of stupidity . goodman , through a series of astoundingly implausible realizations , puts together the fact that shandling is a being from another world with a magic , vibrating penis . it has all the makings for a subplot of having shandling be discovered , that , thankfully , never comes to the inevitable hackneyed fruition . instead , it just dangles limply on the branch for a while , withers , and falls away . further proof that goodman should just stick to doing coen brothers movies . but let's not dwell on this any longer , i've already wasted plenty of your time and my own . let's move on , forget about what we've seen here , and get on with our lives . and to help us out , let's end things on a happy note . . . congratuations go out to annette bening , winner of this week's " title ! " award , for delivering the awkward line of dialog containing the movie's name .
1	being the self-proclaimed professional film critic that i am , i am somewhat embarrassed to admit that i had not seen lawrence of arabia ( coming soon to dvd ) until only recently . after all , it's considered by just about everyone to be the masterpiece epic of director david lean , who also directed films such as bridge on the river kwai , and doctor zhivago . so one day , a friend of mine loaned me a copy of the video and i sat down and watched it . i was initially skeptical that something made almost 40 years ago would be able to keep my attention for the butt-numbing 3 1/2 hours of its duration . but now i fully understand why this has become the film that other epic films are judged against -- the winner of seven academy awards in 1963 for best picture , director , editing , cinematography , art direction , music , and sound . after watching the film again , i am convinced that it is simply one of the finest works of cinematic genius to ever illuminate the big screen . based on the autobiographical writing of british officer t . e . lawrence during world war i , lawrence of arabia depicts lawrence ( played by then-unknown actor peter o'toole ) as a lieutenant lacking any sort of military discipline whatsoever . bored with his assignment of coloring maps for the british army in a dimly lit headquarters building , lawrence jumps at the opportunity to be re-assigned as an observer for an arabian prince fighting against the turkish army . lawrence quickly sees just how caring and great these desert dwelling people can be and ends up rallying the various tribes together to fight the turks and help the british turn the tide of world war i . shot in panavision's famed super 70mm format , the film beautifully illustrates the definition of the word epic . it is absolutely breathtaking . using stunning cinematography , costuming , and direction , shot in the most uninhabitable location on the face of the earth , i can only imagine what it must have been like to sit in a theater in 1962 and watch this story unfold before my eyes . every shot is choreographed as a portrait -- a living tribute to a great land . david lean put his reputation on the line to get this film completed , and the fact that it was even greenlit in the first place says something about the ideology of the motion picture industry at the time , a far cry from its pathetic , uncreative existence today . after watching the film , the first thing that came to my mind was , " i've got to do a remake of this film ! " but then i thought about trying to pitch the idea to a modern-day movie executive : " okay , it's going to be almost four hours long and shot over three months on location in the sahara desert . we are going to need to blow up a full-size train because computer-generated effects probably wont do it justice . and we are not going to use any big stars , and won't have any female actors since there's no love story . " yes , my friends , the velvet curtain fell on the golden-era of hollywood a long time ago . but at least we still have the proof to show all would-be producers and directors out there just how good a film can be .
1	the second jackal-based film to come out in 1997 ( the other starring bruce willis was simply entitled the jackal ) , this one stars aidan quinn and donald sutherland , and is directed by a man who hailed from joblo's own alma matter , concordia university in montreal , canada . the story is based on the exploits of the real terrorist known as the jackal , but does not pretend to be 100% factual . plot : naval officer ramirez ( quinn ) gets called upon by the cia to impersonate the international terrorist known as the jackal , in order to put an end to the actual militant's radical activities . he is chosen for this role because he physically resembles the real terrorist to a tee . ramirez reluctantly agrees to take part in this " assignment " , and soon finds himself wrapped up in a true web of international terrorism , intrigue and double-personality syndrome ( which does not sit well with his uninformed wife and kids back in the states . ) critique : great premise is executed with enough style and thrills to keep the piece interesting throughout its close to two-hour runtime . admittedly , i wasn't a huge fan of any of the main actors in this film , and didn't expect much from this movie beforehand , but surprisingly it did have its thrilling moments , as well as a mostly plausible and absorbing story line . the first hour is mostly just a build-up of things to come , and does offer a great characterization of the jackal , but the second hour is the one that really cranks in the cool scenes and a sweet ending . quinn was adequate in both roles as naval officer ramirez and the real jackal , but didn't offer anything extraordinary , in my opinion . sutherland and kingsley seem to be playing the same role that they've played in both of their respective careers of late , but nonetheless , appeared to relish the cold-heartedness of their chosen characters . i didn't like performance put forth from quinn's wife in this flick , but then again , she doesn't show up in most of the film , so that wasn't so bad . i did however enjoy director duguay's interesting style and cinematic vision . this thriller could easily have been boring during many sequences , but duguay always seemed to find something interesting to show the viewer . i thought that was neat . having said that , i didn't think the first hour needed to be as long as it was , and the film did have me tinkering on the bridge of believability when the " fake " jackal met with the " real " jackal's girlfriend without much retrospection on her part , but all in all , not too many complaints in a movie that could easily be enjoyed by all those who take pleasure in the spy and terrorist thriller genre . little known facts : ben kingsley's real name is krishna banji , he stands 5 " 8 , was born in scarborough , england , and won the best actor honor in 1982's academy awards presentation for the title role he portrayed in ghandi . many scenes from this film were actually shot in montreal , canada ( joblo's haven of restfulness ) . donald sutherland has fathered actor kiefer sutherland , is canadian , and apparently still owns a place in the north of montreal .
1	the saint was actually a little better than i expected it to be , in some ways . in this theatrical remake of the television series the saint , and its series sequel the return of the saint , val kilmer plays simon templar , an elusive thief who makes a living by stealing things from others for others . this movie closely resembles a james bond flick . it has the classic bond symbols : a man who can do just about anything and get away with it , a woman whom the man persues , a villain out to achieve something for himself who kills anyone to reach this goal . kilmer actually provides a rather good role in this movie , although at times you are left to ponder how he actually gets out of the many tight situations . the movie begins in his childhood in a strict school run by catholic priests . as a young boy , kilmer's character enjoyed magic and would often journey away from his schoolwork . that is until his school teacher finds him reading a book and demands that the young boy proclaim his name , that of a catholic saint . he refuses to do so and instead announces who he wishes to be . this leads to a devestating mistake , which is something that will stay in his mind throughout his life . kilmer's first mission that we are shown is to steal a microchip from ivan tretiak , played by rade serbedzija . during a press conference , he must make his way into a heavily guarded vault area , avoiding guards , cameras , and many other potential obstacles . once his mission is completed and he is safely home , the fee is paid . when he logs into his bank account and finds that he is only a few million dollars short of $50 million , he decides to carry out only one more mission , then retire . dr . emma russell , portrayed by elisabeth shue , has discovered a way to produce energy by way of cold fusion . this new advancement would change the world and save thousands of lives in the areas of russia , where millions are without heat and are freezing to death . the only problem is , tretiak would like to have this for himself and use it to gain power amongst the people . this presents the option for kilmer to achieve his goal . tretiak hires him to steal the equations , small pieces of paper , from shue . one of the enjoyable features in the film is the disguises that kilmer dawns to complete his missions . they are very convincing , not only to the characters in the movie , but to us . kilmer utilizes one such disguise to lure shue's character into getting to know him even more , which would provide him a means of stealing the energy formula . when the two meet , and end up having a sensual experience , kilmer's character is seemingly falling in love with emma russell , as she is falling in love with kilmer's alter-ego , a traveling artist . yet , he must reach his goal of $50 million , which requires him to steal the energy formula , putting his feelings aside . shue's character is eventually able to track down simon templar by putting the pieces ( the names of the catholic saints ) together , something no one else is able to do . when she finds him , they are left to team up and reclaim the energy formulas from tretiak . the saint is very action-packed , with few slow points . the sound was very well done and added to the many intense moments . along the course of the movie , there are even a few , although brief moments of comedy . these moments are almost always thanks to kilmer's extraneous , very convincing disguises and personalities . all in all , a rather enjoyable movie with nearly non-stop action .
0	synopsis : sonny koufax ( adam sandler ) is a rich , childish , angry man who has just been dumped by his girlfriend vanessa ( kristy swanson ) . in a bid to impress vanessa sonny impersonates his friend kevin ( jon stewart ) and adopts a 5 year old boy named julian ( cole and dylan sprouse ) while kevin is on an overseas trip . under sonny's supervision julian soon learns to lie to women , tell people how he " wipes his ass , " throw tantrums , and scream for his " god damned " treats . self centered , julian breaks a school classmate's arm without apologizing or even realizing he has done anything wrong . meanwhile sonny bribes julian with sugary talk , food , toys , and flashy promises in order to get the kid to perform . not surprisingly the government takes julian away from sonny's incompetent supervision , and this leads to a custody battle . opinion : it's a movie about an embittered creep teaching a little kid to be a jerk , and we all get cheap laughs because for 90 minutes the innocent kindergartner never finds out what it means when he mimics all the bad boy behavior . that's the essence of big daddy . but there's a bigger issue involved : marketing . movies that are rated pg and pg-13 are heavily marketed towards children of preteen age and below . on tv , film clips advertise these movies as family-friendly hit comedies . then when you go see them they turn out to be either raunchy sex acts like austin powers with characters named fat bastard - - or big daddy where adult characters get their jollies by buddying up to naive five year olds and encouraging them to experiment with drugs and mistreatment . folks in hollywood are trying to develop a preteen market for raunchy stuff , but i think most american parents would agree that early childhood is a time of mental innocence that should be protected from uncaring media market exploitation . to many american mothers there's probably nothing more pathetic and unsettling than the sight of a theater full of unsupervised little eight year olds laughing raucously as movie character father adam sandler jokes about a woman's " ice cold tits . "
1	seen at the 21st portland international film festival film title : supermarket woman director : juzo itami country : japan 1997 cinematography : yonezo maeda music : toshiyuki honda cast : nobuko miyamoto , masahitko tsugawa , shiro ito , yuji miyake , akiko matsumoto super features : typical itami film . . . funny and pointed in its own way . if you don't care how and what the food you buy goes through in your local supermarket , then this film is not for you . . . . maybe it is better to ignore it , as this strong and biting satire , as only juzo itami can deliver , will give you an insight as to what some foods go through . having , in the past , made films that pulled every punch imaginable , from the family traditions ( the funeral ) , to taxes ( a taxing woman & a taxing woman returns ) , to the diabolical gangsters ( minbo ) , to hospitals ( the seriously ill ) , juzo itami , this time takes on the supermarkets' own war , to get the consumers . and while this film has its funny side , in the crazy situations that it creates , it also shows another side , which is very much the attitude of a corporate structure that is more concerned with its profits than it is with any customer . goro has a supermarket . and a competitor comes into the neighborhood , trying to take him out of business by providing less expensive prices for everything that is sold in the supermarket . bargains galore , its name , has in mind the closure of goro's humbler venue , so that in the end it can mark up its prices in any way it can . goro hires hanako , a housewife whose talents seem to be better suited to management , than they are in anything else . hanako , as she gets familiar with the operation , discovers many of the tricks of the trade , done by many of the elders in charge of each section of the market . and the procedures , are not always " fresh " food , but a new packaging and a new date , to try and convince the customers that quality is on the shelves . hanako's ideas take hold , starting with a few of the women that work in the supermarket , being that they do not even shop there at all . and hanako discovers along the way that a few giveaways here and there make a bit of a difference . if not cause some serious problems in the running of the store . a price error , forces them to give away eggs for very low prices , and causes the store a few hassles , but , it brought the people in , and everyone knows that these customers will buy a few other things . as the operation gets stronger , the competition also has trickery up its sleeve , and it has been undermining much of the operation by paybacks to one of the store managers , as well as the meat and fish elder supervisors . eventually these people are found out , and hanako has to tread slowly and carefully , until in the end they all have a showdown . and here , the truth and honesty win out , and even one of the elders decides to stay rather than go to work for the corrupt opponent . in the process , they also find that " freshness " ( with some very funny jokes on this word as well ) becomes a much more important tool than they imagined . with some very nice performances , in this hectic , and fast paced film , this film gives us a sitting of two hours that is satisfying in many ways , although a failed love story between goro and hanako does not come off much , even though towards the end it is suggested . but this would take away from the satire and its strengths . with food gags all over the place , the film lets you have it . and what fun it is . worth seeing . ( editorial ) the director of this film , juzo itami , died shortly after the film was finished , and he left behind a legacy of comedy and satire that is rare , and uncompromising . we would wish that he had been able to make one about film making , of which he must have had a few stories to tell , but we will have to do with much of the japanese society , and its many errant ways . . . . not to say that these things do not happen anywhere else . . . . america is no less guilty of any of these subjects at all , should anyone have the guts to tackle it . . . we could learn something along the way , too . . . . worth seeing , specially , is a taxing woman and its follow up a taxing woman returns . the funeral is also good , although not as funny as the later films . tampopo is also very enjoyable . all four of these films are available in video , which means your best local site for foreign film may have them . . . ask for it .
1	the happy bastard's quick movie review me tarzan . . . you happy viewer . for a minute there , i thought i was going to be groaning over the release of disney's latest , another adaptation of a legend from the past . ( remember the pathetic pocahontas ? yikes ! ) but guess what- disney , a company that's been on a roll lately with animated films , strikes again with another wonderful tale that pleases the eyes as well as the inner kid in you . the story is pretty basic- tarzan is left orphaned and a female gorilla who's lost her young adopts him into her group . as he matures into a much older man , tarzan still wonders just why he's so much different from the clan , and then arrives a hunter , a professor , and the professor's lovely daughter , jane- who meets tarzan rather quickly after getting in trouble with a group of feisty babboons . from there , tarzan faces tough choices- should he stay with the ones that he grew up with or go join his own kind in england ? the voicework here is pretty top-level . tony goldwyn is very convincing as the ape man ; minnie driver adds a delectable touch to the already-beautiful jane ; nigel hawthorne makes for a pretty nasty hunter voice ; rosie o' donnell keeps the laughs rolling as tarzan's best ape friend terk ; and wayne " newman " knight has his moments as a panicky elephant . the movie is superb throughout , mixing a great script with incredible computer-assisted visuals . when tarzan tree-surfs ( a twist that was added on top of the same ol' vine swinging- and a great one , i might add ) , the camera twists and turns , allowing the trees all around to come to life vividly . i couldn't believe my eyes- disney has come a long way since starting in a ballroom for beauty and the beast . and the music's not half bad , either . fortunately , there's no ridiculous singing characters here , just a great set of songs by phil collins that perfectly fit the mood . there's some great action sequences here as well , including a wonderfully done chase between tarzan , jane , and the aforementioned babboons . but , of course , it's not all action- there's a message here as well that has to do with family . this is easily one of disney's best animated films of the decade and it's one i can't wait to put in my home library . . . that is , if my vcr still works in the year 2000 .
0	in the line of duty is the critically praised series of television movies dealing with the real-life incidents that claimed lives of law enforcement officers in usa . the twilight murders , another one from the series , is dealing with the case of gordon kahl ( played by rod steiger ) , old farmer from north dakota who would rather spend a year in prison than pay taxes to the despised u . s . government . after being released , he still refuses to pay taxes and the warrant is issued for his arrest . when the u . s . marshals come to arrest him , it turns out that kahl isn't alone . many poor farmers in rural northwest share his extremist anti-government beliefs , and the routine operation turns into shootout that would leave federal officers that . that brings fbi on the scene , and agent mayberly ( michael gross ) is supervising the manhunt . however , his efforts seem fruitless , since kahl still has many supporters , some of them even in the local law enforcement . after betrayed , 1988 thriller by costa gavras , hollywood mostly ignored the disturbing trends of rising right-wing extremism in the american northwest , and that remained so until oklahoma city bombing , when media hype brought right-wingers back into spotlight . until that time , only the television movies like this one bothered to pay attention to that phenomenon . unfortunately , the twilight murders is still routine and formulaic television film , that uses sensationalist real life content in order to cover lack of originality in the script . sometimes , like many american tv movies , it creates drama where drama shouldn't be . on the other hand , film is steadily directed by dick lowry , and rod steiger does good job potraying gordon kahl . on the other hand , michael gross as his pursuer is quite wooden and his interaction with some of the actors is terrible . however , film does deal with potentially thought-provoking social and political issues , so hour and half spent in front of the screen shouldn't be the total waste of time .
0	nearly every film tim burton has directed has been an homage to the horror genre -- " frankenweenie , " " beetlejuice , " " batman , " " edward scissorhands , " " ed wood , " " mars attacks ! " -- yet none of them have been horror films . " sleepy hollow " is his first attempt to actually scare people . i greeted the prospect with high anticipation ; burton's whole career seemed to be leading up to this . i left disappointed . andrew kevin walker's screenplay takes only the character names from the classic short story " the legend of sleepy hollow . " in the movie ichabod crane ( johnny depp ) is a new york city police constable who is trying to introduce scientific methods of investigation to his superiors . ichabod is dispatched to the small town of sleepy hollow to investigate a series of murders . several of the town's leading citizens have been decapitated by the headless horseman . although he rejects the ghost story the town elders tell him , ichabod finds that the facts of the case confound his scientific reasoning . he also discovers that the killings are not random , that the victims are tied together by a secret . along the way ichabod gets help from a bewitching ( literally ) young woman ( christina ricci ) and the son of one of the murder victims ( marc pickering ) . my reaction : ho-hum . the plot is an accumulation of cliches without even the slightest touch of originality to make it interesting . that in itself is forgivable ; hollywood constantly tries to sell us used products in new packages . however , burton's attempts at inducing fright come off as goofy . it might be his background -- in his previous movies , goofy was the goal . along the same lines , it doesn't help that creature designer ( and producer ) kevin yagher has done his best work for the tongue-in-cheek tales from the crypt tv series . a witch's eyes and tongue shoot out like roger rabbit's , a tree spurts blood like it's in a monty python sketch , and the headless horseman . . . well , he's a guy without a head . . . on a horse ( boo ! ) . the performances are also awful . although he's impressed me with his work in other films , depp doesn't seem to know what to do with ichabod , and his dialogue is hampered by stilted diction that's supposed to pass for an 18th century accent . ricci seems to put all her effort into seeming enigmatic , which guarantees that we won't sympathize with her character . the actor who is revealed at the end to be the villain comes off as ridiculously cartoonish . the only pleasure generated by the cast comes from surprise cameos by christopher lee , martin landau , and christopher walken . i wonder if this movie was originally conceived as part of francis ford coppola's projected series of gothic adaptations , a series that produced only " bram stoker's dracula " and " mary shelley's frankenstein . " coppola is an executive producer for " sleepy hollow , " and the script reflects his interest in early forms of " moving pictures , " particularly in a toy that ichabod carries which blends two pictures to create an optical illusion . ( there's a bird on one side of the card , a cage on the other . when the card is flipped rapidly , the bird appears to be caged . ) bottom line : the hollow isn't the only thing that's sleepy .
0	i've got to admit it . . . i'm a huge jim carrey fan . i loved the first ace ventura , as well as the mask and dumb and dumber--and even in batman forever ( which was a pretty awful movie ) , carrey was one of the few people to come off looking reasonably good . until i saw ace ventura 2 , i had no idea how people could find the guy annoying . sadly , ace ventura 2 shows just how irritating and annoying carrey can be . carrey goes through the same schtick he went through in the first ace movie , but this time it is no longer funny--it is just a rehash of many of the same jokes used in ace i . the plot sees pet detective ace ventura retiring after failing to save a raccoon ( in a reasonable cliffhanger spoof ) . soon he is called out of retirement to find a bat which was kidnapped and , if not returned in four days , will cause two warring african tribes to destroy each other . once again , it's up to ace to save the day , using his uncanny detective skills . those who have been disappointed by carrey's more restrained roles in the films following the first ace ventura may be glad to see him over-acting to the best of his ability , but some may be disappointed by the fact that this sequel doesn't capture the feel of the original . the original benefited from what looked to be carrey's constant hyped-up improv sequences , which were hysterically funny . here , however , the tighter script ( which is reminiscent of the old disney telemovies ) takes the improvised material from the first , and shamelessly recycles it in the new movie , giving carrey little chance to improvise . instead , his extremely funny manner has been reduced to just walking around stupidly . but one of the biggest problems i had was with the character of ventura himself . in the first movie , he was always cool , and one step ahead of every one else--perfect for carrey's off-the-wall approach . but here , ventura is made to look a lot stupider , and is often made out as the straight guy--a role which is definitely not carrey's style . there are definitely some very funny moments , but they are few and far between . they are also nowhere near as funny as anything carrey did in the first ace ventura , or even dumb and dumber .
1	every once in a while a movie comes along that completely redefines the genre : with dramas , it was citizen kane , with arthouse it was pulp fiction , and with comedy it was , well , that jim carrey guy ( okay , so he's not a movie , but he did have a huge influence on the genre . not to mention an expensive one . ) sometimes a movie even combines them all into a big , sprawling motion picture event , as did forrest gump four years ago . with action films , it was aliens , whic was released to much hype seven years after it's equally-innovative parent , alien ( 1979 ) . directed and written by james cameron ( t2 : judgement day , the abyss , true lies ) , the authority on action films , it was a masterful encore to his sci-fi thriller the terminator ( 1984 ) . while the original alien film was a dark , enclosed horror film that featured one alien slowly massacering a horrified crew , james cameron took the big-budget action film with aliens , which featured multiple aliens doing basically the same thing , although on a much-larger scale . and boy , did he take that route ! i'd say at about 165 mph or so . . . the film opens 57 years after the original , with lt . ripley ( weaver ) being found in her ship in a cryogenic state by a salvage vessel . if you'll recall , at the end of alien ripley , the only surviving member , cryogenically " hibernated " herself after expelling the rogue alien from her ship . unfortunately , she thought she'd only be out for a couple of weeks . . . once she's returned to earth , ripley is quickly interrogated by " the company " , who quickly dismiss her and her stories as lunacy . in truth , they believe her , as they soon approach ripley with an offer to travel with some marines to a new colony planet as an " alien advisor " . it seems that the colony planet was a once-breeding ground for the nasty aliens , and now all communication with the planet has been lost . . . it doesn't exactly take a genius to guess what happens next : ripley agrees , and before you can say " big mistake " , she and the half dozen marines , plus the slimy corporate guy ( reiser ) , who has more than it looks like up under his sleeve , are off to the colony . when they arrive , they find the planet in ruins . only one survivor is found , a little girl , newt , who confirms that , yes , the aliens were here and that she only managed to survive by hidding in the ventilation system . and soon enough , the marines come under attack from the aliens . . . what happens for the next hour and a half or so is what completely sets this movie apart from any other standard alien sci-fi movie : the action scenes . cameron directs them so skillfully , and so suspensefully , that you're literally ringing your hands by the time the finale rolls around . which features , in my opinion , the best fight scene ever recorded on film , as ripley straps herself into a huge robot and battles the nasty queen alien to the death . many people will tell you that this film , while being a great action film , has no real drama and is all cliches . well , they would be wrong , my friends . if this film had no " drama " , then why was sigourney weaver nominated for best actress at the 1987 academy awards ? that's right , best actress . you know that any action film that has an oscar nomination attached to it for something other than technical stuff like editing and f/x has got to be good . in short , aliens combines all the right elements ( great action and f/x , drama , a good plot , good dialogue , and great villains ) into what could arguably be called the best action film of all time . then again , maybe not . movies rise and fall from glory and , sad to say , aliens was wrestled from it's throne of best action movie by another cameron film , t2 : judgement day , in 1991 . so who will be the next king ? well , let's wait until december 19th and see yet another james cameron film-the highest budgeted film of all time-titanic to make that decision . i can't wait .
0	despite its exceedingly well-done visual effects , 1995's original species was one big hunk of sci-fi cheese , from the writing to the feeble performances . so , coming from such b-grade roots , its sequel's stunning ineptitude is not terribly surprising , yet at the same time it is . it would not have been difficult at all for the people behind species ii to top the hokey original , yet they have somehow managed to fabricate something just as bad , if not even worse . something is clearly amiss when the back door left open for a sequel in species--a sewer rat becomes not quite of this earth after eating a body part from the exploded alien/human hybrid sil--is never entered into ( perhaps that was left for species iii--though i'm not giving away anything when i say that this installment has an open back door of its own ) . the alien fun and games begin this time when a three-person astronaut crew returning from mars inadvertently carries within their soil samples deadly alien dna that eventually infects the mission captain , patrick ross ( justin lazard , late of cbs's short-lived soap of a few years back , central park west/cpw ) . this alien dna is not identical to that which created the original film's sil , but it's close enough , and upon arrival on earth patrick is mating like crazy , engaging in bloody sex with just about every woman he can find . meanwhile , scientist dr . laura baker ( the returning marg helgenberger ) has created a clone of sil named eve ( natasha henstridge again ) for research purposes . it doesn't take long for eve to sense another alien presence , which send her libido into hyperdrive . it's up to laura and her former partner , bounty hunter press lennox ( michael madsen , another returnee ) ; and patrick's uninfected shipmate dennis gamble ( mykelti williamson ) to find patrick before the in-heat eve does . " this isn't the x-files , goddammit ! " exclaims one character in the early going . in terms of quality , he's absolutely right , but he's also wrong . the new alien first appears as an otherworldly oozing sludge that causes patrick's pupils to dilate once he's infected . looks and sounds an awful lot like the x-files's " black cancer " to me . but that's not the only source director peter medak and writer chris brancato steal from . species was already a ripoff of alien , but medak makes the cribbing much more blatant than the original's director , roger donaldson , did . human patrick is given a tongue that also has a tongue within itself , and his alien form more closely resembles the alien than eve's alien body ( which ironically was designed by alien designer h . r . giger ) . a large alien hive that our heros douse with a substance fired from large guns ? aliens sans flamethrowers . the visual effects were by far the best thing about species , and the sequel's effects crew at steve johnson's xfx inc . keeps that high-quality tradition alive ; no cheap-looking lost in space cgi here . after the effects , the original's best asset was the fresh presence of henstridge . however , medak and brancato have no idea what exactly to do with her for this installment . at one point she's called on to play alien " empath " ? la forest whitaker in the original , but for most of the duration she's holed up in a glass cell . by the time the big breakout so prominently featured in the trailer actually takes place , the film is well into its home stretch . so the rest of the time we are treated to patrick , played with little zest by lazard . one problem with the first film was that the deadly , horny , but innocent-at-heart sil was too sympathetic ; no such problem with patrick , who comes off as a cocky pretty boy before the alien takes control . the rest of the cast also fails to add much , but the writing can be faulted for that . helgenberger and madsen go through the motions , but they are already hampered by the clich ? d development that somewhere between the two films , the once-linked laura and press stopped getting along . williamson suffers the worst indignity . he tries his best to enliven the token african-american role , but how can anyone recite insulting , derivative lines such as " i'm gonna get african on someone's ass " and not appear ridiculous ? but species ii's worst crime is being a thoroughly uninteresting piece of work . at least the original featured plenty to laugh at--unaccountably awful performances by the otherwise fine actors ben kingsley and whitaker , and the sight of helgenberger's character performing fellatio on madsen's , for a start . but the filmmakers do not display any discernable effort at all , let alone the misguided effort that is required for something to reach the camp level . for all the blood and gore , nudity , and sex thrown in , species ii is , quite simply , a vapid bore .
1	set in the wild west , this carry on centres around the arrival of the rumpo kid ( sidney james ) and his cronies in stodge city . his dodgy dealings and summary shootings aggravate judge burke ( kenneth williams ) so much that he asks sheriff albert earp ( jon pertwee ) to drive rumpo out of town . instead , the rumpo kid shoots the sheriff dead . therefore , judge burke sends for a law marshall to come in and clean up the city . due to a misunderstanding , an english sanitary engineer called marshall p . knutt ( jim dale ) is assigned , without knowing it , as the law marshall for stodge city . he arrives at the same time as annie oakley ( angela douglas ) who is seeking revenge for her father , the sheriff's murder . when marshall arrives at stodge city , he soon becomes aware of the misunderstanding and due to his rather limited intellect , he is manipulated by the rumpo kid and always ends up getting things wrong . in the end , there is a head-to-head between rumpo and marshall . with the rumpo's past experience , it would seem that marshall is out of his depth , but using his sanitary skills and learning the ways of the west from annie oakley , he at least stands some chance ! sid james , with an american accent , is perfect as the rumpo kid , a part which suits him down to the ground . jim dale provides one of his best carry on performances as the stupid sanitary engineer , and angela douglas is very effective in her role as the revengeful daughter . other regulars that appear in this movie include charles hawtrey and bernard bresslaw ( in his debut ) as big heap and little heap respectively . big heap is the local indian leader and the crazy casting of hawtrey for this part is very amusing , as is his performance : - he steals every scene he is in even though he does not enter the film until thirty minutes past . joan sims provides useful and amusing support as belle , the local bar owner who takes a fancy to the rumpo kid . however , the part of doc played by peter butterworth and sheriff albert earp played by jon pertwee are not really necessary , and pertwee's performance is rather poor . kenneth williams uses a new voice but struggles with the weak part of the 'judge' . even so , this carry on was sid james and kenneth williams' favourite . a very different carry on film , in that it is played more seriously by the actors and possesses more realism than any other carry on . the death count is the highest of any carry on film . sets , costumes and action sequences are all very commendable . the songs that are included in the movie ( the title song and annie's song ) are very impressive . a strange but therefore very interesting carry on film . not the best of its kind but it is certainly the most distinctive film of the series .
0	here's something to chew on : what's the favorite food of big , cheesy-looking special effects monsters like the one lurking in the bowels of a luxury liner in deep rising ? the obvious answer to this question is cardboard , because that's the depth of the most fully- developed character in this painfully generic creature feature . deep rising demonstrates all the originality and vitality of something scripted by a computer . in fact , considering the rigid adherence to the expected formulas , perhaps it was . the most astonishing thing about deep rising is the exceptionally high level of gore . not since starship troopers have this many chunks of flesh ( both human and non-human ) been scattered in all directions . we learn some bloody trivia , as well , such as how a sea monster spraypaints in red ( it drinks a human being then spits out the liquefied remains ) and what it does with half-digested leftovers . i suppose deep rising's gallery of grotesque images represents fun stuff for those who love the macabre , but it doesn't do much for me . on the surface , and that's about the only level at which this film can be analyzed , deep rising feels like tremors grafted onto titanic ( everyone else is citing the equally valid aliens/titanic connection , since james cameron directed both ) . in going for the big disaster angle of titanic and the tongue-in-cheek mayhem of tremors , deep rising somehow misses both marks by a wide margin . the film is not humorous , tense , or exciting . in fact , it's downright boring , and , despite being half the length of cameron's current box-office champ , deep rising feels like the longer movie . is it really necessary to say anything about the plot ? probably not , since it's easy to guess , but i'll go ahead and oblige anyone who wants a synopsis . the film opens by introducing us to a gang of bad guys on board a mercenary ship . in addition to the usual cast of psychopaths and lunatics , there's finnegan ( treat williams ) , the boat's pilot , who's supposed to be an indiana jones knockoff ; joey ( kevin j . o'connor ) , the inept sidekick who's supposed to be lovable and funny ( but is really just irritating ) ; and hanover ( wes studi ) , the " mastermind " ( and i use that term lightly ) of the operation . their goal : attack a cruise ship , clean out the safe , then sink it using some illegally-acquired torpedoes . the problem is , by the time they reach the argonautica , the titanic-like luxury liner has turned into the marie celeste . aside from a beautiful jewel thief ( famke janssen ) and a couple of crew members , there's no one on board . the reason soon becomes obvious -- the ship has been taken over by a bad special effect that is supposed to resemble an octopus with teeth and more than eight tentacles . the cast , which is led by treat williams , is primarily comprised of has-beens and probably-never-will-bes ( two exceptions : wes studi , best known as the villain in the last of the mohicans , and djimon hounsou , amistad's cinque ) . williams , once a " can't miss " prospect in hollywood , has fallen so far out of favor that the best he can do these days for a lead role is a film like deep rising , and his inability to create a charismatic or interesting figure here may sink whatever is left of his sputtering career . famke janssen , who will forever be known as xenia onatopp from goldeneye , is the perfect bland match for williams . given her limited acting abilities , it's likely that she was chosen for this part primarily on the basis of her physical attributes . unfortunately , a bra defeats the purpose of having her in a wet tee-shirt for half of the picture . meanwhile , kevin j . o'connor , who has entirely too much screen time , exhibits all the appeal of fingernails scratching a blackboard . these days , audiences are becoming more difficult to impress with computer-generated special effects . this is a lesson that writer/director stephen sommers ( who previously helmed the live-action jungle book ) needs to learn . the days of jurassic park , when viewers were astounded by the mere spectacle of seeing something big and imposing on screen , are past . now , movie-goers are looking for the sophistication of titanic -- visuals that are so well-incorporated that it's impossible to tell where they end and where " reality " begins . in deep rising , the monster , like everything , is artificial and unconvincing . unfortunately , the fundamental problem audiences are faced with here isn't so much the idiotic monotony of this individual picture , but the poor quality of the entire bankrupt genre ( although , to be fair , deep rising is a particularly bad entry ) . even once this film has sunk out of sight , the knowledgeable viewer knows it won't be the last of its kind . like the slimy , slithering things that inhabit the air vents and pipes of these movies , more are waiting just around the corner in ambush . and that consideration , unlike anything on screen , is truly horrifying .
1	in , " the muse " albert brooks plays steven phillips , a hollywood screenwriter who after winning a humanitarian award for his work is dumped by his studio . they claim that he's lost his edge and his agent is quick to agree with them . he knows that he needs to write something fresh and original and quick or else his career will be over . so he turns to his " best " friend , jack ( jeff bridges ) another screenwriter who's enjoyed success after success . on the way over to jack's house steven sees jack helping an attractive woman ( sharon stone ) into a cab and begins to think : is he having an affair ? when confronted , jack relunctently tells him that this mystery woman is , in fact , a muse , a mythological figure who is believed to have inspired all creativity , and has helped him garner his success . " she doesn't do any actual writing , " he is told , " but inspires you . " steven is excited by what he's hearing and asks jack to call her up to see if she'll take steven on as a new client . jack arranges a meeting between the two and suggests that steven bring her a present , preferably something from tiffany's . after the meeting the muse , sarah decides to take on steven , but at a price : she wants a suite at the four seasons and wants steven to perform odd tasks for her ( like bringing her salads in the middle of the night . ) steven's wife ( andy macdowell ) sees him at a food store and questions him about why he has tampons in his wagon . steven confesses everything and , although at first suspicious , she later allows sarah to move into their guest room and eventually into their life . the only question for steven is if the muse is worth all the trouble he's going through for her . and that's a question only time will tell . " the muse " is albert brooks' sixth film as writer/director/actor ( he co-wrote with monica johnson ) and although it's a good movie it's not up to the level of his best works ( " defending your life " and " mother " ) . the problem lies in the script , and for a movie that relies on its dialogue for its humor , there aren't nearly as many laughs as they are chuckles despite a few good one-liners . it has a great premise but doesn't deliver up to it's full potential . but , i like albert brooks in this film and i think that we can all identify with steven phillips a little bit . he may whine and complain , but he just wants to support his family and be happy . and i like sharon stone in this movie too ; it's a nice change of pace for her . and i also enjoyed the cameos featuring the likes of rob reiner , james cameron and martin scorsese . and although " the muse " doesn't have as much to say about hollywood as robert altman's " the player " i still left the theater feeling good . and that's something i wish i got out of more movies .
0	at the outset of swordfish , john travolta's gabriel shear is pontificating about the status of american cinema today . basically , he says , it boils down to a lack of imagination among the majority of writers . how ironic , as travolta seems to be describing his latest venture . swordfish is loud , violent and amoral . it has the audacity to justify murder and mayhem in the name of sustaining our way of life . and how does travolta's gabriel plan to do this ? by robbing billions from his own government and using the funds to out-terrorize terrorists . swordfish is a very cynical movie . it relies on an audience's perception of our leaders as ineffectual and duplicitous and on terrorists as non-human , faceless entities not worthy of compassion or consideration . the movie's plot is preposterous with enough illogical leaps that if the film ever slowed down , you'd actually see how ridiculous it all is . this is a live-action road runner cartoon , moving so quickly that it's over before you can catch your breath to ask any reasonable questions . the storyline revolves around super hacker stanley jobson ( hugh jackman ) , recruited by gabriel to crack the government's computer codes so gabriel can gather billions for his anti-terrorist campaign . talk about whacked-out patriotism . my objections to swordfish are many . the body count is high , but that is expected in a movie of this sort . it's becoming a bore watching anonymous soldiers , police officers and government agents blown to bits . another example is the family dynamics between stanley , his 10-year-old daughter and his ex-wife . stanley , though having served time in prison for hacking , is shown as a loving and caring father , forbidden by his ex to see his little girl . audience animosity is immediately created for his former spouse by showing her as a drinker and smoker who also sometimes stars in her new husband's adult films . thus when she is found murdered late in the movie , neither stanley nor his daughter are allowed any time to grieve . in fact , subconsciously , many in the audience are probably glad she was killed . then there is the sequence involving one of gabriel's henchman holding a gun to the head of stanley's daughter to coerce the hacker to download the key computer program for gabriel . children as pawns have become a most unwelcome clich ? in recent films . there is enough violence in the real world involving children without having to make them on-screen victims as well . yea , it's only make believe , but that doesn't mean you have to tolerate it . travolta is cool , deadly charming and flamboyant as the near-crazy gabriel . his character is reminiscent of his villainous characterizations in broken arrow and face/off . jackman looks dour through most of the proceedings . his only moment of any depth comes when he finally is able to create the worm to get inside the government database . his sense of joy and accomplishment is one any computer whiz can appreciate . halle berry is decorative and lovely as gabriel's assistant , while don cheadle is given little to do as the head fbi agent hunting gabriel . swordfish plays like a comic book with a larger-than-life character in gabriel . viewers align themselves with him despite their uncertainty if he is hero or villain . and maybe that is the movie's underlying flaw : there is no real hero to speak of , only those doing their upmost to survive . and that is not enough . this is one swordfish that should have been thrown back in the water .
1	this has been an extraordinary year for australian films . " shine " has just scooped the pool at the australian film institute awards , picking up best film , best actor , best director etc . to that we can add the gritty " life " ( the anguish , courage and friendship of a group of male prisoners in the hiv-positive section of a jail ) and " love and other catastrophes " ( a low budget gem about straight and gay love on and near a university campus ) . i can't recall a year in which such a rich and varied celluloid library was unleashed from australia . " shine " was one bookend . stand by for the other one : " dead heart " . >from the opening credits the theme of division is established . the cast credits have clear and distinct lines separating their first and last names . bryan | brown . in a desert settlement , hundreds of kilometres from the nearest town , there is an uneasy calm between the local aboriginals and the handful of white settlers who live nearby . the local police officer has the task of enforcing " white man's justice " to the aboriginals . these are people with a proud 40 , 000 year heritage behind them . naturally , this includes their own system of justice ; key to which is " payback " . an eye for an eye . revenge . usually extracted by the spearing through of the recipient's thigh . brown , as the officer , manages quite well to keep the balance . he admits that he has to 'bend the rules' a bit , including actively encouraging at least one brutal " payback " . ( be warned that this scene , near the start , is not for the squeamish ) . the local priest - an aboriginal , but in the " white fellas " church - has a foot on either side of the line . he is , figuratively and literally , in both camps . ernie dingo brings a great deal of understanding to this role as the man in the middle . he is part churchman and part politician . however the tension , like the heat , flies and dust , is always there . whilst her husband - the local teacher - is in church , white lady kate ( milliken ) and her aborginal friend tony , ( pedersen ) have gone off into the hills . he takes her to a sacred site , even today strictly men-only . she appears to not know this . tony tells her that this is a special place , an initiation place . he then makes love to her , surrounded by ancient rock art . the community finds out about this sacrilegious act and it's payback time . the fuse is lit and the brittle inter-racial peace is shattered . everyone is affected in the fall out . to say more is to give away the details of this finely crafted film . suffice to say it's a rewarding experience . bryan brown , acting and co-producing , is the pivotal character . his officer is real , human and therefore flawed . brown comments that he expects audiences to feel warmth towards the man , then suddenly feel angry about him . it wasn't long ago that i visited central australia - ayers rock ( uluru ) and alice springs - for the first time . the wide-screen cinematography shows the dead heart of australia in a way that captures it's vicious beauty , but never deteriorates into a moving slide show , in which the gorgeous background dominates those pesky actors in the foreground . the cultural clash has provided the thesis for many a film ; from the western to the birdcage . at least three excellent australian films have covered the aboriginal people and the line between them and we anglo-saxon 'invaders' : " jedda " , " the chant of jimmie blacksmith " and " the last wave " . in a year when the race 'debate' has reared up in australia , it is nourishing to see such an intelligent , non-judgemental film as " dead heart " . the aboriginal priest best sums this up . he is asked to say if he is a " black fella or white fella " .
1	us critic-type people are always shaking our heads and telling everyone that movies aren't thrill rides , but i think that " back to the future ii " is one of the few exceptions . if the original film had the spirit of the 1950s , then this has the spirit of the 80s : full of fights ; chase scenes ; cliff hangers ; special effects ; some detective work ; and of course the vision of the high-tech future . the film picks up exactly where the first film left off , with doc ( lloyd ) , marty ( fox ) , and jennifer ( elizabeth shue ) travelling 30 years into the future , because something bad is going to happen to marty and jennifer's kids . doc tells marty he must take his son's place at an incident that will cause a chain reaction if marty mcfly jr . says yes to griff ( wilson - in one of four different roles ) . whoever said history tends to repeat itself wasn't joking , especially when it comes to the movies . essentially the same chase scene that marty endured in the 50s takes place again in the year 2015 , but it's not as authentically exciting this time because it is so obviously a parody of itself . at the end of the situation marty has changed the course of history for the better , and it seems like everything's copasetic right ? wrong . since when do things go according to plan in the " back to the future " movies ? there are so many minor conflicts and details that effect the plot and the direction of the story i won't even bother to list them all . basically we get to see marty as an old man , his house , his family , etc . we also go back to an alternate 1985 , and then back again to 1955 , with everything happening so fast the film never stops to catch a breath . the films' best aspect is the fact that it actually goes back to the first movie and shows a lot of the action that occurred from another angle . it's difficult to convey the sense of wild and zany fun without describing every little detail . the only thing sacrificed in this film is the suspense . instead of a grand finale , we get lots of little victories . by the end everything is back to normal , but something happens that leads to yet another sequel , but it doesn't seem gratuitous . " back to the future part ii " is a really great adventure movie . it certainly has more originality than other films but it lacks a certain charm that was dominate throughout its predecessor .
1	only a year after the initial release of " scream , " the horror send-up from veteran horror director wes craven and screenwriter kevin williamson that seemed to breathe new life into the slasher genre , the inevitable sequel " scream 2 " has arrived in our theaters . while the tongue-in-cheek , parodic element is still noticeable in this film , it's really a sideshow to a broader commentary on violence and the media and a more conventional horror story . the first film , while often violent and gruesome , was mostly lacking in genuine scares because almost every scene was played for camp value and the discussion of the quirks and cliches of horror movies was nearly constant . the premise of " scream 2 " is that a series of copycat killings begin when a movie called " stab , " based on a book written by opportunistic reporter gail weathers ( courtney cox ) about the events in " scream , " is released and two audience members are killed during the opening screening . i had heard about this scene before i went to see the film and was surprised to find this sequence largely lacking in camp comedy . its conclusion , in which a bleeding , wounded woman stumbles in front of the screen and dies in front of an audience that cheers on because they think it's a publicity stunt , is more surreal and disturbing than anything else . the satire in " scream 2 " thus takes on a broad focus and gradually evolves into an exploration of media perceptions in general . although resident horror film geek randy ( jamie kennedy ) is back with fresh dialogue about sequels ( and , interestingly enough , how they are usually inferior to their predecessors ) , the characters in this movie are drawing from other entries in the pop culture encyclopedia as well . everything from " friends " and " saved by the bell " to " showgirls " and " terminator 2 " is referenced here ; horror is only one of many genres available for lampooning , and there aren't any " wes carpenter " jokes this time . more importantly , this film portrays characters willing to go to disturbing lengths for media attention as well as characters whose perceptions have clearly been warped by what they have seen on tv and film . the killings are clearly an imitation of the previous murders from " scream " ( in fact , the culprit even plans to use the influence of horror movies as a courtroom defense ) , weathers exploits the situation for her own notoriety , and one man seems willing to save the heroine's life only if it will earn him an interview on the today show . understandably , " scream 2 " does not go so far as to actually blame the movies , but rather shows that those who do imitate horror movies are already sick and twisted . couple that with the fact that several of the characters , most notably the lead character sidney prescott ( neve campbell ) , are fairly well-developed and that there are some genuine moments of spine-chilling suspense , and what we have is a pretty darned good horror movie in its own right . we don't just get the horror of scary masks and graphic gore - we also get the horror of sympathetic characters who seem helpless as their friends are slaughtered ( and , in one case , a significant character who was an audience favorite even bites the dust ) and whose lives have been reduced to constant fear of a crazed murderer lurking around the corner . while i have not seen any of his other work , it's easy to see why craven is generally touted as the most sophisticated " slasher film " director , as he clearly cares about something more than just the actual acts of slashing . unfortunately , " scream 2 " occasionally reverts to the time-honored horror tradition of throwing logic out the window . for example , several characters seem quite clearly dead and inexplicably turn up alive later - there has been a running gag in both movies about the villain being able to pull off this particular trick , but it also happens with other characters and in an even less believable fashion . there are also a few scenes in which the killer suddenly appears behind the next victim in a situation such that ( s ) he clearly would have been seen moving in that direction . as for the question of whether or not " scream 2 " is yet another sequel not as good as its predecessor . . . well , it's hard to say . i gave the first " scream " 3 1/2 stars as well because it worked pretty consistently as a light-hearted send-up . " scream 2 " bounces all over the place stylistically , but it does a better job delivering the genuine scares and asking the questions about media violence that were only hinted at in the first installment . i'm not sure which is the better movie , but i did leave the theater convinced of one thing : sequels , however much randy might argue , do not necessarily suck .
0	who knew that in 16 years eddie murphy , who made such a brash , raucous big-screen splash in _48_hrs . _ , would become . . . cuddly . the disconcerting trend begun in this summer's cutesy , largely laugh-free _doctor_dolittle_ continues with this earnest-to-a-fault dramedy . although he is top-billed , here murphy is merely support for jeff goldblum , who plays ricky hayman , the programming director at a home shopping network . sales are way down , and ricky's job hangs by a thread until he meets g ( murphy ) , a mysterious spiritual guru whom a desperate ricky puts on the air . while sales skyrocket and g becomes an overnight sensation , the reinvigorated ricky's greed grows , endangering his budding romance with a goodhearted media research consultant ( kelly preston ) . writer tom schulman has some promising ideas , satirizing home shopping and infomercials and the nature of instant celebrity . but these ideas would have more bite if stephen herek had invested any energy into the direction of the film . the sluggishly paced _holy_man_ is not only slow and overlong ( 113 minutes ) , but an unfunny bore , and murphy can do little to juice up the proceedings ; cleansed of both the attitude _and_ comic sensibility that made him a star ( g is , for the most part , a straight man ) , he is a curiously lifeless presence . goldblum is actually quite good , but it's hard for the audience to sustain much interest in his character and spiritual journey when the director doesn't seem to be much interested , either .
1	just in time for halloween and christmas , the reissue of the nightmare before christmas couldn't be more appropriate . with all of the attention thrown to " family films " in recent years , namely those starring pocket monsters and nickelodeon characters , it's high time we raised the intellectual level of children's fare as well as the animation achievements of the movie studios . with that in mind , it was refreshing to revisit an animation classic on the big screen that still retains the originality and freshness it had seven years ago . nightmare is the story of one man's quest to discover his true purpose in life -- to look beyond the accolades of his peers , the achievements of his years , and the praise of his ego . jack skellington , the pumpkin king of halloweentown , is the main dude behind the halloween holiday for kids everywhere . but during his reign as pumpkin king , jack has somehow lost his understanding of his place in the world and the magic he creates with his halloween holiday . after the completion of one particular halloween season , jack walks with a heavy heart and ends up discovering in the woods outside halloweentown a grove of trees with doors to all of the other holidays in the world . imagine his surprise to discover christmastown , a far more impressive and uplifting holiday than halloween , surrounded by happy elves making toys , and with good cheer all around . upon his return to halloweentown , jack decides to combine halloween and christmas together by kidnapping " sandy claws , " employing all the residents of halloweentown to build toys for children . he then aims to take over the role as primary joy-provider and gift-bearer to the children of the world , in the hopes of rediscovering the zest for life he once had . alas , the co-mingling of halloween and christmas creates disastrous results involving shrunken heads , psychotic wooden ducks , a sleigh pulled by a phantom dog with a lighted nose , and a large , sinister , singing bag named oogie boogie tim burton -- the man behind such great films as ed wood , beetlejuice , pee-wee's big adventure , and edward scissorhands -- is the creative force behind nightmare . originally , burton authored a poem that became the basis of the storyline , and he was jointly involved in the production design of the film ( though many mistakenly assume he directed the picture ) . the stamp of burton is clearly everywhere in the film -- with bold colors , imaginative character design , and it's simple yet compelling story . the direction of harry selick , who also directed james and the giant peach , is strong , offering intimate views of the strange collection of characters . also memorable are the songs in the film , written by former oingo boingo lead singer danny elfman , the next john williams of film composing . the nightmare before christmas is intended for both the kid and adult in everyone . it's not just child's play for the holidays ; it's a movie about how to be truly happy in a tough world , saying that all you need to do is just be exactly who you are , without compromise . what better message is there for christmas ?
1	the long and illustrious career of robin williams , which has included both forgettable turns like mrs . doubtfire and flubber , was punctuated with the actor's first academy award in 1998 for his role in good will hunting . it was his first truly dramatic role since 1989's dead poets society , and critical remarks were unanimously positive . his next role , that of a deceased pediatrician in what dreams may come , was unfortunately lackluster . and so , after a six-year stint as a comedic actor , the proof on whether or not williams can cut it in the dramatic league has come down to patch adams . williams is the title character , hunter " patch " adams , sporting scruffy facial hair that falls between the clean-shavenness of dreams and the grotesque hairiness of will hunting . we're introduced to patch as he commits himself to a mental institution because of his suicidal tendancies . it's at the institution , however , that he discovers a latent talent for relating to people . he removes himself from the institution and enrolls at the university of virginia's medical college , where he finds that medical doctrine is a calculating , impersonal trade . his attempts to inject humanity into the profession result in several bouts with expulsion , and the movie climaxes with patch's appearance before the state medical board . the characters are well-defined in an oscar-worthy sense . although the script does not perform well as a narrative -- there's little story to be told outside of patch's skit-length experiences -- the script does go a long way toward building the relationships of characters . at medical school , patch meets up with truman schiff ( daniel london ) , an outsider like himself who relishes patch's zest for humanity . the two instantly become the best of friends , and it's easy to see why . monica potter plays patch's love interest , a young woman who personifies the things that patch hates about medical school . for some reason he's attracted to her , and although it never gets said , the audience understands from an intrinsic point of view . the script -- based on hunter adams' own story -- works well this way . the rest of the cast , bob gunton as the villain professor in particular , is solid . director tom shadyac ( liar liar ) leads us in and out of patch's life in a sound , intentional manner ; combined with williams' presence on screen , the movie rarely becomes boring . patch adams' lack of purpose is its major shortcoming , and for the first ninety minutes out of two hours , there's little feeling of continuity or the passage of time . nevertheless , it's an emotionally moving picture , and patch adams looks to be one of the more memorable of the holiday season . it succeeds at everything it tries , and only fails at the stuff it doesn't try in the first place . by and large there may be another oscar nomination herein for williams , but more importantly , it's entertainment for the entire family .
0	" the 13th warrior " comes at the end of as summer where we've already experienced man eating sharks ( " deep blue sea " ) , man eating crocodiles ( " lake placid " ) and even a man hunting witch ( " the blair witch project " ) . now , " the 13th warrior " presents a tribe of flesh eating men who believe that they are bears . the story , if that's what you want to call it , follows ahmed ibn fahdlan ( antonio banderas ) an arabian poet who falls in love with his king's wife and is banished from his home land . he then travels to the land of the vikings and becomes an ambassador to them . eventually the vikings are called upon to protect the people of the village who are being hunted by the flesh eating men . thirteen warriors are chosen to go on the mission , and as you guessed it , ahmed is chosen as the thirteenth . he's not a warrior , and at first not well accepted by the vikings , but as the movie advances he'll have to prove himself both on and off the battlefield . that's basically the entire plot . there is also a romantic subplot that has been so badly mishandled and , one assumes , drastically cut that you begin to wonder why the filmmakers didn't just edit out all of the scenes attaining to that part of the story . instead they chose to leave just enough of those scenes in to annoy the viewer . the film is basically non- stop action and when it pauses and tries to develop a story it becomes a laughing stock . the battle scenes , although well choreographed , are not involving and not the least bit exciting . we don't get to know any of the characters and so we don't care who lives and who dies . the film , which wants to be beowolf , comes across more as a failed action-adventure story aspiring to epic proportions but not achieving it on any levels . it was directed by john mctiernan who's , " the thomas crown affair " is also playing in theaters currently . and it's not that mctiernan worked simultaneously on both films but that , " the 13th warrior " was placed on the shelf for so long with the studio just waiting for a time to dump it on audiences . it belongs back on the shelf .
1	i find most of television so intensely boring that i simply never turn on my set , unless i'm watching a movie . i don't even have cable , so i went to radio shack to buy an antenna specifically for the purpose of watching " the x-files " every sunday night . it's the only show that's worth an hour of my time each week ( though , since i don't watch reruns , i'm glad that i have six months of the year to avoid television altogether ) . i am an avid fan of the show , and have been for about three years now . and i love gillian anderson . the x-files is the film that continues the story where the season finale left off . the film is like a two-hour episode , except that there are a lot more special effects , the plot is thicker , and the resolution is more satisfying . this is a terrific film , both for fans of the series and for those who have never seen it ( i imagine that viewers unfamiliar with the show will find the film to be solid and riveting entertainment ) . i expected to like it more than any episode i've seen , and my expectations were met . actually , the film takes a few risks in its story and plot devices , but , thankfully , the makers managed to do it right . when the finale ended , the fbi branch known as the x-files had been destroyed , and our heroes , mulder ( david duchovny ) and scully ( gillian anderson ) were left stripped of five years of hard work . the film picks up soon after ; and mulder and scully have been reduced to field agents investigating a bomb threat in a federal building . but wait , i'm getting ahead of myself . the film actually opens in the ice age , about 32 , 000 years prior , during which a couple of prehistoric guys get attacked by a vicious alien . the alien's blood infects them ( fans of the show will certainly remember the black cancer ) , and the story jumps into modern times , during which a young boy is also infected with the cancer . it turns out that the bomb was planted to kill the boy , and mulder and scully uncover the cover-up despite the fact that scully has resigned from her position in the fbi . soon , they find out that the whole thing has to do with aliens . as i've written before , it's not easy to write plot summaries for films like this , because everything needs to be a surprise . fans of the show will know what to expect , and i seriously doubt any of them being disappointed with the film . director rob bowman has done a great job expanding the eerie feeling of the show to the big screen , making small adjustments and minor changes to utilize the possibilities that film allows over television . there are some truly suspenseful and well-created scenes here ( late in the film , when they're in the alien spacecraft , you'll see one of the better action sequences in recent cinema ) . the special effects are very good , and the production design by christopher nowak is fantastic . what i find interesting is that the x-files is actually a great way for series neophytes to get into the story . our heroes are given subtle introductions ( we're not expected to know them on the outset ) , and the film explains enough of the story that prior knowledge of the series isn't required to understand the film . there are , of course , little elements that the makers have included as payoff to the fans , but i'll keep those as surprises . it takes a lot of thought and understanding of the series to create a film using roots as complicated as the ones that the series provides , and then create a coherent film that anyone can understand clearly . the series is strong for a lot of reasons . it's original ( though it has many ties to " the twilight zone " and owes some homage to hitchcock ) , and impressively eerie for a television show . what really makes the series shine , however , are the actors . duchovny has so much presence , and is just a fun guy to watch . he has that confidence that will someday make him into a bankable leading man . anderson is equally good , and paralyzingly beautiful ; she's also a strong actress . both performers have acted in little more than their series , however , though i think they'll both get their chances to prove themselves very soon . i enthusiastically recommend the x-files , both for fans and non-fans . 1998 is a summer filled with disappointing blockbusters , and this film should satisfy where most of the others leave you completely dry . it's an intelligent film , and takes you places that you might not have been ( or , at least , might not have seen so many times that they feel familiar ) . the x-files is impressive in concept , as well : fans of the series are likely to be highly critical , and to take the premise beyond the series is a risky move . it's nice to see a risk pay off for a change . actually , it's nice to see a risk at all .
0	the most popular trend of the last couple of years has been the twist ending . watching one of these movies , everything seems to make sense until suddenly you are blown away by an unexpected surprise . when the film ends , there is a moment of confusion , then recollection , then some more confusion , then possibly a second viewing for clarification . this is a description of an ideal twist that perfects everything it sets out to do and more . good surprises make movies fun to watch . then there are the bad twists . you either know what is going to happen ten minutes into the movie ( i'm talking about you reindeer games ) or you did not guess the ending because it is so outrageously stupid . screwed perfectly suits the latter description . what starts out as a dumb guilty pleasure which should be fun to mock with a group of friends ends with a complex finale with way too much going on . by the writers of man on the moon and the people vs . larry flynt , scott alexander and larry karaszewski leave milos forman behind and take a stab at film directing . whoops . screwed is an inane christmas carol gone berserk with few genuine laughs and many acting embarrassments . norm macdonald stars as willard filmore , a hard working chauffeur who just wants a little respect from his rich , old , insidious boss , miss crock ( elaine stritch ) . when he overhears her plans to fire him on christmas day , willard is convinced by his best friend rusty ( dave chapelle ) to kidnap crock's beloved dog and hold it for a ransom of one million dollars . too excited to pay any attention , the hapless losers' plan goes awry when the dog escapes and returns home . now crock thinks willard has been kidnapped and the two friends , realizing they can make even more money , decide to stage the fake kidnapping . of course , everything that could go wrong does . the first forty-five minutes of screwed is harmless entertainment - a guilty pleasure that should be enjoyably bad . but the convoluted script eventually builds into a disaster that is impossible to bear . the more idiotic these characters get , the more reckless the script becomes . at one point , i wanted to get out of my seat and yell at these characters : " no , you idiot ! " i'm not just talking about willard and rusty , who were extremely annoying , i'm also talking about the cops in this film . a monkey could have solved this case within an hour but these guys ( headed by murder one's daniel benzali ) were just too clueless to forgive . they give real cops bad names . also poor danny devito apparently does not know how to turn down a role these days . looking almost identical to his penguin in batman : returns , every time he appeared on the screen i had to shake my head in disbelief . he just didn't belong in this movie . macdonald and chapelle are veterans at these kinds of movies but devito made the film much worse than it already was , gross out humor is certainly not his forte . if you're a fan of norm macdonald's other chaotic comedy , dirty work , you might actually love this near-sequel . otherwise , don't get screwed out of your hard-earned money .
1	stendhal's syndrome : a condition where , in the presence of art , a person becomes engulfed in a painting and hallucinates and may afterwards suffer symptoms such as depression , suicidal behaviour and personality disorder . grim stuff , to be sure , but the subject of a remarkable film from italy's master of the horror thriller dario argento . boasting an unforgettable soundtrack from the grandfather of film music ennio morricone , the stendhal syndrome is a quite magnificent return to form for argento . it follows his disappointing american debut trauma ( 1992 ) , the patchy opera ( 1987 ) and several mediocre films he produced for young italian director michele soavi in the late 1980's . based on the novel by graziella magherini , the film stars argento's daughter asia as young roman police inspector anna manni in pursuit of a brutal rapist-killer . visiting florence to follow up several leads , she is lured by the killer alfredo ( thomas kretschmann ) to an art gallery , a favourite haunt where he hopes to identify exactly who is on his tail . at the gallery anna is overwhelmed by a painting and faints . posing as a bystander , alfredo briefly comes to her aid and having now identified his pursuer , a strange game of cat and mouse begins . a gripping story evolves , and a coherent one , too , which may surprise those familiar with argento's often lumpy narratives . the stendhal syndrome is not a simple cop-hunting-killer scenario . it is a disturbing and often compelling study of the central character's psychological disintegration . the script explores its psycho-sexual themes with intelligence and candour , perhaps too much so for more sensitive viewers . but as dark as its themes are , the stendhal syndrome emerges as one of the most artful and effective european thrillers of the last ten years . argento is once again working in his native italy , and he fully exploits the opportunities to use art and architecture for both symbolic statements and as departure points for several brilliant hallucinogenic sequences . effects whiz sergio stivaletti serves his director well here , and the cinematography by giuseppe rotunno is consistently excellent . the film's opening 20 minutes segues between hallucination , flashback and real-time with tremendous style . proof that , at his most inspired , argento remains one of the world's most exhilarating filmmakers . the cast is generally good , though marred at times by dubbing into english that renders speech all but emotionless . asia argento's performance is by turns risky , awkward and fascinating . it's a difficult role , and given her relative inexperience on screen she deserves applause for her efforts . thomas kretschmann is chillingly effective as alfredo , and marco leonardi ( of cinema paradiso , and possibly the most gorgeous looking man in italy ) does okay as anna's work colleague and increasingly confused love interest . but perhaps the stendhal syndrome's single most striking element is ennio morricone's soundtrack . active since the 1960's , morricone has scored over 100 films in his career and this must rate as one of his finest efforts . it's mostly a variation on the one theme : a slow circular melody for strings and wordless female vocal possessed with an extraordinary , haunting beauty that lingers long afterwards . it's been three decades since argento and morricone worked together . this is a long welcome reunion . if the film has a fault , it is that the last half hour drags a little and the film doesn't quite reach a completely satisfying climax . but by the closing scenes , the stendhal syndrome has already offered us enough to qualify as one of the very best films of dario argento's career . * note : see the uncut print from japanese laserdisc if you can . dubs of this version are available from various video dealers on the world wide web .
0	eddie murphy has a lot riding on harlem nights . as the movie's writer , director , executive producer , and star , murphy will shoulder all of the blame if harlem nights fails . but at the same time , he'll receive all of the credit if it succeeds . should you sacrifice your hard-earned cash to support murphy's risky gamble ? well , that depends on whom you trust more : me or eddie murphy . here's what murphy thinks : " i think the audience is expecting a good time . they gonna get sexy . they gonna get funny . they gonna get drama . they gonna get all of that . i think it's the best movie i've done " ( paramount radio network ) . here's what i think : harlem nights is charmless , unoriginal , disappointing , and almost without question , the worst film of the actor's career ( i haven't seen best defense ) . and guess who's to blame ? ! the movie's problem is not murphy's direction : harlem nights is a fairly good looking film . no , the project was probably doomed even before the cameras rolled . murphy's awful script is the culprit . let's count the mistakes he makes in his first attempt at screenwriting : ( 1 ) murphy shatters the record for the most profanity in a motion picture . yes , he even outdoes his own work in raw . practically every line of dialogue in harlem nights contains at least one four letter word . and after 15 minutes , it gets irritating . ( 2 ) murphy wastes the talents of his fine cast . richard pryor , redd foxx , michael lerner , and della reese face the impossible task of carving out credible characters from a script riddled with stereotypes . each of them shines occasionally , but basically what we have are good performers stuck in a bad vehicle . ( 3 ) the movie demeans women by depicting them solely as sexual objects and as pawns in power struggles between men . murphy has admitted in interviews that he is weary of women in his private life , which is really neither here nor there . but when murphy puts his bitter feelings on 3 , 000 movie screens across the country , it's another matter altogether . you're forced to swallow some pretty gruesome stuff . for instance , murphy punches della reese in the stomach . and he shoots jasmine guy in the head . this is a mean-spirited movie , folks ! lovely newcomer lela rochon gets off easy in her role as a common whore , but only because she doesn't have any scenes with murphy . thank god : he might have run her over with a bulldozer . ( 4 ) murphy has written for himself perhaps his blandest role to date . the loveable eddie murphy charisma emerges only once or twice during the film . murphy would rather give his character a spiffy wardrobe than a spiffy personality . sometimes it seems as if murphy made harlem nights just so he could wear fancy suits and look debonair . ( 5 ) the plot is a shameless rip-off of the sting . if you're going to make another sting movie , you've got to do something original . murphy's tale of warring nightclub owners in harlem ( circa 1938 ) fails to add anything new to the formula . ( 6 ) to get laughs , murphy makes fun of stuttering . you know a comedy is digging deep when it resorts to ridiculing the handicapped . ( 7 ) murphy's idea of drama is a scene in which his character apologizes for the first time in his life . for what ? for shooting reese's little toe off ! needless to say , murphy shows little , if any , promise or imagination as a screenwriter . in all fairness , however , a few rays of sunshine do manage to break through the gloomy cloud surrounding the movie . danny aiello is fun to watch as a dirty cop on the take . aiello stands out in the large , ensemble cast : he obviously relishes the opportunity to play such a nasty character ( a racist detective with mob ties ) . aiello's zesty performance gives harlem nights some much needed spice . another bright spot is arsenio hall , who has a hilarious , show-stopping cameo as a cry-baby gangster ; hall virtually steals the spotlight from murphy . in fact , hall's ten minutes on screen are the funniest ten minutes in the movie . unfortunately , his character is completely irrelevant to the plot ; murphy should have given hall a much bigger role . of course , i've already mentioned that i didn't care for murphy's character , but i have to admit that i did love his neckties . they are simply spectacular--almost worth the price of admission .
0	the scene at the end of 1989's `dead poets society , ' when robin williams' english students stand up on their desk and say , `captain , my captain , ' gets me every time . unfortunately , the court room scene near the end of robin's newest film , `patch adams , ' doesn't have anywhere near the same impact . from the surface `patch adams' looks very promising . it's a story about a not so young man , patch adams ( robin williams ) , who finds meaning in his life through helping sick people . when the film opens , we find patch , depressed and suicidal , checking himself into a mental hospital . in a few scenes , strongly reminiscent of `one flew over the cuckoo's nest , ' he ends up helping the patients through their problems ; and it's here that he finds how much he loves working with people . so he checks himself out of the hospital , and heads straight to medical school . right from the start , patch uses comedy to help make the patient more comfortable . he continuously breaks medical tradition and makes the dean of the school angry . shortly after joining medical school , he meets and falls in love with carin ( monica potter ) . they , along with patch's dork friend , truman ( daniel london ) , start a medical clinic for uninsured people . once the dean catches wind of the clinic , he tells patch he can't graduate and kicks him out of school . patch , like what any true american would do , takes the school to court . it's here where the not so climatic court room battle takes place , over whether or not patch can become a real doctor . i have never seen a movie with some potential just completely blow it . it seems more like a series of short sketches , rather than a full-length movie . considering it runs almost two hours , much too long for such a light film , it could have flowed much smoother . not to mention the fact of how serious the film takes itself , and manages to cover all the cliches of bad melodrama . robin williams saves the film from being abysmal with several comic scenes that elevate the movie to entertaining and worthwhile levels . but those moments are rare and in the end `patch adams' is barely average .
1	john cusack is the kind of actor who seems to effortlessly slide into his respective film roles . so effortlessly that people tend to forget he's there , much in the way people rarely recall many of the great character actors ( anyone who can put the name james rebhorn with that actor's face is invited to treat themselves to a product from one of my sponsors ) . example : the other day my mother asked me ( the expert , of course ) if there were any movies out worth seeing , never mind that our tastes couldn't be more divergent--- i'll never forget the day she recommended that i go see a night at the roxbury for god sakes , and to be fair she was mightily pissed at me for telling her that go ! was a lot of fun ( which it is ) , so i didn't see this as anything more than a futile attempt at conversation . i muttered , with a little trepidation , that she might enjoy high fidelity . she responded with her usual query , " whose in that one ? " this is a question whose answer that seems to immediately conjure up the kind of movie you went to see . if the reply is julia roberts you probably assume it was something wispy and light , a sylvester stallone movie and you picture a bloodbath with few words and much involuntary bicep flexing , and a woody allen movie means hyper articulate white people ( usually of the jewish faith ) fretting about in some upper east side palace . anyway , when i answered " john cusack " , she replied with a rather stunned " who ? " , as if it was unreasonable for her to know whom i was referring to . now i know for a fact that my mother has seen several cusack movies , most recently being john malkovich and pushing tin , but i suppose it's understandable that she would not recognize the name , after all , for most , names are tougher than faces . i showed her a picture of cusack's mug in the paper hoping for an " oh - him , yes he's quite good " instead i got a " no - i don't know him " . at this point i was way beyond frustration into a realm of nose hair yanking anger ( yes , filmic ignorance is all it takes to get me into the nose hair pulling zone ) , till i realized something : i doubt that much of america would recognize cusack's relatively bland visage , or even the name which is rather bland compared to the coolness of a brad pitt or tom cruise , one-syllable names that glide off the tongue with the velocity of a speeding car . cu-sack . cu-sack - no , not quite as cool . i'm sure that twenty years from now cusack will forever be referred to as " the guy from ( add in the cusack film of your choice ) " . he's not a brand name , and his movies usually aren't big moneymakers , but in his own unassuming way he's kind of a genius . with his pleasant , common man looks , and charming semi-articulate blatherings he has become one of the most likeable romantic leading men of the 90's . from the sure thing to say anything cusack has merged the talents of early tom hanks and early jack lemmon . despite the fact that nearly every character he plays is a variation of the character before it ( the schlumpy every man ) , he's a constantly enjoyable screen persona , like albert brooks or woody allen . and he knows how to chose scripts , while the stephan baldwin's and val kilmer's seem to put them selves in everything ( the former actually had the insight to follow up oscar winner usual suspects with a pauly shore vehicle , and judging from his latest projects it looks like he still has yet to fire his agent ) , cusack generally picks rewarding projects ( save for the unwatchable hot pursuit , a 1988 film also featuring a young ben stiller ) . high fidelity is his second collaboration with hit or miss english director stephan fears ( the grifters , the hi-lo country ) , and it's a hit . it was also co-written by cusack , and some of his collaborators on the terrific comedy , grosse point blank . it's not quite as entertaining or as funny as that film , but as it progresses in its meandering fashion , the movie cast something of a spell over me . high fidelity begins as a hipster ode to the non-committal rob , a vinyl record store owner , who opens the film by breaking down the fourth wall with much abandon and educating us in his " top 5 break ups list " . this is something cusack does the entire film a la ferris bueller's day off . at first the talking-directly-into-the-camera-schtick had me vaguely annoyed , mostly because it reminded me so much of the film body shots which used a similar conceit , but it began to grow on me due almost entirely to cusack's witty delivery . he's the kind of guy we don't mind talking directly to us . gradually the film settles into a shampoo-like tragi-comic character study , of a guy who must confront himself and his personal failures in order to figure out the true person he is ( yes it's all very existential ) . though that plot-line is mostly enjoyable , the thing i liked the most about the film is how much pleasure it offers in introducing us to minor characters , all of whom ( now this is really something ) are terrific enough to warrant their own films . the best of which is jack black ( of the very funny show tenacious d , a program that sadly went the way of bruce willis' hair ? ? ? unfortunately that annoying smirk remains ) , an ardent record store employee who bullies customers into buying exactly what he wants them to buy . he's the kind of guy i'm sure we've all met before , a blowhard who thinks he's always right and will do anything in his power ( be it yell , argue , insult ) to hoist his opinion onto others . but i like this guy , because of how black plays him . the actor is portly with a round baby face and crazy eyes , but despite his size he leaps to and fro like a manic speed freak ( which might be a bit of a redundant description , seeing as how all the speed freaks i know are manic ) . he's the kind of supporting character who would be impossibly annoying comic relief in most other films . ( look at what that hack jan de bont did to poor phillip seymour hoffman in twister ) . but fears and black never let that happen . the character , for all his shucking and jiving is steeped in reality . he's over the top , but in a way we can all probably relate to . catherine zeta-jones , in her brief role , gives a vivid portrayal of a women completely enamored with her own " charm " . tim robbins registers in an even tinier part as a new age-type , a character played entirely for cartoon yuks , but still manages to work its desired comic effect . the one exception in the acting department is a bit of a doozy , the main love interest played by danish actress iben hjejle ( mifune ) , who completely obliterates any trace of a danish accent , replacing it with a stilted american phonation . i give her kudos for attempting such a contradictory role , but instead of being likeable , she comes across as rather robotic , and as such it's hard to see why cusack's character would be so obsessed with her especially when he has a beautiful , intelligent writer ( natasha gregson wagner ) potentially waiting in the wings . this reminded me of say anything , where the charming cusack was paired with the charmless ione skye , and in midnight in the garden of good and evil where the poor bastard had to put up with alison eastwood ( whose unbelievably more wooden then father , clint for those " special people " whose wheels turn a little slower ) . in fact cusack is rarely paired up with a personality that matches his , though i'd bet that if laura and natasha switched roles , the result would be more effective . high fidelity works almost entirely on the strength of its characters and performances . fears' direction is somewhat stilted , and the script is sometimes a little too ( and this is a word i'm beginning to hate to use but alas i must ) quirky for its own good ( i think i'll blame that on scott rosenberg , who judging from what he did with beautiful girls , con air , and things to do in denver while your dead , has his fingerprints all over the most irritating bits of this movie ) . but cusack really does deserve an award , for being so damn ? ? ? cusackian . i'm afraid that his talents are so understated that he may have to wait till his hip needs replacing to be offered such an award worthy of his considerable talent . his character , rob ( whose sort of like an older , more bitter lloyd from say anything ) is funny and tragic without being pathetic , and that cusack can do all this , and still not imprint himself onto the minds of most audiences , is something of an achievement .
1	losing a job is not an all too uncommon thing . reacting to such a personal setback by taking a group of small children hostage is a bit more rare . while we all might feel the desire to blow someone's head off with a shotgun when they don't seem to grasp our point of view , actually threatening them with one is usually something we avoid . this isn't the case with sam baily - john travolta's slightly askew average-joe persona in mad city . " i don't think people listen to guys like me , " sam laments during an exclusive interview from behind the walls of a museum . just a few days ago , sam was a guard at this same museum , but when cutbacks led to the elimination of his security position , sam's apprehension resulted in a brash decision . in an effort to get his ex-boss , museum director mrs . banks ( blythe danner ) , to " just listen " , he barges into the museum one day equipped with a fully loaded shotgun , taking the uncooperative banks and a group of school children hostage . sam's overall concern is valid enough - if he loses his job , his paycheck , his benefits , etc . , his wife and two children won't be provided for . he's not a lunatic or a hot-tempered madman , he's somewhat like a child - panicky , compulsive , and running on emotion - and his naive intentions aren't helped any by the fact that banks wasn't overly compassionate with the let go . overall , he's just like you and me - except that he has the capacity to view the line we'd deem " far enough " as the starting mark of some crazy race . meanwhile , television reporter max brackett ( dustin hoffman ) is also on the scene . covering a " fluff " story for the evening news concerning the museum cutbacks , max suddenly finds himself in the middle of the biggest-breaking news story he ever could've hoped for . having been demoted from network newsman to smalltime affiliate reporting , max is anxious to turn this into his , and only his , story . max immediately bonds with sam . max even coaches sam thru hostage negotiations and writes scripts for him to use with the police over the phone . at first , max's intentions don't stretch beyond high ratings and a good boost to the ole pride factor , but as he gets to know sam more personally , he begins to sympathize and even become somewhat of an advocate for him . the media , however , is creating a frenzy that leaves the fickle public shifting gears as often as a diesel truck moving downhill . the accidental shooting of ex-co- worker cliff ( bill nunn ) , a black security guard , becomes one of the main factors in the controversy over sam's honest ambitions . also involved in this film are robert prosky as lou potts , head of the news department of the station max falls directly under , and alan alda as the nationally famed reporter kevin hollander , who uses his network power to try and outshine max . alda and prosky both turn in fine performances that fit like gloves on their acting abilities . then there is mia kirshner , who plays the young tv station intern laurie . she falls under max's wings only to become a student taught too well in the way of sensationalistic reporting . kirshner's credits are relatively small for now , including roles in films like exotica and the forgettable sequel to the crow . still , kirshner's character transformation shows that she has shining ability to play both good girl and kinda-bitchy-in-a-reserved-way roles . i wouldn't mind seeing her in some more prevalent parts , where perhaps her talent will be able to blossom more fully onscreen . while the viewpoint of the media as a greedy , self-righteous monster has indeed been tackled before , mad city provides a solid two hours of enjoyability . hoffman and travolta are both excellent actors , and seeing them together is a real treat . they both do a great job at smoothly and naturally becoming their characters , and they provide enough chemistry for us to genuinely care for both . there is quite a bit of humor in this film , and without it , it could've fallen into a drab , cliched social statement more likely to garner sleep from the audience than applause . this isn't a flick that will grip at both your funny bone and your heart , but it will lightly touch both , making for a recommendable movie . if for nothing more than the opportunity to watch both hoffman and travolta at the same time , i urge you to check this one out .
0	based on the 1960s tv series that i had never seen or heard of before this movie ( be happy , i won't bore you with any lame and unnecessary comparisons ) , this film allows will smith to take a third stab at the independence day weekend box-office , after scoring huge successes with men in black ( 7/10 ) , directed by the same man who controlled this one , and independence day ( 6/10 ) . can you say . . . the third times not a charm ? plot : james west and artemus gordon are chosen by the president to find the man responsible for the kidnapping of the nation's top scientists , and threatening to take over the united states within a week . critique : i did not laugh once during this entire picture . when you consider that this film is a part-comedy , that's not a very good sign . i also did not tense up or particularly enjoy any of its unenergetic action sequences which provided me with little more than a few minutes time to think back to the lovely salma hayek scenes . when you consider that the other " part " of this film is geared as an action/adventure , i would say that this another negative sign . and when you consider that the first hour of the film was boring and a little slow , the story-line tired , reminiscent of swiss cheese and uninvolving , and the special effects interesting but worth very little inside a plot filled with lame one-liners , weak characterizations and an anti-climactic end , you pretty much have the gist of my impression of this " big " summer blockbuster . it blows . or as they say in french , " eet blows " . could it be that the script was crappy because it took four people to write it ? maybe . could it be that most of the special effects don't show up until the last half hour , and even then , we don't see anything that its trailers hadn't already given away ? perhaps . or could it be that we have come to expect so much more from will smith and hollywood big-budget movies , that we cannot help but evaluate them on a scale onto their own ? naaaaaaah ! a bad movie is a bad movie . on a positive note , i could honestly say that i did very much enjoy the lovely performance by the adorable salma hayek , who seemed underused ( in my humble opinion ) , and lit up every bubbly scene that she was hardly in . branagh was also fun as the scenery-munching , over-the-top bad guy , but that's pretty much where the entertainment-buck stopped . smith and kline were static at best , the plot full of holes , and the score insignificant and derivative of a dozen others . i would strongly advise anyone not to see this movie . then again , there is that one scene with the lovely salma hayek tied up in a cage . . . huh . . . oh yeah , but the rest of the movie sucked . little known facts about this film and its stars : will smith has starred in two of the ten all-time top grossing films worldwide : 1997's summer blockbuster men in black ( 7/10 ) , for which he also recorded the grammy-winning title song , and 1996's independence day ( 6/10 ) . he once turned down a scholarship to mit to pursue his singing career . kevin kline is a graduate of the juilliard school of drama , and has been married to the cute-as-a-button actress phoebe cates since 1989 . they have two kids together , greta simone and owen . one of the buildings that gets blown up in this film has " kasdan " written on it . lawrence kasdan is a director known to have worked with kevin on five of his movies , including the big chill , silverado , i love you to death , grand canyon and french kiss . salma hayek gave up a successful career as a major television star in latin america and moved to the united states to start over , even though she spoke no english . she made her feature film debut as an actress with a small role in allison anders' mi vida loca ( no , not the rickie martin video ! ) and played her first starring role in robert rodriguez's desperado opposite antonio banderas . since then , she has made an appearance in each one of rodriguez's films . she stands 5'2 " , was born in southeast mexico , and the daughter of a lebanese father and a mexican mother . one of the actresses cast as branagh's lovely but lethal beauties includes bail ling , a stage and screen star in her native china who was last seen starring opposite dick gere in red corner ( 7/10 ) . another is dutch-born frederique van der wal , who is one of the world's most recognized supermodels , having graced the cover of cosmopolitan numerous times , as well as harper's bazaar , vogue and mademoiselle .
1	if there's one thing in common about all of hollywood's major studios , it's that their productions are moving toward mainstream more and more . although twentieth century fox and new line cinema have spawned subsidiaries which specialize in independant or controversial motion pictures ( fox searchlight and fine line respectively ) , it's obvious there's no significant movement underway to promote inventive ideas at the theater . so when a movie like gary ross' pleasantville comes along , wrapped in a blanket of innovative ideas and served up on a platter of fine production , it's a welcome change of pace for all who frequent the cineplexes . although the atmosphere and buzz about the movie are cheery and lighthearted , pleasantville should not be mistaken for a no-thought movie . quite the opposite is true , in fact , as director ross skillfully brings a narrative with intense and intelligent undertones to the screen . the story , both about the joys of living life to the fullest as well as the social ills of segregation , captures the essence of statement-making in the cinema . not in recent memory has a movie carried such weight of theme into widescale distribution , and even if mass audiences fail to see the ingenuity of ross' work , it is still a testament that his picture was considered worthy enough . kudos to both he and his production staff for putting together this fine picture . it stars tobey maguire and reese witherspoon as two nineties teenagers who , through quite a bit of luck , find themselves zapped into a fifties sitcom named " pleasantville . " maguire , as the reserved bud parker , is perfect for the pseudo-world ; but the rebellious mary sue ( witherspoon ) is not at all made for the father-knows-best times . it's not long before she sets the town of pleasantville on end , and begins to teach the townspeople - in a quite unlikely way - what life is * really * like . soon hues of color creep into the black and white world , and while some embrace the change in the passion of realism , others fear the strangeness . at one end is a soda shop owner-turned-painter named mr . johnson ( jeff daniels ) and at the other end is a close-minded mayor ( j . t . walsh ) and his chamber of commerce ; but the two sides are simply fronts for a clash of ideas that soon involves the entire town . fine performances are turned in all around . maguire and witherspoon are effective as the leads , but the true complements go out to jeff daniels and j . t . walsh ( in his latest and final posthumous performance ) . daniels brings an atmosphere of awe , inspiration , and hope to his character , whereas walsh simply drips of sinister closemindedness - almost to the point where you can sense gene hackman's envy . for daniels , it's his most commendable performance of the last three years - or more - and for walsh , it's a complementary exclamation point on a fine career . also of lesser note is the supporting role by joan allen , and in viewing the entire cast works well together from start to finish . there's not much to dislike about pleasantville , and its dynamic nature makes it the perfect movie for those who want serious as well as those who don't .
1	contact is a nobly intentioned but ultimately unsatisfying adaptation of carl sagan's only novel . it details the circumstances surrounding the first clear sign of intelligent life in outer space and their effects on the life of a young and idealistic radio astronomer named ellie arroway ( jodie foster ) . we first meet ellie at a giant radio telescope in puerto rico , where she is part of the seti ( search for extraterrestrial intelligence ) project . her research is quickly killed , however , by her highly political david drumlin ( tom skerrit ) , who disdains " pure research " in favor of science with " commercial applications . she goes in search of private funding and is turned down at every step until she pitches her project to a corporation run by the mysterious s . r . hadden ( john hurt ) . then , with that money just about to finally dry up , ellie is sitting out in the desert near the very large array in new mexico when she hears over her headphones a very powerful pulsing radio signal . in the movie's most exciting and believable sequence , ellie and her coworkers determine that the signal has to be coming from the star vega . at first the signal appears to be just sequences of prime numbers , then it turns out to be a tv signal of the berlin olympics bounced back to earth from 50 years before . further decoding , with hadden's help , reveals another layer to message , containing detailed plans for a massive and complex machine . it appears that the machine is a transport that will allow one person to travel to the aliens' home world . of course , the big question becomes " who gets to ride it ? " ( right after " who's gonna pay for this thing ? " ) . to boil it down , ellie gets denied the seat in the machine because she bluntly acknowledges her atheism , while drumlin gets to go because he rather insincerely professes his deep religious faith . drumlin is killed and the machine destroyed when religious fanatics bomb the launch platform ( apparently to keep " godless science " from talking to god , or something like that ) . then hadden reappears with startling news . he has secretly constructed a second machine off the coast of japan and has reserved the ride for ellie , in whom he has taken a rather paternal interest . ellie boards the machine and is transported through some kind of wormhole to a dream-like place that looks a lot like waikiki beach before they built the hotels , where she meets the aliens who take the form of her late father ( david morse ) . when she returns home , no one believes her . she was not even gone for one second , they say , even though she remembers being gone for 18 hours . her story is officially discredited , although believed by a large segment of the public ( who don't even have to know that her computer records of the trip contain nothing but static . . . eighteen hours worth of static ) . there is a lot to like about contact so i will highlight those points first . ellie arroway is a well-rounded character portrayed by one of the best actresses currently working . neither the character nor the performance has the same depth as clarice starling in silence of the lambs , but that's a tough standard to meet . ellie is interesting in that she is woman defined by a strange array of father figures . her real father is an idealized movie dad who does nothing in the film but love his daughter unconditionally . drumlin comes across as a distant stepfather to whom ellie is like an irritating teenager who wants to use his toys to get into trouble . hadden obviously has affection for ellie , but in the end he seems to see her as his creation , nothing more than his favorite piece on the chess board . even palmer joss ( matthew mcconaughey ) , ellie's love interest , takes a paternalistic interest in ellie , seeing her as a misguided person who needs protection from her own impulses . the film is technically impressive , especially in the scenes where the message is first received and during the destruction of the first machine . the part of the film dealing with the message has the best presentation of real science in a film since the andromeda strain . the film falls apart when dealing with its central theme , the dichotomy between science and religion . this is a very real debate but contact boils it down to a simplistic level that never really touches on the actual issues involved . the film presents science pretty well ( until the end ) so the real problem stems from it presentation of religious faith . religious people are presented as shallow caricatures . rob lowe plays a ralph reed clone named richard rank ( very subtle , guys ) , the voice of the religious right . another religious figure is the fanatic who blows up the first machine ( jake busey ) . the only really fleshed-out religious person , palmer joss , is supposed to be a minister of some sort , but his actual faith is left pretty vague . i can't even say for certain that he was supposed to be a christian . all we know is that he dropped out of the seminary and obviously has no qualms about pre-marital sex . the film drops the science ball at the very end , when ellie appears to assert that there are some things even scientists must take on faith . in a day and age when the theory of evolution is denounced by the religion right as an atheist " religious " doctrine , this is exactly the wrong message to send . in a movie dealing with issues of science and faith , the last thing you want your scientist character to do is abandon the principle of scientific skepticism . what ellie should have said was , " you shouldn't believe me . not without evidence , and i don't have the evidence . i know what happened but you shouldn't take my word alone . " that is the voice of science speaking . the character of david drumlin is another problem with this film . his attitudes toward pure research project seem out of place for a person in his position . also , his profession of " faith " before the selection committee is so nakedly and transparently insincere that only a pack of idiots should have fallen for it . the last big problem is with the use of real personalities in various roles . the media figures , such as bernard shaw and jay leno aren't so bad , in as much as their participation was voluntary . the use of bill clinton , however , should give anyone pause . first of all , lifting the image of a sitting head of state and inserting him into a fictional story line , thus using his words outside of the context in which they were spoken , is just plain creepy . also , using the real president places this film between 1993 and 2001 , forever dating it . people watching this film in the future will say , " hey , this never took place during clinton's term . " this bit of unreality will jar people out of their suspension of disbelief . also , the level of technology portrayed in the film is too advanced to take place before the first decade of the next century . better to have had a fictitious president played by an actor or no president at all . the film does raise an interesting question , although it never develops it in a satisfying way . if we were picking an emissary to send to an alien culture , would an atheist be automatically disqualified just because ninety percent of the population of the world professes a belief in god , or at least some form of supernatural creator ? personally , i would hope not , since religion is basically an opinion , a form of ideology . i would not want any form of ideological test for such an import task .
1	magnolia left me relling from the theatre , staggering from the relentless assault of an adventurous director reveling in his craft . at nearly three and a half hours , magnolia will strike some as a brute of a film . it not only demands your attention , but challenges you to grasp the significance of seemingly unrelated storylines and hidden intentions . it is delirious , depressing , heady , pretentious , surreal filmmaking . it's also a movie that will polarize its viewers . director paul thomas anderson takes a talented cast , wraps them in a net of interrelated stories and sets them spinning in a symphony of despair whose song doesn't let up until an oddly exhilerating , biblically influenced pseudo-climax . the character's make up a modern day gomorrah in the soulless way in which they live their lives . there is frank mackey ( tom cruise ) , a slithery snake charmer of men whose " search and destroy " seminars teach how to mentally rape a woman to get into her pants . there is earl partridge ( jason robards ) , a dying media tycoon yearning to make amends for a lfe of callousness by finding his estranged son . there is game show host jimmy gator ( phillip baker hall ) , a self absorbed tv icon who is hiding more than a few secrets from his public . and there is police officer jim kurring ( john c . reilly ) , who cloaks himself in the codification of organized religion and the legal system , perhaps masking a man who needs rules to fuel his decision making process . given equal weight are stories involving a coke-addled emotional cripple ( melora walters ) , a former tv quiz show champion ( william h . macy ) . a materialistic , adulterous wife ( julianne moore ) , a child ( jeremy blackman ) victimized by a mentally abusive parent , and a caring , empathetic nurse ( philip seymour hoffman ) . hovering over all these characters is a cloud of death , lies and despair . it is not a pleasant movie . there is not one bad note in the acting . it is affecting and layered and wonderful . there is a moment where tom cruise wordlessly implodes that rivals work he has done in whole films . then he tops himself with a mesmerizing deathbed scene . walters plays her character with red-eyed rawness and a fierce self-destructiveness that is anxiety inducing . robards convincingly portrays a fading whisper of a man , who still hears a lion's roar when he speaks . director anderson has apparently given the actors lattitude to emote . the problem is that he stays on them too long . julianne moore's character , linda , quickly escalates to a frenzied pitch of guilt , tears , screaming and remorse and never backs off from it . after a few hours , it turns from interesting to chinese water torture . quite a few scenes , such as the game show , go on just a bit too long and will be off-putting for those used to a pat 90 minute film where the main theme is reiterated several times just in case you missed it the first go around . and just what is the theme ? alienation ? hopelessness ? anderson challenges you to draw your own conclusions and he doesn't make it easy . the film starts by showing three , strange and seemingly unrelated events . it's a harbinger of the synchronicity to come . at times , different stories reach reach key moments at the same time . other times , stories seem to veer off into uncharted territory , regardless of what else is happening . anderson is audacious enough to even have a group sing in the middle of the film ! what's surprising is that it mostly works . if you have doubts about anderson's intentions , i'll ask you to pay attention to the final frame . despite all the sturm und drang , magnolia ultimately speaks to man's capacity for hope and attempts at redemption . despite magnolia's needlessly long running time and its propensity for uneven editing as anderson plays the auteur , showing off fro the masses , i have to admire his guts . this is truly adventurous filmmaking that spits in the face of conventional storytelling . my rating : a bulleye . ( stars ) a side note : helping anchor the film is a perfectly matched soundtrack featuring aimee mann . her lyrics often add depth to a scene thematically while the actual music is both morose and beautiful . when she sings " save me " at the end , it enhances the yearning felt by the characters , just as " wise up " mirrors the anguish felt by all as they contemplate their lives .
0	movies can do the two big es very well : educate and entertain . in the best of all possible worlds , they accomplish both . on the red planet , they fail entirely . in the near future , a manned mission is sent to mars to observe primitive plant growth . this film does a remarkable job of demonstrating exactly how exciting watching algae grow would be . after some mumbo-jumbo about an ecological disaster on earth and an interminable wait to reach the fourth planet , the ship falls apart almost as fast as the movie does . the ground crew of people you couldn't care less about is trapped on the surface without food , water or air and stalked by a deadly rogue cyberdog . the one potentially interesting character ( carrie-anne moss ) spends her time alone in the orbiting ship talking to a computer . attempting to graft " 2001 " esque space mysticism with " terminator " robot horror , first time director antony hoffman can't seem to figure out what's going on . neither can we . didn't he have anyone who could step back from the shooting and make sure there was a coherent story ? couldn't he have used the money saved by only having to pay half a dozen actors to hire a scriptwriter ? there are so many mis-steps . every opportunity to create dynamic tension is thwarted by plot holes and lackluster direction . why introduce the theme of faith vs . science if the crewman who could comment on it disappears early only to die _offscreen_ ? the audience begins the film waiting for something to happen . two hours later , they're still waiting . despite our greatest hopes , there is no life on the red planet .
0	renowned hong kong action director tsui hark first teamed with jean-claude van damme on the action star's 1997 pairing with dennis rodman , _double_team_ , and managed to make what initially appeared to be a disaster into a slick , stylish , and somewhat diverting action timekiller . tsui continues to energetically pile on the visual razzle dazzle in his latest collaboration with the muscles from brussels , _knock_off_ , but this time around , style neither save a script that is at best ridiculous , and at worst incomprehensible ; nor hide a host of truly lousy performances . writer steven e . desouza's fairly straightforward plotline isn't as outre as _double_team_'s strange yarn involving a secret think tank/prison , but it makes about as much sense , which is little . van damme plays marcus ray , a hong kong-based sales rep for a jeans company ( ! ) who stumbles upon a russian terrorist scheme to implant powerful microchip-sized bombs in hk product exports to the u . s . --dolls , electronic equipment , and , yes , jeans . it's all part of some type of ransom scheme , but all i remember is--and i kid you not--graphics on a cia computer screen showing a map of the world , bombs detonating , and an hat-wearing figure on the other side of the world bursting out into laughter . . . . . . which is what the crowd at the showing i attended spontaneously did throughout _knock_off_ . while all of van damme's films have its share of unintentional laughs , mostly due to the stiff acting " skills " of the physically agile van damme , _knock_off_ delivers more than usual ( though not as many as van damme's embarrassing directorial effort , 1996's _the_quest_ ) . a lot of the laughs are earned by some particularly painful lines by desouza : " i smoked that badass like a roman candle ! " and " entrepreneurship , babycakes ! " standing out among my favorites . but it is indeed the pathetic performances that provide the bulk of _knock_off_'s laughs . van damme is true to laughable form , perhaps even worse than usual . early scenes actually _require_ him to make funny with co-star rob schneider ( improbably cast as a deep cover cia agent posing as marcus's business partner ) , and the sight and sound of the still-heavily-accented van damme haplessly trying to drop punchlines is hilarious in the wrong way . even typically good actors are not immune to the bad acting bug . paul sorvino is unconvincing and terribly overwrought as schneider's cia superior ; and lela rochon , playing an investigator for the jeans company , spends the entire movie in perpetual snarl mode . in rochon's defense , though , her role requires her to do little more than display her toned legs , exquisite bone structure , and perky bosoms , the latter coming in handy for one key scene where she must fish for microbombs stuck in her ample cleavage . tsui picks up where he left off visually in _double_team_ , juicing up the proceedings with inventive camera work . here , though , tsui's visual razzle dazzle borders on over kill , coming off as desperate attempts to shield the inanity of the entire enterprise . for each nifty trick tsui pulls off , such as a recurring visual theme that has the camera literally going through the circuitry of electronic devices , there are others that are completely superfluous . this is especially disconcerting when the trick in question could be clever when used in the right context . for instance , one scene early on has marcus putting his hand in a box . as he puts his hand in , the same action is shown from an overhead camera angle in a rectangle at the corner of the screen . it's undoubtedly an interesting visual , but it would have been nice if its use actually amounted to something . the test of a van damme movie boils down to the action sequences , but surprisingly , those in _knock_off_ leave much to be desired . tsui does what he can to make something of them , employing freeze frames , blurred motion , and unconventional camera angles , but there is nothing fundamentally special about the fairly generic chase and fight sequences written by desouza . there isn't anything as preposterously amusing as the climactic tiger/land mine fight in _double_team_ , let alone anything remotely close to tsui's legendary hong kong works ( but that's a given going in ) . if tsui has any hope of approaching his countryman john woo's stateside success , he would do best to break free from van damme . . . before it's too late . if he continues his involvement with b-grade movies such as _knock_off_ , the respect he has from hk action fans will continue to diminish . . . that is , if it hasn't already disappeared entirely after this fiasco .
1	as a devout atheist and an avowed believer in aliens , i have some idea of how ellie aroway ( jodie foster ) feels . but because my reasons for not partaking in religion are different than hers , i can't say that i do exactly . her reason is that she needs solid proof : there is no proof that god existed , so therefor she does not believe . ellie also believes in aliens , and has spent most of her life trying to prove they exist . how can she say she doesn't believe in god because of the lack of proof , and then say she believes in aliens , which are gereally less believed in than god without sounding like a hypocrite ? that's the catch-22 . when aliens from the star vega fax her some plans for a device to transport someone to them ( okay , well , they didn't really * fax * them . . . ) ellie wants to be the one to go , but because of her atheism she is denied the position . how dumb is that ? she discovers the transmitions , then she isn't allowed to go . well , because of a bomb and a psychopath ( jake busey ) , she * does * end up going , but not in the way that we would've thought . contact is based on a novel by carl sagan , who died during the filmmaking . it is the best alien movie since close encounters of the 3rd kind , and will end up being the best film of the year . its views of science and religion will no doubt aggrivate some , but will stimulate more . i'm glad at least one movie of the '90s can portray aliens in a psitive light , rather than a bunch of slimey beasts who will eat your insides and then put on your body .
0	battlefield earth is the worst film of 2000 , and i guarantee you that nothing else this year will even come close . in fact , i'll be surprised if i see anything this bad in the next ten years . based on the novel by scientology guru l . ron hubbard , battlefield earth begins and we immediately find out two pieces of key information . it's the year 3000 , and an alien race called the psychlos ( which sounds like a tag team of mexican wrestlers ) conquered our planet in nine minutes . ok , we are all of 10 seconds in and i have a zillion questions racing through my mind . when were we conquered ? the audience is led to believe that this happened about 1 , 000 years earlier , and if that is the case then we're going to get into a whole bunch of problems later ( trust me . . . keep reading ) . also , why don't we get to see earth get conquered ? how the hell do you make a popcorn sci-fi flick and not deliver the goods on the one event that sets up the film ? humans now live as cavemen or slave labor , and for the film's first act we focus on one particular cavemen group outside of denver , colorado . they grunt and groan and babble about monsters . so , when the psychlos conquered earth , were the only humans not captured a herd of newborn babies that crawled their way to safety in the hills ? none of these characters have any knowledge of the planet being conquered ( whenever that was ) . this is definitely not the way to start an action/sci-fi film . one of the humans wanders out into the wilderness and stumbles across what he thinks is a monster , and he begins to fight it . the " monster " turns out to be a dinosaur from an old miniature golf course . he turns around and sees all sorts of other characters from the golf course , with some shrubs growing over them . so , in 1 , 000 years this stupid little golf course has stood the test of time , with only a few weeds growing over it ? anyway , some of the humans are captured by the psychlos led by terl ( john travolta ) a smarmy and opportunistic alien planning on stealing a recently discovered gold deposit . the cavemen ( led by barry pepper ) are forced to do their bidding or whatever , but eventually they gain the upper hand and reclaim the planet , or something . so these cavemen are able to do what earth failed to do 1 , 000 years earlier ? and , we're supposed to believe that earth was conquered in nine minutes by a group of buffoonish aliens who can't even handle a few cavemen ? one of the ways the humans reclaim the planet is by taking control of abandoned air force jets and using them to fight the psychlos . so jets left unattended for 1 , 000 years are still able to fly ? please , if i leave my car unattended for two weeks i have to replace every fluid and hose under the hood . why did the psychlos leave jets around anyway ? shouldn't they have destroyed military installations during their massive nine minute campaign against us ? the psychlos refer to humans as " man animals " but yet dogs are still " dogs " . why aren't they " dog animals " ? the psychlos are after mining earth's precious resources , but for 1 , 000 years are unaware of fort knox ? why do i even care at this point ? i'm a fan of travolta's and i'm glad to see he's back on the a-list in hollywood ( despite the fact that he occasionally puts out crowd pleasing dreck like michael and phenomenon ) . but how did he possibly think this was a good movie ? and how did he think he was giving a good performance here ? he's more than capable of making a menacing villain ( see broken arrow and face/off ) but whenever his character came on screen i couldn't hold back my laughter . now despite the different facial features members of this alien race seem to have , travolta just looks like travolta . all of the other aliens have weird foreheads or other pointy bones on their face , but travolta just has a goatee . also , travolta's acts with a sort of phony upper-class snooty accent and constantly whines about bureaucratic nonsense back on his home world . ooooo , scary villain . as a producer he should know better and as an actor he should definitely know better . you can make a dumb but good sci-fi film ( i love independence day for example ) , but there is absolutely nothing entertaining about battlefield earth . i did everything i possibly could to stay awake during the screening . . . i cleaned my glasses , walked around the theater , made a grocery list , chose my lottery numbers for the week , replayed super bowl xxv in my head ( with commercials ) . . . and still was compelled to scrutinize the insides of my eyelids . by the time we actually reach the year 3000 , people should still be avoiding this film . folks , save your cash . . don't go see it , don't rent it , and don't buy it . you'd be more entertained by taking the money you'd use for this movie and just throwing it into the wind , watching it sail away ( hell , send it to us here at the jacksonville film journal . . . we'll entertain you plenty with that kind of money ) . unless of course you're just captivated by countless slow motion shots of barry pepper running , which is just about all you'll come away with from this movie . that , and a headache . [editor's note : for some reason though , the day after my screening i converted to scientology . i'm not sure why . . . something just made me feel compelled make the choice . ]
0	" come on , silent bob ! we're going to hollywood . " starring jason mewes , kevin smith , will ferrell , shannon elizabeth , seann william scott , chris rock , jason lee , ben affleck . directed by kevin smith . rated r . jay and silent bob strike back is a dumb movie disguised in a smarmy interior . kevin smith , coming off the wonderful , challenging dogma , fills it with sub-road trip gross-out jokes and expects us to buy it because he's just oh-so-ironic . but when a movie is so self-aware it becomes about nothing but itself , we can hardly be expected to pay for admission . jay and silent bob , two new jersey stoners who hang out at the doorstep of convenience store selling pot , have appeared in almost all of smith's movies but , if i'm not mistaken , have not starred in one until now . they find out that there is a movie based on the comic book that is based on them being made in hollywood . this presents two problems : a ) they haven't received a penny in royalties and b ) nerds on the internet ( " what's the internet ? " ) are talking trash about them . what is there to do except go to hollywood and stop this movie from being made ? on the way -- they're hitchhiking , because who knew you needed tickets to take a bus ? -- they run into a group of hotties who pretend to be with an animal-rights group , but are really jewel thiefs who parade around in charlie's angels-style outfits . of course , they set jay and silent bob up to look like the thieves , so that there is a massive manhunt going on during the second half of the film . will ferrell , who again proves himself incapable of doing anything but sketch comedy , shows up as the wildlife marshal inspector who thinks the two have stolen a monkey . the movie will probably please only smith's die-hard , undiscerning fans ; everyone else will be critical of this mind-bogglingly stupid effort following some the sophisticated cinema that he churned out in years past . any appeal the movie has will come from the " in " jokes , most of which i think i understood , but the movie is " in " to the point of absurdity . there needs to be something holding it together other than its own smugness . once jay and silent bob get to hollywood , the movie abruptly switches gears from gross-out comedy to ridiculously broad hollywood satire . countless " hot " movie stars and personalities make an appearance , from smith veterans matt damon and ben affleck to wes craven , but jay and silent bob strike back resorts to such low-brow gags as another scream sequel with a monkey as the killer . get it ? they're so desperate for another movie , they ran out of ideas and used a monkey ! a monkey ! as often happens with writers who are working below what they are actually capable of , most of the really good lines are throwaways , while the big , painstaking gags mostly fall flat . one of the funniest lines in the movie flies by : when asked to comment on the clitoris ( don't ask ) , jay responds : " the female clitoris ? " kevin smith is a talented writer ( though i agree that his films would be better off if he'd let a real director take the helm ) , and jay and silent bob strike back holds true to his promise to make a more facetious film . unfortunately , it's also shapeless , pointless and largely unfunny . smith's " verbal trampoline , " as ben affleck once called his distinctive dialogue , takes a back seat to his dubious instincts as a populist filmmaker . this was supposed to be the movie that didn't offend anyone , but it's offensive because it's terrible .
1	the booming introduction music finishes , and the camera sweeps over red mountains . we see two figures looking over a barren , and very red landscape . they kiss , then walk on . one of the characters ( schwarzenegger ) slips , and falls . the glass on his mask cracks . his face scruches up , and his eye's begin to pop . . . . . then doug quaid , played by schwarzenegger , wakes up . it's all been a dream . he wakes up next to his beautiful wife , played by stone , and the film begins . . . total recall is a typical sci-fi film wrapped around an intresting ( if far fetched ) plot . quaid , who has never been to mars , keeps on having dreams of the planet , which has now been colanised . one day , while riding on a train , he's see's a ad for a company called 'rekall' , which implants memories of a holiday , instead of you actually going there yourself . quaid chooses the 'secret agent on mars' memory , and then the s * * * really hits the fan . the implant goes wrong , and quaid really thinks he is an agent on mars for about two minutes , until he goes back to normal and can't remember a thing . however , everyone he knows ( his workmates , his wife ) turn against him , saying how 'blabbed about mars' and 'blew his cover on the mission' a strange man , called richter , played by ironside , wants to kill him . quaid , now hopelessly confused , follows the advice given to him , by a 'friend' . he get's his ass to mars . mars is ruled by cohagen , played by cox , who charges people for air . against him are the rebels , who are mainly mutants . the rebel's need quaid to defeat cohagen , because quaid knows ( but can't remember yet ) about a reactor that produces air . eventually , quaid kills cohagen , turns on the reactor , saves the planet , and goes away with a beautiful girl , just like the guy at rekall promised him . throughout this plot , there is huge explosions , thousands of deaths ( and i mean a lot of death ) swearing , sex , and everything else that make's a good verhoeven ( director of basic instinct and starship troopers ) movie . naturally , there's some pretty imaginative deaths , with arms getting ripped off , someone getting drilled , and heads exploding . as you can tell , it's violent stuff . but it's done so stylishly , and of course arnie tones it down with a one liner , that's it excusable . the acting is variable . arnie , of course , is useless , but he goes has some good lines , and in the first twenty minutes , he even act's like a normal bloke , not like some action hero . stone , of course , is useless , making a pretty poor wife , and a pretty poor action hero . but , she does sex scenes alright . ticoton ( most recently seen in con air ) , again , is ok , doing some good action , but getting her emotions all wrong . one minute she hates quaid , the next she loves him , and she never gets this tranisition right . so , the good guys are awful . but , the bad guy's are excellent . cox is basically reprising robocop , but he's still great in this , and he delivers the best line in the whole film near the end . ironside is superbly evil , with an utterly emotionless face . the supporting cast are fine , and not even the comedy sidekick ( this time in the form of a taxi driver ) is annoying . one disappointing aspect , though , are the special effects . ilm and dreamquest do some good work ( such as a subway station scene ) but the model work is not so good . some of the model heads look appaling fake , and quatto is a major disappointment . another irritating thing is the product placement . there are a lot of plugs ( and a good mars today gag ) however , the sets look great , and the special effects at the end of the film aren't too bad either . there's also a good soundtrack running through , by jerry goldsmith ( the omen , poltergeist , star trek : the motion picture ) overall , then , total recall is a hugely violent , yet hugely enjoyable , action fest , with a reasonable plot thrown in there too , some great bad guys , and some imaganitive death . for a schwarzenegger movie , this is not bad at all . in fact , it's very good .
0	to watch `battlefield earth' is to wallow in misery . it is one of the most ludicrously conceived efforts in recent history . it has a clumsily told story , insipid dialogue , shallow characterizations , ugly scene transitions , no evidence of dramatic arc , headache-inducing sound effects , and a resolution that is completely implausible . worse , there's the promise of a sequel . why ? ! save your money . some films go quickly to video . this one , however , should go straight to the sci-fi channel's `mystery science theatre . ' in the year 3000 , man has become an endangered species . most of humanity ( called ? man-animals' ) was destroyed generations ago in a battle against a race of plundering aliens ( called psychlos ) . survivors have either taken up shelter in caves or were enslaved to mine earth's resources for the rest of their lives . the aliens are a menacing looking humanoid species that stand nine-feet tall , who resemble inbred klingons . dimwitted as they are tall , their culture is predicated on power , extortion , and getting ? leverage . ' travolta , the leverage-using star , plays terl , the conniving security chief that oversees the mining facility on earth . much of the movie is spent showing us examples of terl's petty machinations . he routinely employs deception and then punctuates his statements with maniacal laughter . but one thing is certain ; he hates being stationed on earth . when the home planet informs him that he will be spending the rest of his life on this planet , he begins to devise his latest plan . he will select a group of slaves to secretly mine out a gold ore site . it's not clear how this benefits terl , except that it makes him richer in a place where he has no use for it . the scrappy jonnie goodboy tyler ( barry peppers ) is selected as the slave group's leader . a psychlo knowledge machine gives him the mining know-how . but the machine also teaches him other things such as the psychlo language , the principles of our founding fathers , euclidean geometry , and the location of fort knox . this enlightenment just doesn't prepare him for the mining assignment . it also prepares him to organize and stage a massive revolt against their captors . `we're going to blow up their home world , ' he says . `but first , we need a few more supplies . ' in days , he and his comrades evolve from cave dwelling , loincloth wearing , rat eating slaves to fighter pilots and nuclear weapons experts . by now , the audience is laughing as maniacally as terl . the media have been working overtime to let the public know that john travolta's labor of love is a piece of sci-fi drivel . numerous journals have called it an ill-conceived idea stemming from blind hubris , arrogance , and poor planning . and after watching this movie , you'll wholeheartedly agree . this is a terrible film that is illogically constructed , tediously acted , and frequently begs the question : why was this ever made ? at a price tag of $90 million , this film will be remembered as a gigantic folly , assuredly becoming `the avengers' of this summer . both films were unforgivable and this promises to suffer the same speedy fate and subsequent indignity . in addition to the universally pejorative reviews , there's another bizarre element to the `battlefield' saga . this film would never have been made if not for the star power of travolta , who for over a decade , had been trying to persuade studios to bring the story to the big screen . the controversy is that travolta is a scientologist , and `battlefield' is based on a 1982 novel by l . ron hubbard , the religion's late founder . this led some to believe that `battlefield earth' would amount to scientologist dogma , laden with subliminal messages . but the story is so poorly told that any message , subliminal or otherwise , is totally undetectable . if the audience got anything out of this film , it was this : we are not too unlike the psychlo leader . like terl , the audience felt imprisoned , dreaded their situation , and looked for any opportunity to leave . could that be the scientology message ?
1	scream 2 , like its predecessor , is a genre-crossing film . it is about 50% horror film and 50% murder mystery . the mix worked very well last time and it continues to entertain this time . scream was also known for its self-referential tone . many inside jokes were made in reference to horror movies and wes craven . again , scream 2 follows suit with characters saying such things as " sequels suck " and " the entire horror genre was destroyed by sequels . " scream 2's story is very similar to it's predecessor's . sidney ( neve campbell ) , having survived the killing spree in scream , is now in college . gale weathers ( courteney cox ) has written a book about the murders and that book is now being released as a feature film , called stab ( which for all practical purposes is the real-world movie scream ) . at the premiere of stab , two students from sidney's college are stabbed to death , and a new story begins . the press descends on sidney and her college to get the scoop on this sequel killer . they want to know all about the links between stab , sidney , and the recent murders . the most complex self-reference i saw ( this should be an olympic event ) was the scene where gale weathers was asking questions at a press conference . the rest of the press was watching and videotaping weathers . the other survivors from scream were watching and videotaping the press . the audience was watching the whole , filmed scene . ( whew . ) the movie is packed with layers and self-references that make it a pleasure to watch . even better would be to watch a double feature of scream and scream 2 . that's not to say that these references necessarily make scream 2 a deep , or even a good movie . the just add to the fun of watching it . i recommend it for other reasons as well . what i liked best about the horror aspect of the movie is that the monster is not supernatural . no werewolf or ghost or psycho with superhuman strength is responsible . it is a person in a mask and a robe , his only advantage the fear he strikes into his victims . no extraordinary leap of faith is needed to believe in the killer . the down side is that if you are frightened by horror movies , you have less grounds to say " it's just a movie . " the whodunit aspect of the movie is not that great by itself - gale weathers and deputy dewey ( david arquette , also from the original ) track down a killer . they are likeable , but not outstanding . but in combination with the horror aspect , the whodunit is a perfect counterpoint . it was exactly a year ago today that i wrote the review for scream . the internet movie database says that scream 3 is in the works , so i wonder if i'll be doing the same thing on january 1 , 1999 . if craven and screenwriter kevin williamson are able to keep the quality high , i'll be happy to mark my calendar .
1	when _star wars_ came out some twenty years ago , the image of traveling throughout the stars has become a commonplace image . when the millenium falcon moves throughout the stars , we see constellations , meteor showers , and cool space-ships . when han solo goes light speed , the stars change to bright lines , going towards the viewer in lines that converge at an invisible point . cool . _october sky_ offers a much simpler image--that of a single white dot , traveling horizontally across the night sky . was it really only forty years ago , when sputnik was launched , and that before then , no satellites ever existed ? have we become so technologically advanced that we have forgotten that it was nearly two generations ago where people stood outside to breathlessly see a then-technological achievement , even though it was from the russians ? it sounds hokey , but when that scene occurs near the beginning of _october sky_ , i found myself caught up with the enthusiasm of homer hickam , played by jake gyllenhaal . determined to make a dent in the space race , he becomes transfixed with his desire to make a rocket that could fly like the best of them . it is films like this that we know the ending as we buy the ticket . when lovely teacher miss riley ( played by laura dern ) , suggests that he enters his findings into the national science fair , we know exactly who is going to win . but the joy in a film like this is in the little details . for example , homer is clearly not the strongest student in his class . if he has any strengths whatsoever , it is an undeterring vision , and a good organizer . it means that he may have to lose his reputation by associating with the nerdiest kid in school , who knows more about rocket science than he does . it means that if his father forbids him to shoot rockets on company property ( that is , the entire coal-mining town ) , he must walk eight miles one way , just to set up the rockets , which will fail , fail , fail , and fail again . homer+s dad is played by chris cooper , a favorite actor of mine since _lone star_ . here he plays the antithesis of the character he played in _matewan_ : instead of organizing union rallies , he is the head of the coal-miners , who is constantly wringing his hands against the unions . this is will be one of the great unnoticed performances of the year : note how multi-dimensional his character is . he is his son+s last nemesis , as one who most likely interferes with his son+s dreams . but he truly loves his son , and wants to see him succeed the only way he knows how . through coal-mining . because of his character , we can see how far we+ve come . the revolution of modern technology has allowed for us to see society advanced at a rate far faster than any generation before us . we don+t understand that there were the generations from the industrial revolution who knew of no other way to raise a family . the paradigm was shifting under the father+s feet , and he knew of no other life . so _october sky_ , far from being merely a feel-good inspirational film , offers much food for thought . and this is the best type of inspirational film ; the one that you take something with you . btw , the final image of the film is just as simple , is as strong a contrast as the aforementioned horizontal-moving white dot against the night-sky background . another commonplace image , to be sure , but it must have been breathtaking forty years ago .
0	capsule : a science fiction allegory . at the millennium a lethal contagious virus has hit taiwan . officials have cut off water and other services to the center of contagion . life there devolves and degenerates . a man in an apartment has a hole in his floor and with it harasses his downstairs neighbor . a slow but harrowing film to be missed if possible . , low -1 ( -4 to +4 ) - the taiwan virus is ravaging taiwan and the part of the city that is the center of the contagion has been evacuated of anyone who will go . one apartment building still houses people . a woman , formerly an office worker , ( yang kuei-mei ) is tormented by her upstairs neighbor ( lee kang-sheng ) who has a hole cut by a plumber in the floor and is using it as a drain . neighbor runs a small failing grocery store . - to make things more depressing , it is constantly raining hard . - upstairs neighbor vomits through , pours water , etc . a small and almost entirely one-sided war starts . allegory about callousness and selfishness . - woman is living on a pile of rolls of toilet tissue . - incongruous songs added to show downstairs neighbors dreams . these are the songs of popular taiwanese singer grace chang . - apartment is falling apart . wallpaper is separating from walls . plumbing is failing . - boredom shown by long cuts in which nothing happens . a lot of film seems to be used up . - this story might have been done much better as a ten-minute animated film . - stars are considered to be great dramatic actors by one reviewer . - this film seems longer at 95 minutes most two-hour films .
0	plot : a separated , glamorous , hollywood couple must pretend to reunite for a press junket of the last movie that they ever shot together . kewl . . . now i only wish that i could pretend never to have seen this movie . . . critique : trite , unfunny , boring and a waste of everyone's talent . how a premise with such zest and bite can turn into a movie that doesn't feature any chemistry , any real laughs , any surprises or any spice is beyond me . how julia roberts is used solely as a " puppy dog " character , puttering around in the background while we endure the complete bitchiness of zeta-jones' character , who is not one bit funny or romantic ( two ideal ingredients in a " romantic comedy " ) , is also beyond me . and why they chose john cusack , a great , quirky actor in his own right , to play the most bland , uninteresting and unfetching character ( with zero chemistry with either of his leads ) is further more , beyond me . and to anybody who decided that this project was " funny " enough to greenlight featuring the talents mentioned above , along with billy crystal , christopher walker , seth green and stanley tucci . . . well , what can i say . . . i just don't have the words . so is this the worst movie that i've seen all year ? no . but it definitely sucks and it's basically because . . . well , it's just not funny . and for the record , allow me to state a few more problems with it . it starts off slow , it's got no energy , it doesn't engage you with any of its characters ( julia barely gets somewhat interesting in the film , everyone else . . . lame ! ) , it utilizes way too many flashbacks to move the story forward , it's utterly predictable , standard , routine , see-through and uninteresting as a plot and it just sits there on the screen , big and ugly , waiting . . . waiting for you to laugh or find something in it that is amusing . and then hank azaria shows up . . . aaaaaah , the film's savior ( mind you , some might be offended by his exaggeration of a stereotype , but that's another story altogether ) . but when an experienced " voice " actor upstages all of the main stars in a summer " blockbuster " romantic comedy with an over-the-top antonio banderas accent , damn dude . . . your film's in trouble ! ! rent this movie on video just to see what went wrong yourself . the references to ricky ricardo and senor wences ( huh ! ? ) , the idio-plot points like when one of the characters goes on the roof to stretch his arms out and relax , but everyone believes that he's going to kill himself ( hardy-har-har ) and the cheap way of getting the audience to leave the theater laughing by bringing back a ball-sniffing dog that has no place being in the location at the end of the movie , well . . . i could go on . but i won't because i do still respect all of the actors in this film and actually did laugh at azaria , green and tucci's antics from time to time ( ironic , eh . . . what about the leads , dammit ! ) and liked the premise behind the film ( before i saw the finished product , of course ) . a dud all the way around . btw , all the talk about this film was that julia roberts was to be in a fat suit for one scene ( her character is supposed to have lost 60 pounds ) , so when the scene finally came , i did get a little excited about what it might look like and then . . . well , it basically just looked like julia roberts in a fat suit ! ugh . i think i'm gonna start drinking again after this lame-ass movie . c'mon hollywood , enough with the crud ! where's joblo coming from ? beautiful ( 1/10 ) - my best friend's wedding ( 7/10 ) - notting hill ( 5/10 ) - pretty woman ( 7/10 ) -runaway bride ( 5/10 ) - someone like you ( 4/10 ) - wedding planner ( 3/10 ) - when harry met sally ( 10/10 ) - you've got mail ( 4/10 )
1	it may seem weird to begin a film about glam rock with a sequence that includes a spaceship , a green ovular pin , and the birth of oscar wilde , but if one really strains , they can see that perhaps maybe these connections are not half off . wilde's philosophy was that everyone should be true to their own human nature , and the result of his following this philosophy was that he was imprisoned , loosing his family and his career . the glam rock movement in the early 70s in england had a similar take and came to a similar demise . the main difference was by placing makeup on their face and acting out on their deepest fantasies and inquiries about life ( mostly dealing with androgony and sexuality ) , they became less and less like themselves and more and more like everyone else . and that's why the movement seemed to end as soon as it began . it's been said that todd haynes' " velvet goldmine , " the film that chronicles what it was like to be a part of the movement , not only from those who experienced it but by those who created it , steals a lot from " citizen kane , " and that's true . in the film , a british journalist in the 80s , arthur stuart ( christian bale ) , is asked to go back and find out what happened to 70s glam rock star brian slade , a fictitious rock star , who faked his own death on stage , bringing the end not only to his career but to the entire glam rock movement . structure-wise , this totally steals from " kane , " not only from the set-up ( he interviews three people , and the story is a result of their flashbacks ) , but in other things , like the beginning ( death , then newsreel ) , and smaller details , like the bitter ex-friend in a wheelchair and the bitter ex-wife as a washed-up lounge singer , found in a bar after hours . this is no " kane , " and it really doesn't aspire to be : it doesn't attempt to be the deep outlook of something gone like " kane " did , and it doesn't really uncover anything poignant about humanity . instead , it uses the flashbacks as a form of contrast between the magic that was the glam rock era and the boredom that was life after glam rock for those who were participants . the 80s scenes are dry and deliriously melancholy , equipped with a performance by bale that is perhaps appropriately dull and unengaging . but the 70s scenes are engaging , though , not to mention addictively campy . they radiate with gorgeous cinematography that nicely accentuates all the vibrant colors of the era , and a feel that's so eerily lighthearted that when combined with the then-footage , they become not only a symbol of decadence , but of times when everything seemed so simple . instead of creating the world the way it was , haynes paints their own world as if it were a narcotic fairy tale : the glam rock movement was full of so much freedom and liberation that after you've experienced it , everything else seems so mundane . there's no outside world to speak of , secluding these people inside a protective globe that will eventually crack . haynes focuses his story on the tale of blade and the other fictitious rock hero , curt wild , and their relationship that created , molded , and then brought down the movement , reducing everyone else who contributed to it as merely that - contributors . blade - played with reserve by the pouty jonathan rhys meyers - and wild - played with anarchic wildness by ewan mcgregor - are little more than thinly disguised recreations of david bowie and iggy pop , respectively , complete with the creation of a ziggy stardust persona named maxwell demon and the confirmation that the two rock stars may have very well not only have been one-time partners in music , but also partners in bed . through discussions with slade's ex-manager cecil ( michael feast ) , ex-wife mandy ( toni collette , reinventing herself as an american blonde dish who fakes a british accent when with slade ) , and finally ex-partner wild , journalist stuart begins to remember his own experiences in the era , like his discovery of his rebelliousness cum conformity , including the moment when he began questioning his own sexuality ( when he opens up his first slade record , he finds a naked and green slade lying on a crimson blanket ) , and finally running away from home to be part of the london scene , finally resulting in leading a boring job in america . haynes demonstrates that he's quite the visual auteur , molding scenes that are like long heald breaths , such as a seemingly long sequence juxtaposing a slade/wild concert of them performing a brian eno cover , " baby's on fire , " with scenes from a decadent drug party ; and the film's most wow-inspiring sequence , the first concert scene of wild with his band , the ratttz , where mcgregor lets loose so much anarchic steam that his wild iggy-esuqe movements ( including stripping naked ) and screams that the film captures that perfect moment when one discovers a major talent , and another ( slade ) discovers his idle . even the brief music videos , spoofs of bowie's , have a rare visual flair that's pure camp , and which would cause ken russell to drool . the best sequence , though , may be the beginning , following the prelude , a sequence which acts as the middle ground for both the actual being of the movement and the post-movement era . in it , stuart and his mates are going to the infamous slade concert where he fakes his own death , where he kills off his alter ego maxwell demon in what appears to be a real assasination , which brought about the end of the era in one swift fake bullet . with brian eno's famous " needle in the camel's eye " playing in the background , the scene has a detached exhileration - the song doesn't seem to be played in quite the same way the other songs are . it has a distance that's hard to put a finger on , and it seems to represent that all this is coming to a quick and sad ending , and when one sees slade in the dressing room before the show , docked in a silver frock with wings and blue hair , depressingly staring into the mirror , it comes off as a none-too-obvious prophecy of the finale in the beginning of the film . this movie's not so much about plot , but more about the way it is presented , making this one of those films which is classified as being " style over substance , " a statement which prompts many critics to line up for attack . however , for the most part , the engaging part of this film is not the story but rather the way in which haynes creates this world , by using his sets , costumes , cinematography , and especially the music to play as characters in his film . the music is especially notable . the soundtrack , which is wall to wall , consists of old school glam rock tunes by the likes of brian eno , t-rex , and roxy music , as well as covers by slade's band ( with vocals by thom yorke , and occasionally rhys meyers himself ) , and even newer music by shudder to think that sounds uncannily bowie-like . the cast is rather impressive , but no one really walks away with the film , and no performances are extremely good . although eddie izzard , as slade's manager ( who challenges slade's first manager to an arm-wrestling match to see who gets control of his career ) and michael feast as the first and tragic manager come off greatly , and collette and mcgregor have their moments , rhys meyers and bale are noticably sub-par , neither putting a lot of effort into their respective roles . some of it is at fault with the actual construction of the film by haynes . rhys meyers' brian slade remains merely a metaphor for the glam rock era , dying when he turned into a retro-garbo , resorting to a life of salinger-ism , and found in the mid-70s to be lying around , sniffing coke off the ass of a party girl . in fact , no one in this film is really seen as a person , rather than just as a symbol or composite of a type who thrived during the era . bale's character is an especially tough sell : bitter and depressed by flashbacks to his young adulthood , he's not an extremely personal character , and his cliched experiences ( being hounded by the record store guys for buying a record put out by a " poof " ) never help us communicate with him . nevertheless , rhys meyers and mcgregor have the excuses that their characters are not really characters but rather the results of an era that has left them , and others , bitter , part of which helps the film work , since this is a major piece of eye candy . at the prime of the movie , they at least look the role of fashionable leaders - slade with his perpetually-changing , androgonys persona , and wild with his topless and unpredictable image , which clash and fuse into an unstable union . their story - of how slade was so influenced by wild that he adapted it into a similar who-cares attitude crossed with camp - is engaging , without the personal background . the story of stuart , though , is a tougher sell because he's the everyman , and when you can't totally identify with the everyman , your story's in slight trouble . as a cultural rock piece , " velvet goldmine " is rather good , but it is merely good . it never totally takes off , although it has moments where it absolutely flies , but then comes back down . it's really nothing more than a bunch of really great moments , surrounded by material that could really be much better . the beginning is captivating but slow , the middle is fantastic , and the ending is not only shallow but worse than that , it drags ( the final half hour not only does it not bring the story to any real conclusion , it could probably stop at any point ) . and did anyone really figure out what the mystery is that arthur unearths ? it almost seems like there was no point in the entire investigation other than to unearth the past , which is commendable but not totally so . still , it does what the oliver stone pic " the doors " didn't do right , becoming very insightful to what happened , using the visual style to hit most of the right notes of contrast between what made the era so great to those who lived during it and why after living through such an era that everything else seems half-assed ( i suppose the message is : " live life , but after you've lived it , what else is the point when you'll be forced to live with regretful memories ? " ) . the really superb achievement of this film is that during its flashbacks , it successfully creates for the audience what it must have felt like to be in that era , but with the added perk of knowing the result of all that goes down .
0	i went to blair witch project 2 : book of shadows with the highest of hopes . the original film , released last summer , was genuinely scary and terrifying ; i hoped that this movie would live up to its predecessor . unfortunately , my hopes were soon dashed . as the movie opens , the audience is shown pseudo-documentary clips of burkittsville , maryland residents being interviewed about the sudden tourist influx to their town as a result of the original blair witch project movie . it's a mostly humorous , self-aware poke at the media hype and hysteria surrounding the first film . during this segment , we are introduced to the protagonist , a young man who sells blair witch-related memorabilia from his website . the movie then cuts to a title that informs us that what we are about to see occurred one year previously . we see the same young man that was selling blair witch paraphernalia , but now he is confined in a mental institution the sort of which one only finds in bad horror movies . we see him having some sort of disgusting white goo unconvincingly forced down his nose while a cigarette-smoking doctor luridly leers above him . we see him throwing himself wildly around a padded room ; we see him cowering naked in a shower stall as a fire hose is turned on him . no explanation is provided for why he is in the mental institution ; in fact , these scenes are barely referred to again . i had a sinking feeling during these opening scenes ; generally , a hospital scene that is set with poor lighting , filthy interiors , and evil doctors is a sure sign that you are in the throes of a truly horrible movie . the movie cuts again , this time to the present . the young man , whose name is jeffrey ( played by jeffrey donovan -- as in the first movie , the character names are identical to the actors' names , although this movie admits up front that it is fictional , so there's no reason for the practice this time around ) , is rounding up a group of people that he will be leading into the woods that weekend for the " blair witch hunt , " which is a promotional gimmick he came up with and sells on his website . we meet tristen and steven , a young couple who are writing a book about the blair witch experience . steven is a skeptic , believing the whole thing to be the result of mass hysteria . tristen , on the other hand , believes that there may be some truth to the rumors of supernatural occurrence . she is wan and soft-spoken ; she complains that the radio is playing too loudly . ( she also complains that she feels nauseated ; i knew immediately that the character was pregnant , and my intuition was confirmed a few scenes later when kim psychomagically susses it out . how did i know ? because in bad movies , nauseated women are always pregnant . ) the fourth member of their party is erica , a wiccan with flowing hair and wide eyes who wants to prove that the blair witch was a good witch , not evil . they pick up the fifth and final team member in a cemetery . kim is dressed completely in black , has extreme goth-style makeup on , and occasionally displays seemingly psychic abilities , but otherwise seems to be the most intelligent and reasonable person out of the entire bunch . presumably she wanted to be picked up in the cemetery just for dramatic effect ; it's never explained . the party of five heads off into the woods as promised . they reach the crumbling ruins of the foundation of rustin parr's house and set up camp , complete with extensive video equipment with which to record the night's events . there is a brief encounter with a rival blair witch tour group who had planned to camp at that site as well , but after a few words are exchanged , the rival group huffs off and makes camp elsewhere . the movie veers off at this point to spend many long , long minutes showing the drinking party that ensues after the sun goes down . sexual innuendoes are tossed around , much hard liquor , beer , and pot is consumed , and nothing much else happens . this would be a great point to get up and go to the bathroom if necessary . the next day , the team wakes up and discovers that their camera equipment has been completely trashed , and that steven and tristen's manuscript paper is fluttering down from the sky in shreds , like snow . the videotapes are missing , but thanks to a psychic intuition from kim , they discover the videotapes buried underneath the foundation of the house , " right where the original blair witch tapes were found ! " ooh . spooky . the team goes back to jeffrey's house -- a creepy old civil war-era warehouse in the heart of the woods -- to regroup and review the tapes . they soon discover that the tapes mysteriously skip five hours of the night . wacky hijinks ensue . tristen starts having weird dreams in which she is the blair witch , everybody starts finding these weird rune-like burn marks on their bodies , steven and erica have some highly disturbing mutual hallucinations , and everything pretty much goes to hell in a handbasket . throughout the entire ordeal , jeffrey and the others continue to scrutinize the videotapes , which seem to have some kind of weird images on them at about the point that the time jumps ; eventually tristen wanders in , mutters something about " reverse , " and from this they somehow realize that they have to play the tapes backwards . when they do this , they discover what really happened during the five lost hours . ( one of the things they see on the videotape is footage of themselves burying the videotapes . okay , if the videotapes were being buried , then how were they recording themselves . . . oh , nevermind . ) this movie was awful . simply awful . the characters are broadly-drawn caricatures that are never allowed any depth or development . erica is the nature-loving wiccan . tristen is the weak and sympathetic woman . steven is the overbearing asshole . kim is the antisocial goth girl . old , tired cliches were used to illustrate these caricatures . how do we know tristen is weak and sympathetic ? because she's pregnant ! how do we know kim is an antisocial goth girl ? because she wears a lot of eye makeup ! how do we know the local sheriff is a bad guy ? because he has jagged teeth and talks like he's straight out of " deliverance " ! this is weak storytelling at its worst . rather than taking the time to flesh out the characters and make them truly sympathetic , the writer chose to give each one a few stereotypical characteristics , in an attempt to use some cinematic shorthand and thereby skip straight to the action . it didn't work . on top of being poorly developed , most of the characters were either seriously unlikable or patently stupid . ( " honey , you just had a miscarriage out in the woods and got medical attention at a hospital that looks like it belongs in a bad slasher movie . let's get on a plane home . " " no . i am having these bizarre nightmares and seeing strange visions and i want to find out what's going on . " " ok . " ) frankly , by the end of the movie , i was rooting for the witch . i also felt that there was simply too much blood 'n' gore in this film . the first movie worked by never showing us the horror . the witch was a palpable presence in that movie , but we never saw it ; we never saw anything , in fact . the horror was all off-screen , and thus our imaginations worked overtime to envision what it might possibly be . this is the hallmark of a truly creepy and disturbing horror movie . blair witch 2 dispensed with such niceties and went straight for the gross-out . this was evident from the opening scenes of the mad doctors forcing white goo down jeffrey's throat , and continued throughout the film as the audience is treated to occasional confusing and disorienting footage of what appears to be a ritual massacre of some sort . knives plunge into flesh , bloody fingers trail off into the darkness , and none of it is explained until the very end , when it was too late for me to care . this movie didn't stop with showing us the gore , either ; it went for broke and showed us everything . by the end of the movie , there are no questions remaining about the missing five hours . it is all explained ; in fact , it is all shown on-screen in loving detail . i confess to being someone who prefers horror movies in which you never see the monster , or see only brief glimpses , mere suggestions of what the monster is ; it is not because i find the monster so terrifying , but because i find the absence of the monster to be infinitely more terrifying . i have seen interviews with the director in which he suggested that there is no " monster , " that all of the evil was perpetrated only by the human mind . i found this to be a miserably poor explanation ; if it was in fact the director's intent , then he needs to have some words with the writer , because it was not made clear at all . ( i know a lot of people who like to go to parties and get drunk and stoned out of their minds ; none of them has ever gone on a murderous rampage and then experienced mass hallucinations with a group of other people for the next week or so . and if there was no witch , then what about the vanishing tree ? the snowfall of manuscript paper ? hm ? ) blair witch 2 : book of shadows was a horrible movie . from the poorly-written characters to the implausible story to the plot inconsistencies to the gross-out shots , it was a bad effort through and through .
0	five years after his directorial debut based on stephen king's writings called the shawshank redemption ( 9/10 ) , writer/director frank darabont returns to the big screen with another prison film based on the famous scribblings of stephen king . unlike the latter film , this one is a big , long , laborious bore . plot : a seven-foot death row inmate is discovered to have secret healing powers . critique : this film is slow , drawn-out , boring , uninteresting , unexciting , predictable and topped with a couple of one-dimensional " evil " characters . its only positive attribute lies in its actors who all do credible jobs and its message of hope and belief in miracles . the real miracle of my night was the fact that i did not fall asleep during this straightforward , unimpressive film about a guy with special powers who we never truly understand or care about . of course , much like all other death row cell blocks , this one is filled with decent inmates who all happen to be " misunderstood " , except for one cookie-cutter crazy guy who is evil personified . and let's not forget all the guards on death row , who also happen to be angels from the heaven above , except for one cookie-cutter crazy guard who is also evil personified ( and is there any reason why there are about six guards when there appears to be no more than three inmates ? ? ? ) . am i supposed to identify with anyone in this film ? or even more importantly , am i supposed to give a rat's ass about anyone in this film ? well , if i was , i sure missed that boat , because the only thing that i ended up caring about during this entire picture was the obscene amount of fat that tom hanks has been able to burrow under his loose chin . furthermore , there is absolutely no reason in the world why director frank darabont needed to take three hours and ten minutes out of anyone's life to present this story . in fact , the story is empty within itself . i truly did not get anything out of the film other than the fact that there is a guy on death row who has special powers to heal , and we are left wondering if he should still be executed or not . wow . how interesting . the plot's utter predictability is also at fault here with one guess as to whom is to get healed by the gentle monster in this film ( we are told that one certain lady has a tumor early on in the movie ) . whip out those thinking caps , kids ! hmmm , and i wonder what will happen to those two cookie-cutter " evil " guys who have nothing in their system but hate and negativity . hmmmm , now think hard here , boys and girls . what a crock ! i am guessing that this film was supposed to be some three-hour exercise in spirituality , but unfortunately for me , it was neither spiritual or the least bit engaging . in fact , it was one big bore . i didn't see the point of the movie , i didn't see the point of the story and i certainly didn't see the point in tom hanks' big double-chin . all in all , a bad movie starring some great actors doing solid work , especially michael clarke duncan as the man of the hour , john coffey . give that man an award or something !
0	i admit it . i thought arnold schwarzenegger had a knack for comedy when he made twins and true lies . watching him in jingle all the way , i wondered why anyone ever thought he could carry such a lame movie targeted at susceptible kids . it was one thing to scare the crap out of kids with the pg-13 kindergarten cop , but parents who let small children see this movie will have to explain themes of violence , alcohol consumption , burglary , racism and child molestation . and you know they'll burst out in tears when arnold punches one of santa's elves . he later decks a reindeer . hey , man , why don't you just kick the easter bunny in the nuts while you're at it ? jingle all the way is formula crap that follows the if someone falls on his ass , it must be funny school of thought . arnold , sinbad and phil hartman crash to the ground more times in this movie than a special olympics hockey team , and the movie dredges up more cliche and less believability with each successive scene . what can you expect from a movie whose entire premise is that two parents can't find a rare toy on christmas eve , and will do anything to get one ? arnold is , of course , one of the parents , a crack salesman who is never there for his son . he races from the office to his son's karate game , only to find out he missed it . and his kid distrusts him because he's never around . ( gee , we haven't seen that in a movie before . ) arnold the absentee father becomes convinced that the only way to buy back his son's affection is to get him a turboman doll , which his wife ( rita wilson , who will never be the breadwinner of the hanks household choosing roles like this ) told him to get weeks ago . so arnold sets out to find a turboman , which turns out to be more rare than the tickle me elmo was when jingle all the way came out . let me back up for a minute here -- arnold's kid is totally obsessed with this turboman character , which is unhealthy beyond belief . watches the show , eats the cereal , sleeps on the freakin' turboman sheets . i'd try to discourage any further obsession myself , lest any kid seeing this movie think it's a wonderful thing to con your dad into racing out to buy you any toy you want . but nooooo , the climax of jingle all the way has arnold dressed up as turboman in a parade , exonerating himself of all wrongdoing in the eyes of wife and son , who don't recognize him until the last minute . this is a sad movie all the way through , but it only gets worse after the opening scenes of arnold and mailman sinbad stampeding through a store , racing off to the mall and hooking up with a santa ( jim belushi ) who runs a bootleg toy factory . most painful to watch is a scene at a radio station , where sinbad holds off the cops with a letter bomb after beating up the deejay ( an embarrassed martin mull ) who said he was giving away a turboman doll . capitalism has produced some pretty evil things ( chia pets ) , but this ode to excess and violent consumerism is one of the most shameful . never mind the subplot with perfect neighbor phil hartman trying to seduce wilson while arnold is off shopping ( " your cookies are incredible " ) , it's the main plot of the movie that sends the message that it's okay to do whatever it takes to get your hands on what you want . maybe that's what christmas is like at the schwarzenegger house , but not at mine .
0	shakespeare in love is quite possibly the most enjoyable period piece ever made for the silver screen . it is both humorous and romantic in a very unique blend that can successfully entertain any audience for the nearly 2 and and a half hours that it occupies . that is , however , not to say it is a good film , a quality production or anything of the sort . shakespeare in love is an incredibly cheap illusion that truly pans out to be very little quality or original work . the finest sign of this may be the plot , in looking back , there seems to be little more than a thin , predictable plot that is only carried by the portrayal of people that we revere in our history books . philip henslowe ( geoffrey rush ) owns 1 of the 2 theatres in london . it is at the peak of the royal theatre era , and queen elizabeth ( the recently damed judi dench , by , appropriately enough , queen elizabeth ii ) is very much a fan . however , to directly quote the film , he has " cash flow problems . " through a long set of events , it becomes apparent that his entire life is dependent on his next show doing well enough to pay off his debts . so , mr . henslowe employs the young playwright , william shakespeare ( joseph fiennes ) to pen a comedic production . however , the young writer has a severe case of writer's block , and blames it on the fact that his love life is struggling as well . he has the title in mind , romeo and ethel , the pirate's daughter ( even that joke loses steam after a while ) but can't seem to put words to paper . then , as only hollywood could have it , through a long set of twisted events , he meets viola de lesseps ( gwyneth paltrow ) and falls madly in love , thus curing his writer's block . there are many other little issues that mr . henslowe encounters , but they all pan out to be much ado about nothing . the first realization that i reached in watching this film is that one of the messages given is that a show should not always be credited to it's author . ironically , that couldn't be truer here . the great scenes that will sweep audiences away are not the scenes that fit in the plot , but rather the recitals of shakespearean lines by actors playing actors . one of the most breathtaking moments in this film does not involve the character of shakespeare or queen elizabeth or even the theatre owner , but rather 2 young children named romeo and juliet who chose to end their own lives in the name of love . so it is that i am offended by the fact that marc norman and tom stoppard are credited with writing this production , and the name william shakespeare is no were to be seen beyond a character's name in the credits . the acting in this entertaining yet poor film is often thin to the point that it would not have survived even in queen elizabeth's theatres . joseph fiennes may just be the worst of fall though . he is tragically unbelievable and comically bad . gwyneth paltrow is little more than satisfactory in her lead position as well . however , the supporting cast does almost save the day . geoffrey rush is nothing short of incredible and judi dench is breathtaking . they both seem to have shown that as proven actors they could survive in this film of weak links . you will also find a very good performance by ben affleck in his first real role since good will hunting ( no , armageddon doesn't qualify as real acting . ) . and rupert everett was cute in his small part as well . but not even they could save this sad excuse for a film , so it remains plagued by poor performances . when all is said and done , shakespeare in love is only worth the trip if you want to be entertained . however , as the film so kindly pointed out , entertainment may be fun , but it isn't necessarily quality . and this certainly isn't quality . perhaps this may be best compared to a john grisham novel , as a dear friend of mine often does compare things to his work . simply put , it is far-fetched , poorly crafted , but very entertaining .
0	beware of movies with the director's name in the title . take " john carpenter's ghosts of mars " ( please ) . if the carpenter brand name wasn't superglued to the title , this embarrassment would surely have bypassed theaters entirely and gone straight to its proper home on the usa network . and i would have been spared a headache . the latest from the director of " starman , " " halloween " and " escape from new york " is a lousy western all gussied up to look like a futuristic horror flick . the production is set on mars in 2176 , where humanity looks for relief from the overpopulation strangling their home world . six hundred and forty thousand people in a matriarchal society live and work at outposts all over the red planet , terra-forming to make it more hospitable for future generations . a matriarchal society . terra-forming . sounds pretty intriguing , eh ? well , don't get your hopes up .
1	like the great musical pieces of mozart himself , amadeus is a true work of art . it is one of those few movies of the 80's that will be known for its class , its style , and its intelligence . why is this such a good film ? there are almost too many reasons to explain . the story : court composer salieri ( f . murray abraham ) feels waves of different emotions going through his head as wolfgang amadeus mozart ( tom hulce ) comes into his life as the young genius composer . salieri feels envy , and jealousy , but at the same time is fascinated with mozart's brilliance and ingenious . we travel through mozart's life as a composer , through his struggles , his triumphs , and ultimately , his demise . the acting : abraham is magnificient as salieri ; his acting range enables him to focus on each individual emotion and express it through his speech and body language . this performance earned him a well deserved oscar . tom hulce is interesting as well as mozart , a quirky , annoying bratty kid with an annoying laugh . he's strong , but weak at the same time , and must be aided by his wife ( elizabeth berridge ) , who is good in her role , but lacks dramatic depth . jeffrey jones , in a smaller , more dignified role than such roles in stay tuned and mom and dad save the world , is cast perfectly because of his noble charm . the movie : every element of this movie works . the costumes and makeup are very memorable , as well as its stunning art direction , and unforgettable scores ( adapted from mozart's original music ) . while wolfgang amadeus mozart was a genius at music , milos forman proves with his film that he is a genius of filmmaking . this movie is a classic that will be remembered for years to come . ad2am " i almost lost my nose . . . and i like it . i like breathing through it . " -jack nicholson , chinatown
0	so ask yourself what " 8mm " ( " eight millimeter " ) is really all about . is it about a wholesome surveillance man who loses sight of his values after becoming enmeshed in the seedy , sleazy underworld of hardcore pornography ? is it about the business itself , how , bubbling just beneath the surface of big-town americana , there's a sordid world of sick and depraved people who won't necessarily stop short of murder in order to satisfy their sick and twisted desires ? or is it about those who can , those who are in a position to influence the making of the kinds of films sick and demented people want to see ? i'm not talking about snuff films , supposed " documentaries " of victims being brutalized and killed on camera . i'm talking about films like " 8mm " and its director , joel schumacher . with a recent run of big budget movies to his credit-- " batman & robin , " " a time to kill , " " batman forever , " " the client " --schumacher certainly has that kind of influence . is " 8mm " something you really want to see ? probably not . the first two-thirds of " 8mm " unwind as a fairly conventional missing persons drama , albeit with a particularly unsavory core . then , as it's been threatening all along , the film explodes into violence . and just when you think it's finally over , schumacher tags on a ridiculous self-righteous finale that drags the whole unpleasant experience down even further . trust me . there are better ways to waste two hours of your life . nicolas ' " snake eyes " ' cage plays private investigator tom welles who is hired by a wealthy philadelphia widow to determine whether a reel of film found in her late husband's safe documents a young girl's murder . welles goes about his assignment rather matter-of-factly , and the pieces of the puzzle fall into place rather neatly , almost as if you don't need any specialized skills or training to do this . welles certainly makes it look easy . and cops , obviously , never look in toilet tanks for clues . the deeper welles digs into his investigation the more obsessed he becomes , like george c . scott in paul schrader's " hardcore . " occasionally , a little flickering sound whirs in his head like sprockets winding through a film projector , reminding him of his unpleasant task . there are hints that this is taking its toll on his lovely wife , played by catherine keener , who is frustrated by her husband spending all of his time in cleveland rather than in their ugly split-level home in harrisburg , pa . " 8mm " doesn't condemn or condone its subject matter , it just exploits it . the irony , of course , is that schumacher and " seven " scribe andrew kevin walker's vision of life in the snuff lane is limited by what they can show in an r-rated , first-run hollywood product . so we only see snippets of snuff , and a lot more footage of nicolas cage covering his face in horror . later it's the turn of joaquin phoenix ( who's quite good and by far the film's most interesting character as adult bookstore flunky max california ) to cover his face as the horrid thing is screened over and over again . all this to get to the familiar yet offensive " revelation " that sexual deviants are not , indeed , monsters but everyday people like you and me . neither super nor standard , " 8mm " is shocking only in its banality .
0	disconnect the phone line . don't accept the charges . do anything you can to avoid the wretched , melodramatic sisterhood dramedy `hanging up' . i figured i needed to get in touch with my feminine side , and `hanging up' seemed like an ideal opportunity to do so . the film features an incredible palate of female talent , and the capability behind the camera brought to mind such sparkling gems as `sleepless in seattle' and `unsung heroes' . meg ryan , diane keaton and lisa kudrow play a trio of sisters who , once separated by career judgments over family ties , must reunite when their father ( walter matthau ) is admitted into the hospital with alzheimer's disease . while this may read like an optimum opportunity to rekindle their relationship and reflect with poignancy on the past , the script by sisters delia and nora ephron is exasperating , shapeless dreck teeming with emotional fakery . `hanging up' has the overall effect of a tele-marketer pestering you for two hours , while you don't have the option of doing as the title suggests . for the first half-hour , the ephron sisters use telephone conversations for a basis of character development . this is an annoying and ineffective device . cell-phones ring every five minutes , and everyone hurriedly rushes along , leaving marginal time for the frustrated viewer to relate to the sisters' issues and problems . if `hanging up' was an apple pie , then i felt as if we were getting the mere crust of the story . granted , there are a few genuine and sincere moments in the film . but they only help to establish that the remainder of the strained emotions are nothing but inferior dramatic muck . the most outrageous strategy in `hanging up' is that , after a series of largely unrealized attempts at character development , we are expected to exhibit compassion and courtesy toward the sisters as they join for a melodramatic finale . we are able to identify with eve ( ryan ) , the most open and caring daughter , because she is the one who stayed by her father's side as everyone else moved forward to pursue a impending career . georgia ( keaton ) , the eldest daughter , is celebrating the fifth year anniversary of her magazine called . . . . `georgia' . maddy ( kudrow ) , the soap opera actress , spends time either contemplating her possible path to stardom or nursing her dog . ryan's convincing performance and diverting cuteness are two of the more agreeable aspects of `hanging up' . kudrow , so delightfully eccentric as the off-kilter airhead phoebe in `friends' , is totally wasted . ditto for keaton , who is serving a double shift as co-star and director - a time slot that can be a difficult priority juggle . her frenzy is apparent . for a chick flick , there is a distressing lack of chuckles . the reliable matthau is reduced to chaotic shtick that , given his character's situation , seems more depressing than amusing . even so , the peak form of humor in `hanging up' is represented by some of matthau's nasty quips and ryan's eternal battle to have the aforementioned pooch swallow a pill . that about accounts for the three or four chuckles you will expel during the film . my curiosity has suddenly been tweaked to discover how such a promising and star-studded approach could turn so viciously sour . but really , it's no mystery . the predictable , melodramatic filth that is `hanging up' is certainly not the fault of these actresses . pin it on the screenplay , which attempts to clear up vital issues in three or four minutes , while spending the rest of the running time in an annoying flurry of phone conversations . it's certainly a far cry from what one would label as a rewarding experience , but `hanging up' should have at least been enjoyable . uh-uh . it's a wrong number from the beginning .
1	if he doesn=92t watch out , mel gibson is in danger of being known as someone other than mad max . of course there are still a few big guns in this film , but there=92s some accomplished acting too . although gibson continues to shed his rough and gritty anti-hero skin as his career progresses , here he explores a new genre : the businessman as action hero . in ron howard=92s latest film , gibson plays tom mullen , a gazillionaire airline owner whose son is snatched from the junior science fair by kidnappers . mullen at first agrees to pay the ransom , but when things fall apart he rethinks the situation . a veteran of numerous hard-nosed business negotiations , the tycoon realizes that in order to get his son back alive , he has to play his hand differently . the casting is what puts this film over the top . the trio of gibson , the kidnappers' mastermind ( gary sinise ) and fbi team leader ( delroy lindo ) play off of each other wonderfully . sinise is perfect as the driven scheming sleezebag is right on the mark . his speech to mullen over a walkie talkie about h . g . wells=92 morlocks and eloi reveal his vision of= society . mullen and the other glitteratti frolic up on high while sinise and the other lowlifes dwell below , feeding off the unsuspecting . gibson=92s character is an all-american hero with a few flaws . his cowboy= tactics tend to work , but they are also what got him into this situation to begin with . in a round about way , if he weren=92t known as a man who i= s willing to buy his way out of trouble , his son wouldn=92t have been kidnapped . as sinise says " you=92re a payer . you did it once and now you=92re going to do it again . " one of the nicest elements of this film is that most of the characters actually have personalities . lindo calls home to talk to his kids , obviously shaken at working this case . even the kidnappers are real people , arguing about the ultimate fate of sean mullen and feeding him candy bars . gibson=92s break-down on the balcony of their penthouse apartment is especially effective . it=92s one of the best filmed representations of a man=92s world falling apart that i=92ve seen . it=92s not all perfect . the shoot 'em upending , while emotionally satisfying seems tacked on to be just that rather than to provide a powerful resolution . as well crafted as the scene is , we=92ve seen it before . mullen=92s wife ( rene russo ) has several good moments , but occasionally just seems to be there . while adequate , brawley nolte ( sean ) doesn=92t provide much to the film other than occupying space to build the story around . but you=92ll ignore these problems as each minute of the movie builds on the previous one . forget about the large coke , you won=92t want to leave for that five minute break an hour later .
0	by phil curtolo " madonna - antonio banderas - jonathan price - in an alan parker film - with music from andrew lloyd weber - and lyrics by tim rice - evita . " now i have to admit , the trailer for this rock-opera-turned-major motion picture is almost breath-taking for some . the soundtrack is wonderful to listen to . so why wouldn't the movie be wonderful to see . simple , a little over 2 hours of constant singing can almost drive you insane . the story of eva duarte ( madonna ) , evita is full of drama that's trapped inside by all the notes and chords . she was an orphaned child who ends up becoming a hooker , then goes into the field of acting , and finally meets juan peron ( price ) , the soon-to-be first president of argentina . they fall in love and eventually marry . sounds pretty good , doesn't it . well the story gets better , as eva goes on the " rainbow tour " across europe , trying to win respect . eva duarte was a wonderful lady . however , all of the drama-packed moments above were never understood because the actors and actresses sang to fast to be understood . i went into theater 4 at magic cinemas with the attitude that evita was going to be terribly boring and i left with happy , because i was right . they only thing that kept me awake during the movie was the loud bangs of the drums and strums of the guitar . although it did come off as dull , the beautiful cinematography is eye-catching , as was madonna's performance . as the " spiritual leader of argentina , " madonna would have definitely been an oscar-contender had she spoken a single line . but her chance was taken away with the stubbornness of making an exact replica of the broadway musical a film . don't get me wrong and don't look at my grade . i am not a big fan of musicals on the big screen . if you're going to pay to see a movie , you want to see a movie . now i have to admit , it's a lot cheaper to pay $5 than $200 plus to see the play , but that's what did me in . all this review contains is my opinion and my grade was set before i even saw the movie . now you may be saying , " what kind of critic is he ? , " and you're right . as a critic , i should have given the movie a chance . but as a 17-year old quentin tarantino fan , it was way too hard . ,
0	steve martin shines but sgt . bilko fails to impress based on the popular 50's sitcom , sgt . bilko follows the string of old-sitcoms-to-movie conversion fever . remember the brady bunch movie or the beverly hillbillies released sometime back ? ( brady bunch was a moderate hit in in the us while hillbillies flopped ) . i do not really know whether the hollywood minds are running out of good ideas or just being plain lazy , but the tv-conversion-movies are hitting our screens like wildfire , sad to say , with mixed success . such movies are mostly targeted at us viewers since they are usually followings of such series over there and the larger the following , the more likely the sitcom will be made into a movie . sgt . bilko ( frankly , i have not seen any its original tv version ) , even with the charm and wild antics of funnymen steve martin and dan akroyd ; failed to entertain . sgt . ernest bilko is the man behind the motor pool ( place of vehicle storage and repair ) of fort baxter . though totally unskilled in the field of work that he is supposed to be in charge of , he has an almost superhuman ability and zeal to sniff out money-making opportunities ; from running a gambling den in the military garage to 4-d pools . though materialistic in mind , bilko's methods has thoughtfully `enriched' the lives of the men of fort baxter , providing them with some form of real recreation within the camp and the people love him for that . colonel hall runs the entire fort and thanks to his inborn `blissfully-confused' state , bilko has managed to hide his operation , though nearly every living person in the fort knows about it . bilko's state of ascent is suddenly under-fire when the pentagon sends major thorn , a tough cookie on army regulations , to check on the progress on the $70 million hovertank project , a new weapon under development within the fort's grounds . to add to his problems , thorn is determined to bring bilko down in retalliation of a major `sabo' done on him by bilko during their younger army days . director jonathan lynn , who directed my cousin vinny ( in which marisa tomei won an oscar for best-supporting actress ) managed to pull sgt . bilko through with suitable pacing and some exceptional moments of laughter , but that is about it . there are really not enough laughter-packed-moments in sgt . bilko to fully entertain the average movie-goer . still , steve martin's sgt . bilko is played with finesse and full-force by the renowned comedian . without him , sgt . bilko would have just fell flat on its face . sgt . bilko did moderately well in the us box office early this year but i doubt it will earn much elsewhere around the world . the current trend in mixed successes in such tv-conversions may be a blessing in disguise , really ; at least it will force hollywood to re-think any of its initial intentions to turn another tv-idea into a movie or at the very least approach those ideas with more creativity . unless you are a fan of the tv-series or love to watch steve martin in action , you can skip this one when deciding which movie to catch in the local theatres . i'm sure there are better ones around .
1	disney cements their place in the forefront of feature animation with the release of their latest animated adventure , mulan . while it adheres a bit too close to the disney formula to be perfect , it is nonetheless an entertaining film for both kids and adults . fa mulan ( ming-na wen , singing : lea salonga ) wants nothing more than to be a dutiful daughter and honor her family . . . it's just that she doesn't quite fit in with the chafing customs of her time . while most girls her age are trying to quietly and demurely seek the approval of the local matchmaker ( miriam margoyles ) , mulan would prefer speaking her mind . but there is trouble on the horizon . the evil huns , led by shan-yu ( miguel ferrer ) , are invading china . the emperor ( pat morita ) has decreed that each family must donate one man to serve in the army . the only male in mulan's family is her father , fa zhou ( soon-tek oh ) , who , old and with a bad leg , honorably accepts his fate . mulan , on the other hand , decides to save her father's life . . . by secretly masquerading as a man and taking his place on the battlefield . mulan , under the assumed name of ping , appears at camp where she , along with the other bumbling recruits , yao ( harvey fierstein ) , chien-po ( jerry tondo ) and ling ( gedde watanabe ) , are trained in the art of war by captain shang ( b . d . wong , singing : donny osmond ) . but she's not alone in her tasks . . . in typical disney fashion , she has three animal companions : her horse khan , a lucky cricket crickey , and a pint-sized " guardian " dragon called mushu ( eddie murphy ) . much like the gargoyles in the hunchback of notre dame , the humor in mulan is lukewarm and doesn't flow well with the rest of the more serious story . sure , some occasional comic relief is welcome , particularly in a film geared for the younger set , but mulan overdoes it . the overdose of humor turns what could have been a powerfully great film into a good , but schizophrenic experience . but , that commentary aside , this is a very well made film ( which makes the formulaic additions all the more regrettable ) . the animation is on par with some of disney's best . the story itself is interesting , and the action scenes are awe-inspiring . the musical score to the film is enjoyable , though , as has been the case with disney's recent work , the songs are mostly forgettable . at least , we're only subjected to four of them this time around . mulan boasts the highest death toll of any disney cartoon to date . most of the killing is off-screen and it's all highly depersonalized ( there's nothing to compare with the death of mufasa or bambi's mom ) . there's nothing graphic , and the film resides snugly inside a g rating . children will probably have more questions about the restrictive ancient customs than of the slaughter of armies . it's ironic that a film concerned with bucking tradition is hampered because of its strict adherence to disney tradition . if the filmmakers had the guts to lessen the humor , ax the compulsory songs , and remove the obligatory ( and somewhat unrealistic ) romance , they could have had a classic on their hands . instead , they merely deliver a very good time at the movies .
1	seen july 8 , 1998 at the crossgates cinema 18 , ( albany , ny ) , theater #7 , at 8 : 15 p . m . with my mom using hoyts cinema cash . [theater rating : * * * 1/2 : very good sound , picture , and seats] it's very rare that any medium of entertainment can give one an authentic , vivid sense of reality and life . all stories are about select moments of time and places in the characters' lives , but only the truly great ones are able to define their realities well enough so the audience can experience it just as the characters do . therefore , " gone with the wind " deserves accolades for its ability to tell the epic story it does , in such a crafted , intricate , and entertaining manner . it's a crowning achievement , not only in filmmaking , but for storytelling itself . the film takes place in georgia before , during , and after the civil war . this plays a major factor in the film's success . to use such a historic setting presents many possibilities and problems since no one was alive at the time to verify its accuracy . it might also seem cliche , boring and other such deterent factors to potential viewers . can a story set so long ago be relatable now ? the film confronts all these problems , paradoxically , by not cronfronting them . it doesn't simply plug in the " right thing " at the " right time , " it creates an entire reality where everything makes sense and said concerns are irrelevant . building a strong foundation is important to all forms of media , without which , what is there to build on ? we're given some backstory here and learn a little about our characters , especially our main character , scarlett o'hara ( leigh ) , a beautiful southern belle with a will of steel , a cunning wit , and a tremendous sense of liberty in such an oppressive time . she knows how her society works , wherein everything she does can and will play a role in the shaping of her life and those around her . right from the beginning we realize how determined she is to have her way no matter what the consequences may be . being the most sought-after woman allows her to manipulate men ( and their women ) to ensure she gets her way , whether it be obvious ( i . e . who will be the one to get her food ) , or subtle ( i . e . getting married just to spite someone ) . the man she claims to love is ashley wilkes ( howard ) , a modest gentleman who does not seem to have the same passion for her as she does for him . he isn't so arrogant and demanding as scarlett , in fact , he's engaged to a woman with a personality much more like his . her name is melanie ( de havilland ) , and she is one of the sweetest , kindest , and most likable characters one will ever see . she and scarlett become very dear friends , but she never suspects the jealously scarlett has for her , and the love she has for her husband . her meekness is both her strongest and weakest characteristic - it defines who she is , but doesn't give her much emotional self-defense . acting a catalyst to the love triangle , and to the story as a whole is the daper , stong-willed , cunning , cocky southern business and military man captain rhett butler ( gable ) . he's quite a character all right - everyone listens to what he has to say even though he's got a bad reputation . butler makes no apologies for his vast amount of money nor his behavior . he tells everyone the much-needed truth in the rigid caste-like society where freewill doesn't seem to exist , everything is done out of honor and tradition . for example , in his first appearance butler tells his fellow southerners there's no way the south could defeat the north if war were to break out . this angers them , not for his lack of faith , but because he has the gall to say it aloud and boastfully at that . " do we have ammunition factories ? do we have food ? do we have a navy ? all we have is tobacco . " all true statements and yet the south still insists he's wrong . butler is a shifty character to be sure , but he takes such pride in his arrogance it's appealing . scarlett notices this too when she first sees him , and from the look butler gives her , we know he's not going to stop until he has her . but scarlett can't get past her need for ashley , and during a scene which sets the stage for the grand story , butler learns of this and continues to throw it back at scarlett forever . and so the story goes on , with scarlett being thrown obstacle after obstacle in her life . the conflicts she must overcome range from taking care of her entire family to finding a proper husband , especially after she is " marked " for life when her first husband dies . this gives the film many opportunities to bring in more characters into the epic story . some are vital for only a few scenes , but their true signifcance will endure throughout the film . in most films only a few characters exist for support in background , but this film is more realistic and believable as it incorporates a supporting cast the size of a small town and everyone has signficance . even people in the background seem more than just extras wandering the set . the costuming design is outstanding so that the film makes for a real sense of time and place . the filmmakers could have easily set more scenes indoors and narrowly focused to avoid having to show the outside , real world , but these types of simple approaches are never taken . the first half of the film depicts the traumatic experience the south faced at the last days of the civil war . fleming is able to convey the horror of it all by painting an image of destruction and letting the viewer decide just how bad it is . one scene has scarlett working as a nurse at a military hospital while we hear a soldier in the background screaming , " no ! not my leg ! don't cut off my leg ! " another scene shows her simplying trying to cross a street , but as the camera pulls back , we see that her path is blocked by hundreds of wounded soldiers , but it is their moaning that's more graphic than all the bloody gore could ever be . as the second half begins , the film concentrates more on scarlett as a completely independent woman who single-handedly takes care of her family and melanie just to spite the tyrany of the north . she manages to resurrect the family plantation , but all the willpower she has can't help her when she must pay exuberhant taxes set by the north after the south's ultimate defeat . this brings rhett butler back into the picture and thus begins their torrid love- hate relationship . most of the second half of the film is somehow related to the relationship ( or lack thereof ) between rhett and scarlett . each uses the other for personal gain , but at the same time they still feel an intimate connection with each other . scarlett continues to use her manipulative powers over men to get what she wants and because rhett can't help but want her more every time she tries to one-up him such as marrying another man and taking over his business . they say opposites attract , but the conflict between rhett and scarlett goes way beyond opposing personalities , it borders on magnetic polarization . they need each other and know this , yet they never seem truly happy together . perhaps they mistake love for passion , and the film leaves it up to us to make this call . both have things the other wants and vice versa , but when they compromise , is it just to get their own way or because they actually care for each other . love and the perception of love are two completely separate things and throughout the final act of the film , we're left wondering if rhett and scarlett ever truly loved each other and why . gable and leigh do have great chemistry , always leaving the viewer wondering which emotions were authentic and which were manufacture . all ? none ? either way is possible and it's a mystery that cannot be solved even upon repeated viewings . it's safe to say most of us won't live such overly dramatic lives as those in " gone with the wind , " but it's still a masterpiece for its ability to give us a sense that we've just experienced a life's worth of joy and pain .
0	perhaps best remembered as the recently departed news anchor on saturday night live who always started the segment with " . . . this is the fake news , " norm macdonald , at times , could elicit some laughter by blurting out semi-offensive phrases in his raspy voice , coated with a condescending attitude . his shtick was marked by crassness . in this movie , for example , when his girlfriend says that she's kicking him out because he's been fired from 14 different jobs over the last 3 months , he tries to calm the situation by saying , " maybe you'll feel better after we have some dirty sex . " this kind of humor can only go so far , but certainly can't go the distance in a full-length feature . " dirty work " , is nothing more than a sophomoric comedy about two best friends who grow up only physically . emotionally , they've never outgrown their pubescent years , which is somewhat amusingly explored in a beginning flashback . although having no apparent real world skills , the one thing that these two have always been adept at is getting back at people . if the meter maid was unjust in giving you a ticket , then dump a bunch of unpopped kernels of corn onto the engine block and watch the car burst apart . mitch ( norm macdonald ) and sam ( artie lange ) need to come up with $50 , 000 in a period of two weeks so that sam's dad ( jack warden ) can have a heart operation . their idea is to start a revenge-for-hire business where they'll do your dirty work . in the funniest scene ( and possibly the only funny scene ) of the movie , they take advantage of a live television shoot at a nearby used car lot . their presence is established , but when a less-than-honorable real estate developer hires them and then reneges on the payment , the two go to work to exact their sordid brand of revenge . by default , dirty work should treat us to some outrageous revenge plots , but it delivers jerky boys level material . except for the bit at the used car lot ( and possibly another episode that involves frat brothers ) , the dirty work is uninspired and becomes about as funny as a prank phone call . already weak on material , it further spirals itself towards the video store by having jack warden constantly blurt out that he has an unsatisfied libido and needs 'broads' and also includes a very unfunny chevy chase as a bumbling doctor with a gambling addiction . but what's really painfully evident is that norm macdonald has no versatility as an actor . relying on his trademark of speaking into his personal recorder and saying " note to self " ( " note to self : learn to fight , " he says after getting beat up ; " note to self : there's always beer , " he says after hitting rock bottom ; etc . ) , we feel like we're just watching an elongated rehash of his not-so-glorious days on saturday night live . much like the television show , for 90 minutes we get one or two funny bits . the rest of the story is just dead space .
0	one of the contributors to the destruction of the batman film franchise chris o'donnell stars in this remake of buster keaton's 1925 silent film seven chances . now i've never seen seven chances , as i'm more of a chaplin fan than a keaton fan , but i seriously doubt that the classic version could be as insipid as this . o'donnell plays jimmie shannon , the manager of a pool table manufacturing company . he also fears commitment , and despite dating anne ( renee zellweger ) for over three years , he's unwilling to marry her . his reasons ? well he's a guy you see , and well , guys are like stallions , and they apparently don't like to be roped or something ( hey , that's the movie's explanation . . . i'd marry renee zellweger in a second ) . eventually it comes time for jimmie to propose , and when he does , it's the most absurd proposal ever uttered by a man ever . he essentially says to her , " you win " and hands her a ring . the audience should now hate this character . i did . then the meat of the plot presents itself . jimmie's grandfather ( peter ustinov , completely wasted ) dies and leaves jimmie his entire estate of 100 million dollars as well as ownership of the pool table business . however , in order to get the money and save the jobs of the factory workers , jimmie must be married before his next birthday ( which is just over 24 hours away ) . having blown his chances with anne , jimmie proceeds to track down all his prior girlfriends and suggest a " business proposition " . the movie wasn't half bad by this time , surprisingly . it wasn't boring me , and even managed to read my thoughts at one point . ustinov's character left a video will , and while he's reading the ridiculous clause in it , i thought to myself " what is this , brewster's millions ? " . as soon as i thought it , hal holbrook's character actually says " what is this , brewster's millions ? " it was quite surreal . something happens though during the film's final act that caused me to sharply drop the rating it was going to receive . up to that point , all of jimmie's prior girlfriends had turned down his " business proposition " which i felt was good . at least the film wasn't painting women to be cold hearted gold diggers . when jimmie has no other options , his goofy friend ( played by artie lange , making a career out of playing the goofy friend ) places an ad in the newspaper that somehow becomes a front page story . at this point , 100 , 000 women don wedding gowns and head off to persuade jimmie to pick them to be his bride . these women arrive at jimmie's location and immediately start bullying him about what he's looking for in a woman . when he's had enough of their unjustified attacks , he tells the angry mob that there's been a mistake and he won't be marrying any of them . as a result , the women proceed to chase him around the city , in hopes of catching him and tearing his limbs off . this goes on for the rest of the film . it's just chris o'donnell running from 100 , 000 obnoxious , greedy , angry and stupid women . my groans of disgust could be heard for miles . the film finally ended ( thankfully ) , but to this day i'm still groaning . the bachelor is available on dvd from new line home video . it contains the film in both full frame and in its original theatrical aspect ratio of 1 . 85 : 1 , cast and crew info , and special dvd-rom features . the original theatrical trailer is also on the disc , which contains scenes not in the film . apparently there was even more footage of the gang of brides chasing o'donnell around the city , and at one point o'donnell is leaping from the tops of buses . so that was bad enough to be cut , but the other 30 minutes of bride shenanigans was good ? ugh .
0	starting with the little mermaid and most recently the lion king , the walt disney company once again proved that they could not only consistently make modern day animated classics , but were particularly in touch with what the general viewing public--particularly kids-- wanted to see . therefore , it's with some surprise that as a big fan of the above mentioned movies i was so disappointed with pocahontas . despite some innovation and risk taking , the story is surprisingly straightforward and dramatized in broad strokes , as are its characters . a group of englishmen lead by the evil governor ratcliffe come to the new world in search of gold with no regard for the " savages " that live there . the natives look upon the english with just as much fear and distrust . only the love between the beautifully structured pocahontas and the dashing captain john smith can prevent a terrible clash . the ending , as it turns out , is not entirely a happy one and is one of the film's finer moments . the characters are mixtures of stereotypes and lack any real depth . governor ratcliffe , for instance , is a snobbish , single-minded bore whose mere appearance is supposed to bring about hisses . captain john smith is a blond hunk who , while " slightly " misguided , is good at heart . pocahontas herself is the typical disney heroine who is practically being forced to marry a man who everyone but her likes and finds the man of her dreams just in time . she even comes complete with insignificant best friend . again , against tradition , talking animals aren't used , but a lusty , wizened , talking tree is . this is an odd compromise , but it's one of the few elements that really work . the animals are a delight , and what brief time their interactions take place brings the only humor and fun to a rather bland presentation . maybe it would have been a better film if we saw the story unfold through their eyes . the talking tree , who seems to have a thing for john smith , is the only other character that can hold our interest and is perhaps the best developed of the bunch . the music , a welcome delight in the later disney films , is mostly a let down here , with the exception of the catchy and motivational , " colors of the wind . " mel gibson , as the voice of john smith , has a solid singing voice and should have been used more . the opposite holds true for the governor ratcliffe led songs ; the singing is even more grating than his simplistic character . i was rather bored through what turned out to be a shorter than expected running time . even the children in the audience seemed restless . while there's no stopping a kid from seeing something that they want--or disney wants them to--most i believe will be disappointed . perhaps the biggest problem is that disney has strayed from their familiar fable and fairy tale themes to history . it's all right to change or embellish fantasy to suit a movie's entertainment value , but doing so to historical facts doesn't work nearly as well as creating nagging questions in the viewer's minds and plot holes that are never filled . even the artwork , another disney strong point , varies greatly in quality , making any story problems even more obvious . as mentioned above , there were many questions that stayed with me while viewing the film . for instance , if john smith was truly such a world traveler and had so much experience with " savages , " why did he so quickly change his previous " kill as many indians as i can " attitude . if he was such a nice guy after all , he should have changed his ways long before this . or how about pocahontas' amazing english speaking ability when this had supposedly been the first time she had seen white men ? i can understand making the native americans speak english for the benefit of the audience , but simply saying that they had met a missionary years earlier would have cleared up a lot ; history was modified in the film anyway . as it is , i wonder if it doesn't give kids the wrong impression . in short , the film is too simplistic for adults and contains too much romance and not enough action or humor for the younger set . while disney tried valiantly in many ways to break with some of their firmest traditions , they end up failing on too many levels .
1	there was a huge crowd - so many over 100 people could not be admitted - at a premiere screening of " the nephew " ( first screening with a major general audience admittance ) . this was a movie premiere at the santa barbara international film festival . pierce brosnan ( 007 ) , produced his first movie with beau st . clair . it was a constantly mind-moving and personal movie with lovely scenes of ireland . chad ( hill harper , beloved ) is a cute 17 year old mixed race ( african american and irish ) nephew , who's irish mother died . he comes " back to ireland " , living with the curmudgeon uncle , tony egan ( donal mccann ) . he meets pierce brosnan's character , mr . o'brady ( or just brady ) , because he falls in love with the beautiful daughter . there are many scenes ( ah , character scenes ) to laugh at , others pull some tears . the three mentioned above were at the premiere in the flesh , with the director eugene brady . after the movie they took questions . the movie was very good , it not fantastic . the nephew has not been " picked up " in north america but has been in the rest of the world . the nephew is generation secrecy of a " titanic " proportion . let's hope the rest of america will be able to see the nephew . contact given in the program guide : " print source : irish dream source , inc . , tel : ( 310 ) 449-3411 "
1	hollywood has a . 750 batting average with elmore leonard adaptations . last year's touch was ill-conceived and just plain odd but get shorty , jackie brown and now out of sight all were highly entertaining movies . steven soderburgh , master of sex , lies and videotape , now adds crime to his repertoire in this tale of bank robbery , prison , double-crossing , uncut diamonds and , oh yeah , true love . george clooney is the protagonist , a risky choice after such duds as batman and robin and the peacemaker , but for once i didn't want to slap the taste out of his mouth . he plays his role in out of sight as the suave cary grant-type perfected in hitchcock movies , the kind of guy to whom crime is just a profession like any other . nowhere present is clooney's usual ain't-i-sexy sneer -- there's just enough leftover lightheartedness to fit in with the leonard style . clooney is definitely a perfect successor to john travolta in get shorty . clooney plays a man who's robbed about 200 banks without ever using a gun . in the opening scene , he walks into one bank and robs it not only with ease but with charm . of course , he gets caught , so it's not all good . it's while doing time in a florida prison that clooney learns of one rich inmate's ( albert brooks in a frightful bald wig ) collection of diamonds in detroit . clooney and cohort ving rhames plan the score , while protection artist and fight promoter don cheadle begins rival plans . meanwhile , there's jennifer lopez . unintentionally funny in selena and intentionally funny in anaconda , she's finally graduated to a worthy role as the u . s . marshal who happens to be driving up to the jail on the night clooney escapes . rhames is waiting to give him a ride in a stolen car , and lopez makes it a threesome , her hostage ass locked in a trunk with clooney . he's covered in dirt and has a gun to her neck , and it's a little cramped in there , but they manage to make a love connection anyway , probably because it's a movie . the relationship between clooney and lopez is at the heart of the movie , and one of the details that elevates it beyond your normal noir-ish crime story . the leonard movies are more obsessed with dialogue than crime , and this is no exception . although they're not really germane to the plot , lopez's relationship with her father ( dennis farina of get shorty ) , rhames' relationship with his christian sister ( you could call her sister christian ) and a pop-in cameo by michael keaton all lend extra class to a movie already full of it . out of sight spans at least three years but has a non-linear structure , focusing on the jailbreak / brooks score and flashing back to earlier times . this is a movie with a brain , as smooth and calculated as the clooney and lopez characters themselves . the entire cast does the material justice -- clooney and lopez coming into their own , and rhames and cheadle cementing their positions as two of my favorites . here's hoping future leonard adaptations continue to carry the torch . serving america for almost 1/20th of a century !
1	will hunting ( matt damon ) is a natural genius . for a movie character , that's usually a death sentence . it's a trait associated with what my brother calls " too good for this world " movies , like phenomenon or powder . forgive me for spoiling the ending , but will doesn't die . this is no formula movie . in fact , it's quite fresh and original . it's a character study more than anything , and that's not surprising , considering it was written by two actors : damon and co-star ben affleck . will works whatever kind of job he can get . first he's a janitor , then he works construction . off-screen he speed reads books on any academic subject that interests him . on-screen he hangs out with his friends , picking fights in robust , romanticized-hemingway fashion . lambeau ( stellan skarsgard from breaking the waves ) , a math professor , learns that the janitor ( will ) is a genius with a special talent for advanced mathematics . having confirmed he's not a fluke or a savant , he does what he can to get will into the education system . he is firmly rejected . finally , will lands in jail for one of his fights . lambeau can get him probation instead of prison time as long as will agrees to therapy sessions and to discussing mathematics with him . will ( barely ) decides to go for the therapy over prison . lambeau treats will like a son . he's proud of , and amazed by , will's accomplishments in mathematics . he encourages will and tries to give him structure , knowing that , with a little discipline , he could be bigger than einstein . will isn't really interested in academia . he knows he would be the best in his field , and therefore spend all of his time in an office , explaining math to people like lambeau . he would rather work construction , which breaks lambeau's heart . meanwhile , will attends his mandated therapy sessions . it's not long before he shreds all the therapists on lambeau's " a " list . will has read enough psychology to know the tricks of the trade , and how to keep them from affecting him . shrink after shrink refuses to return after will's mockery . lambeau's last hope is his old college roommate , now a psychology teacher at a small-time community college . knowing that will is going to try to shred him too , sean ( robin williams ) agrees to take him on as a favor to lambeau and for the chance to meet this next einstein . true to form , will finds sean's emotional weakness and attacks . but unlike the other shrinks , sean knows what he is in for and continues the sessions . like a foster mother with a fussy child , sean knows that the attacks are defensive and is able to take them in stride . like the foster mother , sean knows that time and quiet patience is the only approach . robin williams is excellent in this role . he's not an actor with a great range , but in the right roles he has great depth . in this movie , as in awakenings , there comes a point when the quiet , shy man accomplishes something of great personal importance , and a smile of pure joy spreads up to his eyes . williams is the only actor i can name who can make an audience cry just by smiling . i have compared will to a foster child and that's not entirely fair . emotionally , he has a lot to learn , but he is not a child . he has thought about his life and made rational decisions about what he wants . sean , his girlfriend , his pals , and lambeau all help him grow , but he didn't start out asking for , or particularly needing , help . his exceptional gift singled him out , and those who love him kept pushing him in the right direction . if i had to say anything bad about good will hunting is that it walks the line between drama and melodrama . it's too sentimental and uplifiting for a straight drama , but the emotions are too subtle for melodrama . it is emotionally engaging , but it's not quite larger than life . this isn't a problem per se , but at times i didn't know quite how to take it . but this is a relatively small complaint about a very good movie . a good movie allows its characters to learn and grow . it doesn't just happen ; it takes a good script , good acting , and good direction . good will hunting has all three . if you are at all inclined to see it , by all means , go .
0	miramax " disinvited " on-line media from press screenings of scream 3 . they ostensibly feared that folks like me would write spoiler-filled reviews and post them prior to the film's february 4th release date-unsound reasoning . you see , 'net critics established enough to be on any sort of vip list are professionals-miramax surely knows the difference between a member of the on-line film critics society ( ofcs ) and the type of fanboy who posts spy reports at ain't it cool news . no , the ? mini major' was afraid we'd let a bigger cat out of the bag than whodunit , that scream 3 is a dismal conclusion to the beloved ( by this writer , at least ) franchise . something smells rotten in the state of california right from the get-go : cotton weary ( liev schrieber ) , the former lover and would-be killer of maureen prescott , sidney's mother , is juggling phone calls in his luxury car . ( once considered a danger to society , weary now hosts his own talk show , " 100% cotton " , a clever , if dated , jab at american pop culture . ) of course , a new ghostface dials him up , and , with memories of scream's unbearably suspenseful prologue in mind , we immediately wonder , where is the killer ? the backseat ? the next car ? thrilling prospects , to be sure , but actually , ghostface is at the weary residence , waiting for cotton's girlfriend ( kelly rutheford ) to finishing showering . what's missing from this sequence , and indeed scream 3's remaining frights ( most disappointingly , the moment when an ingenue is forced to hide in a wardrobe room filled with ghostface costumes , one of which might spring to life ) , is an elaborate and attenuated payoff . our other surviving regulars have become estranged . sidney ( campbell ) is living a paranoid existence of electronic gates and password-protected locks , while dewey ( arquette ) acts as technical advisor on the second sequel to scream 2's movie-within-a-movie , " stab 3 " , and gale weathers ( cox arquette ) headlines a gossipy news program . murder reunites them , as knife-wielding ghostface stalks the set of " stab 3 " , imitating its sadistic screenplay-and his/her/their own personal draft climaxes with sidney's death . the appeal of ghostface's villainy is that he/she/they could be your boyfriend , your classmate , your next door neighbour . . . or a combination of people . scream was the first of its kind : a slasher mystery , with the guessing game not only entailing who will be next , but also who is/are the perpetrator ( s ) and what is/are his/her/their motive . ironic self-reflection aside , parts one and two stand out in a crowd that includes umpteen friday the 13th and halloween flicks because there's at last articulate human beings behind the iconic costume . with scream 3 , the novelty of ghostface's ever-mutating identity has worn off some , but the character remains conceptually potent . conceptually . the execution of ghostface's master plan this time around is creaky , because screenwriter ehren kruger has invented a new mythology for the world of sidney prescott far afield from what we'd come to understand in scream and scream 2 . the movie gets in the silly habit of saying " all bets are off ! " in reference to the " rules " of a trilogy's third act , but there's a difference between rule breaking and cheating . with the departure of kevin williamson , who authored the previous screams as well as a tidy outline for scream 3 ( that , for reasons incomprehensible to me , was ignored , save the notion of " stab 3 " ) , kruger needed to be reined in tighter , and by wes craven . craven's direction of scream 3 is lazy in most respects . how else to explain the jay and silent bob cameo ( the slacker duo of kevin smith movies ) , akin to seeing mickey mouse pop up in mulan and more distracting than funny . it pains me to write this , but scream 3's comedy is generally laughless , with the exception of well-timed performances by josh pais ( as a police detective possessed of the same personality he had as a persnickety teacher in craven's music of the heart ) , jamie kennedy ( resurrecting film geek randy for the sendoff he was denied in scream 2 ) , and parker posey ( through sheer force of will as a b-actress ) . the visuals are much weaker in part three , as well-the occasional sweeping gesture of peter deming's camera is a pale imitation of the stalking steadicam craven gave us twice before . ( aside : in the wake of columbine , craven toned down the violence significantly for scream 3-why the sanctimony , when scream and scream 2 are still readily available on video store shelves ? ) finally , marco beltrami's music cues the suspense too blatantly-do you recall the tense chase at the college radio station in scream 2 ? it's mostly silent . sting notes are a whole lot more effective if they spring from nowhere ; here , they act as the crescendos of an incessantly nerve-jangling score . i look at scream 3 as coming from an alternative universe , the same place that birthed the godfather part iii and superman iii-woefully out of synch with its prequels , scream 3 is a nightmare instead of nightmarish , and will likely put the horror genre back in mothballs . the film unintentionally follows the unspoken rule of a trilogy to a t : ? part three must disappoint' .
0	that is , unless you're one of those people who have seen the preview a thousand times on tv or in the theaters . i can tell you one thing now : they gave the entire movie away . why someone would want to base an entire movie on one premise and then give that crucial detail away in the trailers is beyond me . however , if they * hadn't * given it away , the film would've still been suprisingly devoid of suspense given its subject matter . obviously , the producers thought they could remake " the deep end of the ocean , " throw in tommy lee jones and a couple of cliches and call it an action drama . " double jeopardy " offers solid acting from ashley judd and tommy lee jones , who got first billing even though he didn't see to be on screen half as much as judd did . it also offers some genuinely funny , clever , or full-of-tension moments ( my favorite : judd waking up in the coffin ) , but none of that can salvage the film from its insanely predictable plot . half the time i'm wondering whether i'm watching one of those overhyped tv miniseries , which always turn out to be less exciting than advertised . judging by the beginning , end , and a huge chunk of the middle , i might have been watching a special hallmark presentation too . the movie's stretching for an almost two hour long film with only 30 minutes worth of material . implausible material , no less . loose interpretation of one of the amendments aside , too many times in the movie i thought , " that is * not * possible * . " that kind of stuff is excusable in popcorn movies , but not one like " double jeopardy " that tries to pass itself off as serious drama . everything seems dragged out , overplayed . when they should've kept us in the dark , they let the cat out of the bag too early .
0	phil ( radmar jao ) has a hairy problem . his beard is growing so rapidly that he has to shave every hour . he recently met the author of a non-fiction book on lycanthropy , also referred to in the movie as werewolfism , and phil now believes that his problem is that he has become a werewolf . using enough chains and handcuffs to be a hit at a sadomasochists convention , he ties himself in at night lest his urges overcome him . and phil is just one of the many quirky characters that inhabit shopping for fangs . made on a pittance , the film features an almost exclusively asian-american cast . as directed by quentin lee and justin lin , the movie is so amateurishly bad that it could almost be a parody of indie films . jeanne chin plays katherine , a meek and soft-spoken wife , who worries that her husband is unhappy with her because she is not giving him enough sex . we know this through the endless scenes of her confessing her sins , real and imagined , to her therapist . as her husband , jim , clint jung plays a muscle man with a macho crudeness . the picture is filled with stereotypes . there's a mysterious , loud-mouthed waitress with a big , platinum blonde wig who brags to everyone she meets that she's a lesbian . she spends most of the movie putting the moves on her favorite customer , a gay guy . and the lone white with a major role , the author on werewolfism , has wildly unkempt , orangey blonde , curly hair . from its opening scene of an attempted rape at knifepoint to its easy to guess ending twist , the script rarely has anything to offer . the story is so minimally developed that it feels almost like the actors were ad-libbing . one can only hope that the directors' next film will have some substance and some credible acting . shopping for fangs runs 1 : 30 . it is rated r for sex , violence , and profanity and would be fine for older teenagers .
1	" you'll go ape over tarzan because it's more fun than a barrel of monkeys ! " okay , there's the quote in case disney wants to put something in their ads for the movie . disney's latest animated feature throws us right into the action from the very beginning , skipping the usual main title sequence and putting us on pitching waves as a small family attempts to escape from a sinking ship . father , mother , and infant somehow make it to shore amidst a rousing song by phil collins , and have soon built a treehouse which would impress the swiss family robinson . it's amazing , the kinds of things you can do when you work to a soundtrack . before you know it , an unfortunate set of circumstances put the baby in the hands of kala ( glenn close ) , a mother ape who recently lost her own baby to a predatory leopard . against the wishes of her mate and family leader , kerchak ( lance henricksen ) , she takes on the infant boy as her own . tarzan is not so much a story about a human boy surviving in the african jungles as it is about one who does not really fit in either humanity or the wild . much of tarzan's young life is spent trying to become one of the apes in the eyes of his peers and his " father , " which occasionally gets him into trouble no matter how well-meant his attempts . all he's looking for is acceptance , perhaps a goal easily identifiable by young viewers , but one which will ring true with a lot of adults . when you really think about it , this story fits right into the disney formula of the outcast that triumphs in the end . look back on past disney animated features and you'll see the trend . growing up , tarzan ( voiced by alex d . linz as a child , and by tony goldwyn as an adult ) has a couple of friends . one is an ape named terk ( rosie o'donnell ) , and the other is a paranoid hypochondriac of an elephant named tantor ( wayne knight ) . both provide the requisite comic relief ( timon and poombah from the lion king immediately come to mind ) and perform the usual hijinks as prescribed by the disney mold . i'm beginning to think anyone can write the screenplay for one of these films . just fill in the blanks ! can you see it ? " now we have to have a couple of zany friends for out hero who might get him into mischief , but cover for him or come to his rescue when he needs it . we've already had a fish and a crab , and we've had a candle and a teapot , a genie and a dog , a few stone statues . . . . have we had an ape and an elephant yet ? well , there we go ! " of course , there's gotta be romance somewhere along the line , so jane ( minnie driver ) gets introduced about halfway through . together with her father dr . porter ( nigel hawthorne ) and the big game hunter clayton ( brian blessed ) , jane is on an expedition to find and study the wild gorillas of africa . she discovers the man raised by apes and is enchanted almost immediately , and soon shares an amusing version of the compulsory " you tarzan , me jane " scene . thankfully , those aren't the exact words . however , i found it distracting that tarzan is going " ohh ohh ee ee " one second and then tells jane his name in this manly voice with perfect diction . how does he tell his name to another ape ? " ohh ohh ee - tarzan - ee ee ohh ? " well , regardless of my picky nature , the romance actually works as only disney romance can : purely contrived , but for some reason rather believable . but hey , tarzan's a young adult . do you think he dated a few of the female apes before meeting jane ? isn't that illegal in most countries ? oh , well . i don't think disney will be using my quote anymore . tarzan departs from the usual disney feature in that this one is not a musical . there's lots of music to be sure , but not a single character song in the whole hour and a half of running time . we instead get more of a phil collins concert , as no less than five of his original songs are used as interlude material . this isn't really a bad thing , as the songs are very high-energy and catchy ( i found myself singing one to myself for most of the following day ) ; it's just different . do yourself a favor and see this film in a theater with a good sound system , because the music will come through astonishingly well and really enhance the movie . with each new feature , disney animation gets even better . not necessarily by leaps and bounds , but since they put out a new film each year , a steady rate of improvement is apparent , and this definitely shows in tarzan . there are a couple of scenes where the animation achieves a near 3-d effect , and a number of scenes which feature tarzan moving through the trees are absolutely dizzying . the way he slides down tree limbs and trunks is very reminiscent of skateboarding and rollerblading maneuvers , and had me thinking this isn't just tarzan , it's " extreme tarzan . " however , tarzan does not seem to have what i call its " chandelier scene , " which is the one scene to which the animators have chosen to devote an inordinate amount of effort , utilizing a computer-assisted process that makes the animation absolutely breathtaking . lasting but a few seconds at most , it's been the signature of nearly every disney animated feature since beauty and the beast , in which the castle ballroom chandelier was rendered in stunning detail . as usual , the voice talent is up to snuff , convincingly make you believe in the convictions of animated characters . the one poor choice in casting , however , was rosie o'donnell . going into the film , i didn't know she was even a part of it , but when terk started talking , i recognized her voice immediately . her performance was fine , but through the rest of the film i kept thinking , " that's no boy ape , that rosie o'donnell . " distracting to say the least . i'll admit i've never read the edgar rice burroughs story " tarzan of the apes , " so i couldn't tell you how true this film stays to the book . but unless you're a purist , you should have few objections to this film . with solid performances , action , adventure , a bit of romance , and great music and animation , tarzan should appeal to the kids and to the kid in all of us . note : when i wrote my review of mulan a year ago , i went off on the promotional and merchandising tie-ins prevalent with the release of a disney animated feature . this time , i'll just say that i went to mcdonald's yesterday to treat myself to a mcflurry , and tarzan was on the cup . 'nuff said .
0	martial arts master steven seagal ( not to mention director ! ) has built a career out of playing an allegedly fictitious martial arts superman who never gets hurt in fights , talks in a hushed tone , and squints at any sign of danger . he's also the most consistent individual in hollywood today , since all his movies suck . they basically represent his egotisitical tendencies about his art ( that is , martial art ) . i'm sure the guy's good , and he seems like a nice guy on talk shows , although a tad haughty , but these movies he makes are all the same : a guy who is basically indestructable , is maybe wounded supposedly mortally , then comes back with a vengeance and goes buddha on all the baddies asses ( although i kinda liked " under siege " ) . of course , this one , as a change , has a " message " that is drilled into our mind . . . of course , after he blows up a lot of stuff and kills a bunch of people . so why do i watch his crap ? i usually don't . i will never , and you can hold me to this , i will never pay to see this man's movies , unless , and only unless , he's in a supporting role ( i . e . " executive decision " ) and i'd definitely pay if he dies ( i . e . " executive decision " ) . but this one has a special place in my heart . this doesn't mean it's good or that i even liked it . this was the last movie i watched with my deceased uncle , and we had one hell of a time ripping it apart a la " mystery science theatre 3000 , " and this was a couple years before i had heard of " mystery science theatre 3000 . " in this one , seagal plays a worker for a mining factory set in alaska and run by the greased-up typical shallow villain , this time played by an oscar-winner to give the movie some more clout - michael caine . it seems that caine wants to do something with his oil factory that includes him dumping oil all over inuit land . around the 20-30 minute point , seagal speaks up to him in what seems to be the typical speech to all the vain entrepeneurs ( what with his new " fire down below , " another " message film " ) , and caine has him bumped off . . . or does he ? seagal is rescued by some inuits , and falls in love with one of them , played by joan chen , who can act , hypothetically , but , for some reason , not here . one of caine's cliched henchmen ( played here with a lot of overacting by john c . mcginley ) shoots the cheif of the inuit clan , and chen and seagal go on a voyage to take down the oil factory . . . literally , of course . at one point , seagal gives a wonderfully hysterical speech about how he doesn't have any options but blow stuff up . he even goes as far as to say , " i don't want to kill someone , " and in the same breath , he asks some guy where the arsenal is . i have no problem with violence . i'm a huge john woo fan , but he paints his films with suspense , skill , style , depth , characterization , and just plain cool violence . in the films of seagal , the suspense mainly consists of the baddie attacking him stupidly , and him either wounding or killing them . at some points , they use the cliche of the talking villain , where the villain has the advantage , can shoot seagal , but begins talking by either telling him his big secret plan , or saying a corny line , to which seagal says something hokey back , and has had enough time to devise of a way to do away with them , and does . this would be okay if there were any suspense or if it didn't take itself seriously at all , like in the case of this summer's " con air . " but seagal is serious about his skill , and of course , his message . i wouldn't mind if this was a message film in the way that they present it to you with evidence . but seagal has no idea how to present a film where the message is subtle , not pounded into the viewer's mind . the villain is totally shallow and cartoonish , thus we can't take him and his motives seriously , and while seagal talks about being kind to the environment , he also goes ahead and blows up a square mile of rig , and kills some workers who were just doing his job . then at the end , he spends a good 10 minutes giving a speech , just in case you didn't get the message from the trailers . what seagal doesn't realize is that no one takes his films seriously ( although maybe a couple do ) and any message he has is no only redundant , but doesn't comfortably fit in his film , which is filled to the brim with hokey violence , crap suspense , stupid melodrama , and characters who have about as much emotional depth as a petri dish . as far as seagal and his acting , he's rather boring . he squints , he kills . period . nothing else . oh , yeah , there's corny one-liners ( " i'm gonna reach out and touch someone ! " ) . of course , he's the star , and we're supposed to root for him and all , so he makes all the villains unbelievably stupid and a bunch of jerks . michael caine , who's a great actor , is just supposed to yell and look cold . he does it well , i guess , but this is no " alfie . " of coure , no one was expecting that caliber of performance from him . his big henchman , john c . mcginley is kinda boring as well , but is not horrible . and we even get a small performance from that god of drill sergeants on celluloid , r . lee ermey ( from " full metal jacket " ) as a hired assasin squad leader who gets to say the obligatory speech about how dangerous seagal is , just for the movie trailers and for seagal's ego . and also , look for billy bob thornton as one of ermey's assasins . anyway , to conclude this all , to judge one of seagal's movies is to judge all of them ( except for " under siege " and " executive decision , " though the latter is not really a " seagal movie " ) . they all have this same formula , they all have the same action , same villain , same plot , but this one has that message , which makes it more excrucitating to watch . i mean , if you do rent it , and i don't reccomend you do , make sure you just skip the last 10 minutes . but i have to put it to seagal for creating a film so bad , that the last film i viewed with my uncle was a pleasurable one . my ( extra star for the fun it is to watch and mock )
0	summer movies are , by nature , dumb affairs that are usually made for some quick enjoyment and to make money . wild wild west , the latest will smith affair , follows much the same formula , except that it is dumber and less enjoying than most summer movies . will smith plays jim west , a black sheriff with a nice line in sunglasses . he is called by president grant ( kline ) to go on a mission to find out why top government scientists are disappearing . west is paired up with scientist artemus gordon ( kline again ) and the two track the missing scientists to a legless mastermind , named dr . loveless ( branagh , with a zany moustache . ) before i pile on with the many negatives in this sorry affair , i'll give it a chance with the positives . there's a nice credit sequence , the production design by bo welch is pleasing to the eye , and the special effects are decent enough . there's also a pleasant soundtrack . buried deep in the dross are one or two amusing jokes . and salma hayek pops up as the female interest , which is always nice to see . apart from these factors , though , nothing else in wild wild west works . firstly , there's little chemistry between smith and kline , who appears to be in it purely for the money . one would expect zingers passing between the two : none arise . both of them plod through the below standard plot , knowing that there is a pay cheque waiting at the end . not even kenneth branagh provides much entertainment : although he is over the top , the material doesn't present much opportunity for branagh to be truly crazy . therefore , he just comes across as loud as obnoxious . the only enjoyable performance comes from the sexy salma hayek , who is given so little screen time it's embarrassing . she appears to be in the film to merely show off her body , and be ogled at by kline and smith . her character also changes at a whim to fit the mechanics of the script , and there is no sense of realism about the character . the 'humour' in the film is also very off . will smith put a little spin to his daft lines in men in black , here , not even smith could save the humour on display . the script largely boils down to insults that aren't very funny , and one-liners that barely raise a smirk . it's also somewhat racist , although it doesn't intend to be , with one scene with jim west trying to wisecrack his way out of a lynching , and actually says slavery is good to save himself . it's not a funny scene , and the whole thing comes off rather uncomfortably . the film also makes the tragic mistake that a man ( in this case kline ) in a dress is automatically unfunny , it isn't , but the wild wild west makes this joke even more painful to watch through pure ineptness . there's also problems with the plot . jim west and artemus gordon get caught up in all kinds of sticky situations , but the way they get out of them are always unsatisfying , and rely purely on luck , rather than audience pleasing skill . plot elements are introduced into the film , and then thrown away just as quickly . the main piece of the story , a 80 foot mechanical , steam driven spider devised by loveless looks rather impressive , but there's no particular reason why it should be built . why not loveless build a great big tank , instead of an ungainly , fragile piece of machinery that's just begging to be blown up ? director barry sonnenfeld always has a breezy look to them , with some nice camera tricks , but even this is missing from this stilted affair . wild wild west could have benefited from sonnenfelds whacked out style of directing , but not much of it is evident , making this film drag out even more . it's a sad thing when _four_ ( credited ) screenwriters , a talented director and a willing star can't make a film work , and eventually wild wild west collapses under it's sexist , mildly racist , unfunny weight .
1	at one point during brian de palma's crime epic scarface , the radiant michelle pfeiffer turns to a ranting al pacino and pops a question that the audience has no doubt been wanting to ask for themselves : " can't you stop saying 'fuck' all the time ? " fucking good question , that . it may not be an honour that instills the filmmakers with pride , but as far as i can tell oliver stone's script contains the said expletitive more times than any other film in cinema history . yet it would be a shame if bad language is all de palma's scarface is remembered for , because this is a damn fine gangstar flick . the overall structure is similar to howard hawks' 1932 original , but this time the scene has switched to miami , florida and our anti-hero's chosen vice is cocaine traffiking . pacino , sporting a thick cuban accent , gives one the best performances of his career ( golden globe nominated ) as tony montana , a cuban refugee with a criminal past who flees castro and comes to america to live the american dream . and live it out he does , with lashings of violence , abuse , murder and the funny white powder . from his earliest jobs as a drug runner for various middlemen , tony montana makes it clear to everyone he meets that he's not a man to be fucked ( sorry ) . soon he's the king of the cocaine heap , but his hot head and an increasingly out of control drug addiction prove his undoing . " never do your own stash " , warns one character early in the film . as sure as night follows day , the emperor of miami eventually falls . writer oliver stone and director brian de palma make an explosive combination here . stone's script offers solid storytelling and some fine character development . montana is fascinating ; uneducated but calculating , a straight shooter who speaks from the heart ; an ambitious , violent man yet one with a conscience . a man fiercely protective of his beautiful 20 year old sister , not wanting her to be sucked into the glitzy , dangerous world which he inhabits . pacino is dynamite , taking to the role with a brooding , bristling energy which in his more recent films has often degenerated into just simple overracting . pfeiffer also registers strongly as the gangstar mole with no inner life . only once does tony express real affection for her and his desire to have children , and even then you sense all he really wants is a regular screw and a beautiful object to show off to his friends , and she's happy to oblige . this isn't as meaty a role for pfieffer as sharon stone's was in casino , but its an effective one nonetheless and she aquits herself well . as director , de palma sets up a number of dramatic scenes with his typical stylistic brauva . the escalating tension he creates in various mob situations - a drug deal gone wrong , an assination attempt - is often thrilling , and in this respect he is every bit the equal of scorese and coppola . where he differs from , say , coppola's godfather trilogy is in his overall treatment . coppola gives his crime sagas an operatic sweep , whereas in scarface de palma opts for a grittier feel . and it perfectly suits the material . the only major botch is giorgio moroder's mostly crap synthesier score . it's just not right , and unfortunately compromises the impact of some otherwise good scenes . as expected , scarface is very violent at times , but you shouldn't be watching gangster movies if that upsets you . at over two and a half hours in length it's a true epic , and if you're a fan of the genre you'll love f * * k-filled minute of it .
1	why do people hate the spice girls ? ? what exactly have they done wrong , other than perhaps offend the fashion police ? ? so what if they are not " great " singers---they ain't singing opera , folks , its pop music ! ? who exactly is a " great " singer ? judging by that opening paragraph it is obvious that i like the spice girls . ? they do what they do--sing some catchy tunes--and they do it pretty well . ? they are able to carry that into their first film , " spice world " . ? " spice world " certainly isn't a great filmgoing experience . . . what it is what the spice girls are all about : fun , songs , and a lot of " girl power ! " drawing from a number of different films ( like the beatles' " hard day's night " ) " spice world " chronicles the week heading up to the girls' first concert at london's albert hall . ? they get to tool around london in a big ol' bus ( driven by meat loaf ! ) and generally have fun . ? in order to through a semblence of plot into the film , there is an evil tabloid publisher played by barry humphries , better known to americans , for about 15 minutes , as dame edna ( remember her ? ) ? he wants to sabotage the girls' concert so he can sell papers . of course , the point in a movie like " spice world " isn't plot . ? the center of the film is the spice girls themselves : ginger ( the recently departed geri haliwell ) , posh ( victoria adams ) , sporty ( melanie chisolm ) , scary ( melanie brown ) , and baby ( emma bunton ) . ? each one has their own personality and , perhaps the best part of the film , look like they are having some honest-to-goodness fun , something that can't be said for a lot of people in films today . along for the ride are richard e . grant as their manager , clifford , and various other characters making quick cameo appearances ( including teriffic british actors like richard briers and stephen fry ) . ? and , every once and a while , roger moore pops up as the chief to spout odd koans ( added bonus : he gets to , in the words of craig kilborn , dance , dance , dance . ) watching this film was fun , for the most part . ? there are a few slow segments , but overly , director bob spiers keeps things moving at a quick pace , with plenty of hummable spice girls songs in the background . ? his camerawork is fairly pedestrian , though the final concert number is done quite well with effective use of editing . ? the look of the film promotes the high fun , with the design of the spicebus being quite original and eye-catching . ? add in wall-to-wall spice girls music and this film is lovable romp . ? if you don't like the spice girls , you won't change your mind with this film . ? but , if you find them at least tolerable , get ready to sit back and chill because the spice girls are here to entertain you . . . and do it quite well . ? " spice world " ( 1998 ) . ? directed by bob spiers . ? written by kim fuller . ? music by the spice girls . ? with geri halliwell , victoria adams , melanie chisolm , melanie brown , emma bunton , richard e . grant , claire rushbrook , roger moore . ? distributed by columbia pictures . ? running time : 92 minutes . ? rated : pg . ? available on home video . ---- 29 june 1998
1	he has spent his entire life in an awful little apartment , raised and cared for and imprisoned by his domineering mother . she inspires his love and his fear , and instills in him a similar love and fear of jesus . he has a rudimentary grasp of language , mouthing monosyllables and repetitions of his mother's phrases . he is taught that the world outside is fatally poisonous ; his mother dons a gasmask whenever she goes out the door . he is 35-years-old in body , but a child in mind and spirit . he is the premise for bad boy bubby , a defiantly original australian movie about a man called bubby ( nicholas hope ) who has spent his entire life in an awful little apartment , etc . , etc . then one day his father ( ralph cotterill ) appears . his father is a shabby down-at-heels priest who appears to have permanently misplaced his religion . unsurprisingly , he is not thrilled with the way " his " boy has turned out . he is , however , rather pleased at renewing his acquaintance with the mother ( claire benito ) , and , more to the point , her ample breasts . soon they are copulating on the dingy couch , while bubby crouches , confused , in the next room , acutely aware that the mother who had devoted all her attention to him has a new interest . bubby's relationship to the world may be warped , but it is at least stable . the father's arrival disturbs his precarious balance , causing an oedipal conflict which ends--freud would be pleased--in violence and , as a result , freedom . bubby intuits from his father's arrival that the air outside is breathable : he leaves the apartment , his past , his world , behind . so far , so good . the first thirty minutes or so of bad boy bubby , which bring us to this point , are quite brilliant . the movie is at its best when its stays within the constraints of bubby's hermetic two-room universe . it follows through unrelentingly on the implications of its premise : bubby is used by his mother for sex , he unwittingly suffocates the pet cat with cellophane , he is terrifed by the notion that jesus will beat him senseless if he sins . it is grim and savage and appalling , but also strangely tender--de heer , having imagined a life as bizarre as bubby's , does not exaggerate for comic or grotesqe purposes , but simply empathizes . he observes what it might be like . the intensity of these opening scenes , with their minimalist mise-en-scene , immerses us in a claustrophobic environment which seems to be a decayed stratum of our own world , and owes much to david lynch's eraserhead , not least the ambient industrial white noise of the soundtrack . for thirty minutes , the movie maintains the feel and mood of a reality that does not seem far removed from our own . then de heer lets bubby out , brings him into contact with our world , and the film never quite recovers . our unlikely hero finds himself in port adelaide , where he wanders the streets and meets people , where he suffers and learns and survives . he is seduced by a young woman from a salvation army band ( how an anti-social half-wit with no sense of hygiene manages to get laid mere hours after his escape is not the sort of question the film encourages , wisely ) ; he is given free pizza by a sympathetic waitress ; he insults a traffic cop and is punched in the stomach ; he shares a few beers in the back of a truck with a rock group ; he is imprisoned and raped ; he becomes a translator for mentally handicapped people whose speech is impaired beyond comprehension ; he is loved by a motherly large-breasted nurse ( carmel johnson ) . . . it goes on , by turns inventive , silly , tasteless , endearing , and sometimes all of these things at once . de heer never seems to be sure how bubby should interface with the real world : the tone shifts , uneasily , from fable to realism to satire and back again . the scenes which try to touch base with a believable version of reality are the weakest ; the film is best understood as a kind of parable , and , indeed , the religious implications of bubby's experiences are foregrounded : icons of jesus on the cross hang from the mother's walls , bubby dons a priest's collar stolen from his father , a church organ-playing atheist lectures him on the necessity of unbelief , the woman who redeems him is named angel . the manifold stresses of our world do not shatter bubby's mind , do not fragment him into psychosis ; rather , the world accomodates him , and heals him . although de heer's touch is at times overbearing , bubby's salvation is touching ; what seemd at first a harsh lesson in the damaging effects of the social construction of reality becomes a na ? ve humanist tale of improbable hope . a hapless rock group write a song about bubby and sing it for him and so give him the gift of community . he returns the favour when he steps on stage one night and becomes their frontman , turning the fragmented impressions of his experiences into performance art , and turning the band into a popular draw . innocence triumphs . bubby becomes a holy fool , an idiot savant , and graces us with wisdom . it's a strange turn of events , but by now we shouldn't be surprised , because bad boy bubby ain't like other movies .
1	i'm not really sure what to think about " crash . " on the surface , it's a cold , boring , unerotic porn with name starts , a name director , and some cool camerawork . i mean , it left me completely bored , unsatisfied , and generally kinda weirded out . but then again , not every film's supposed to leave you entertained . " crash " is structured to play like a porn flick , but with significantly more plot and dialogue . while we see several extremely taboo scenes of weirdo sex , we also have a skimpy little plot going on ( mostly towards the beginning ) , and maybe just a hair of characterization . not to mention the acting is generally pretty good , and we don't really see a lot of the actors completely exposed . but what makes it supremely different from a porn is the fact that this is not an erotic experience . this film does not posess the erotic hypnotism of " henry and june " or the just plain horniness of , say , " deep throat " ( not that i've seen it ) . if one was to be made completely hot by this film , it would probably mean they were also into the whole " auto eroticism " thing . the film leaves you cold erotically ( and maybe in many other ways ) , but what it does is present a group of people who live on the edge . the film opens up on a woman , catherine ( deborah kara ungar , of " the game " ) , pressing her bare breast up against a car in a public air hangar . suddenly , a man enters the frame and begins to take her from behind ( the film doesnt' show all this though , even if it is nc-17 ) . the next scene has a film director , james ( james spader ) , having sex with a camera woman ( alice poon ) in an office on the highly-populated set of his movie . the next scene has the two coming together , revealing to us that they're husband and wife , and them sharing in one another's escapades . while the two are arguably freaky people , we at least know they love to live on the edge . soon afterwards , james is driving down the road at night , reclessly of course ( he's reading something ) , when he drifts into the other lane , and then hits another car face on . james is not killed , but the passenger in the other car flies into his seat ( obviously dying ) , leaving the driver , helen remington ( holly hunter - in a porn ? ) , also alive . the two go through therapy together , and when getting out , they run into eachother again . when james gives her a ride home , they almost get into another accident , and immeadiately afterwards , they go to an unbusy parking lot , and have a little quickie , as they were aroused by the accident . you wouldn't think there would be many people who shared this same kind of fetish , but they run into a freaky guy named vaughan ( elias kosteas ) and his crutch-carrying girlfriend , gabrielle ( rosanna arquette ) , who are also into it . vaughan is into living on the edge as they are , but he takes it to another level : he loves to recreate famous car crashes . in one scene , he and a friend , colin seagrave ( peter macneill ) recreate james dean's car crash without any padding or safety belts , and suffer some concussions , but nevertheless get a rush ( and the attention of the police ) . soon , these five are all having sex with one another , be it straight , gay , or lesbian sex . while this is admittingly all a bit comical ( the film is almost like a black comedy ) , the film does do a pretty awesome portrayal of people who's main fetish is living on the edge . i'm sure somewhere there are people who get aroused by car accidents , but i personally don't see a connection between car crashes and sex . the main connection cronenberg shows us that both give a definite rush . his car crash scenes are quick and exciting mini-masterpieces : we're at first not sure if they'll take place , but everytime it looks like it may occur , we gasp . then when it happens , we hold our breath . the same thing happens with sex , although not in the same fashion . these people are merely taking it to another level . the only problem with the film is that it's a tad redundant . a normal porn lasts from an hour to an hour and a half . this goes on for about 100 minutes , and it just seems a little too long . the sex and car crashes are far between one another , and the time between them are a tad on the boring side . there's no characterization , although it could definitely be argued , that hey , it's a porn , and we're not here to sympathize . but still , they coulda cut it down a bit . but the film is saved with its presentation , as well as some other elements . the atmosphere is very dark and forboding , creating a kind of cool weird feeling . and there are several scenes are just amazing . one scene has catherine and james having sex , while she softly asks him questions about being with a man , which sounds almost erotic the way she says it . a sequence involving one character's death is filled with all the edgy disjointment that the film needs . and the final shot is shot perfectly , creating an image of a car crash , and a couple having sex in front of it , despite the fact that she's wounded . the acting is also pretty good , especially for what is almost a porn ( ousting linda lovelace as best actress in a porn ) . while james spader is pretty boring ( he's usually pretty intense ) , deborah kara ungar is amazing . she speaks all her words in almost zombie-like hushes , and when she's having sex , she has a blank look on her face , not showing the viewer whether she's enjoying it or not . in one scene , she actually looks dead while someone is having sex with her . holly hunter , who gets extra credit just for appearing in something like this , is pretty good , and so is rosanna arquette ( who adds a kinda cool kinkiness to her role ) . but the film is stolen by elias kosteas who plays his character so intensely that he almost upstages everyone . he often speaks as he is out of breath , showing a definite affinity for his way of life . he has a great deal of energy in several scenes , especially one scene where he's taking photographs of a picture , and a later scene where he's getting a freaky tatoo . he and spader share sexual chemistry in several scenes , foreshadowing a later scene . kosteas is a little known actor ( his biggest role was casey jones in " teenage mutant ninja turtles " ) , but here he shows a deniro-like presence , hinting that he's capable of bigger roles . while i hardly enjoyed " crash , " it's still a pretty intriguing portrayal of a group of people who , if the exist , are some of the strangest and most bizarre people in the world . these people are able to share a rush between two completely different entities , and the film , which doesn't exactly pain them in a negative light , is sucessful in bringing them to light , even if it leaves the viewer unnerved and generally freaked out . despite the hardcore nature of the film and the subsequent nc-17 rating ( there's also an r-rated version , but i wouldn't even go near that thing ) , anyone looking for a quick turn-on should just rent a regular porno .
1	albert brooks saves the day , just in the nick of time . with a very poor summer for movies , brooks is just what audiences were looking for to cheer them up , and does so in a positive way . while this may not be his finest work , " the muse " still shakes up some delightful humor . in albert brook's latest comedy , he tells a story of a troubled screenwriter ( brooks ) who's losing his edge , as his business partners say . in desperation , he goes to see his friend jack ( jeff bridges ) , who has been a very successful screenwriter in the past . he asks jack for some help , and recieves word of a real life muse , that has helped him and many other directors throughout their career . so brooks seeks the muse named sarah ( sharon stone ) , and is suckered into buying her expensive , food etc . as a sort of payment . the real punch line however , doesn't come until the end . it really makes you wonder , how screenwriters really get their ideas , could it simply be from a friend or a bum in the street ? the idea itself is provoking and brooks does it in a hilarious manner . speaking of brooks , he was absolutely hysterical as a screenwriter . every time he graces the screen , i can't help but start laughing . albert has a very unique sense of humor that makes him a very likeable character . the real problem with the film lies with sharon stone . she wasn't likeable at all . brooks had the right idea with her occupation , but she never pulled through . in a way , she drained energy from the once funny atmosphere and left it bleak . luckily brooks could clean up the mess , and cover for stone's mishap . it was a shame that the film went slightly downhill after her appearance , because " the muse " had the potential to a be a very authentic comedy . on a brighter note , andie macdowell was also charming as brook's wife . she is always a nice addition as a supporting actress , because she has that charisma that seems to complete the atmosphere to any film she's in . the funniest moments in " the muse " in my opinion were the cameos by james cameron and martin scorsese . i mean imagine , brooks seeing these big named directors in his back yard seeking sharon stone for advice , like it was something out of the ordinary . it was just plain hilarious . it just adds to the satire joke , of how directors get ideas . brilliant move by brooks . as i mentioned before , the film is a satire much like it's proceeder bowfinger , which came out a few weeks before . unlike bowfinger , this is not a mean spirited film that's desperate for jokes , it's rather a witty and humorous look at hollywood . " bowfinger " had it's moments , but had quite a few problems that were never worked out , but " the muse " still managed to keep the laughs despite a bit of a detour . by the end of the film , you're glad to see a good hearty comedy come out of it . for once i'm not fully disappointed , because the film didn't slow down , it kept moving , even with some flaws . thumbs up to brooks for his brave effort . i think he'll still manage to keep his edge around well into the future .
1	you've got to love disney . no matter what they serve up , it is a guaranteed success as long as it's animated . kids have to go see the movie . then they have to get the toys . oh , the video came out ? got to buy it , or risk little billy's temper tantrums for the next month . all of this culminates in the childhood equivalent of a pilgrimage to mecca : a visit to the magic kingdom . stay at the disneyland hotel ! buy a disney t-shirt ! eat an ice cream mickey mouse on a stick ! it's both a vertical and horizontal monopoly when you think about it . dale carnegie should have had it so good . what's most amazing is that all this success is in spite of a severe lack of originality . you see , disney animated features these days have two components : theme and plot . the theme changes with each new movie ; the plot does not . the plot is a mold into which the characters of some ancient fable are dropped , and try as they might to rise above the characters of previous features , they are nearly always destined to do no more than the same . however , while the success of a disney animated feature is generally a given as far as box-office receipts , merchandising dollars , and glimmers in the eyes of little children , critically they are as varied as anything else that hollywood has to offer . luckily , disney's latest animated offering , mulan , manages to be engaging and refreshing , even while rife with formula . the film starts with the invasion of ancient china by the huns , led by the imposing shan-yu ( miguel ferrer ) . soon , china's emperor ( pat morita ) mobilizes his armies and decrees that one male from each family in the country shall serve to fight in china's defense . when the fa family is served notice , it is the elderly father , fa zhou ( soon-tek oh ) who must answer the call , as there are no other males in the household . fearing her father will surely be killed in battle , fa mulan ( ming-na wen ) disguises herself as a man and sneaks off with the royal orders to join the chinese army . mulan , based on a chinese epic poem , is a classic tale of the triumph of the ugly duckling . mulan herself is a disgrace to her loving family , as she has a difficult time fitting into the traditional woman's role , and in a very amusing scene where a matchmaker attempts to assess her value to a potential husband , we see that " grace " is not one of her strong points . very early on , we are presented with the high importance of bringing honor to one's family , and by botching her chance at gaining the favor of the matchmaker , mulan fails at that task . by leaving home to fight in her father's place , she may not only spare his life , but bring honor , too . as is the case with most disney musicals , the songs are first rate and pervasive throughout the film . i'm not sure if they will get much airplay , but at least one of the songs will no doubt receive recognition come oscar time . both lea salonga , who provides the singing voice for mulan , and donny osmond who sings for shang , the captain of mulan's army unit and obligatory love interest , are more than competent , although salonga's voice translates much better to animation . you have to hear it to understand . interestingly , the musical numbers which are so often done with big flourishes are surprisingly muted in mulan . there is no significantly big number , which is customary as the second or third song in a disney film , but this does not detract significantly from the rest of the movie . it is , however , an expectation which has been built by disney's own formulaic history , and some viewers may feel as if something is missing . artistically , the animators have chosen to adopt the more subdued pastels of chinese artwork , and although this may not live up to the vibrance so associated with many of the other disney works , it helps to contribute a more authentic , and therefore more credible , nature to what otherwise may be seen as a typically " disneyfied " ethnic tale . there are also a couple of visually standout scenes , one involving the charge of shan-yu's hun army , which utilizes the same computer-enhanced imagery disney animators have employed since the chandelier in beauty and the beast . the other scene worth mentioning is so quick you might miss it . when mulan resolves to take her father's place , she dons her father's old battle armor , and unsheathes a sword . as she does so , you can see her reflection in the polished metal . it just left me thinking , " that was really cool . " a wonderful range of performances delight the audience throughout the film , varying from the straight , such as soon-tek oh as fa zhou , to the comical , such as harvey fierstein as yao , a gruff , pugilistic member of shang's conscripted army . even more outrageous is eddie murphy as mushu , the diminutive guardian dragon sent to look after mulan . although an obvious attempt to relive the chemistry brought forth by robin williams in aladdin , murphy nevertheless distinguishes himself with his own winning performance . i found the choice of b . d . wong as shang a little strange ( you may remember him as martin short's wedding planner assistant in the father of the bride ) , but they used robbie benson for the voice of the beast in beauty and the beast , so i guess anything's possible . in any event , wong performs admirably as well . one character which provides a significant amount of humor is grandmother fa . she deserves recognition not only because of the levity she brings to the movie , but also because she is voiced by two very remarkable people . june foray , who supplies grandmother fa's speaking voice , is a venerable voice actress who may be best known for her work as rocky the squirrel and natasha fatale ( as in boris and natasha ) . marni nixon , who provides grandmother fa's singing voice , is the same vocalist who dubbed the voices for anna in the king and i , maria in west side story , and eliza in my fair lady . with this in mind , hearing grandmother fa is like listening to a little piece of history . mulan is the latest disney animated feature to get away from some of the eurocentrism which for so long dominated disney films . in an effort to be culturally sensitive ( and to avoid a " miss saigon " -type debacle ) , disney has also wisely chosen to employ many asian-american actors for both lead and supporting roles . in addition to the actors already mentioned , the cast includes such ubiquitous talents as james hong , gedde watanabe , james shigeta , and george takei . i guess clyde kusatsu wasn't available . at a running time of slightly under an hour and a half , mulan moves quickly and provides solid entertainment for both children and , happily , adults . this is the kind of disney feature that makes you wonder what they will do next , rather than hope that the next one is better .
1	susan granger's review of " big eden " ( jour de fete ) it's utopia , this tiny town tucked away in the timberland of northwestern montana , where old codgers lounge on the porch of the general store to pass the time away and the local matchmakers ( nan martin , louise fletcher ) eagerly pair off the young people , regardless of sexual preference . there's nary a homophobe or bigot around , much to the surprise of henry hart ( arye gross ) , a successful but lonely manhattan artist who returns home to care for sam ( george coe ) , the ailing grandfather who raised him . and with the simultaneous re-appearance of his best-friend from high-school and object of his unrequited love ( tim dekay ) , now divorced with two young sons , the fact of his homosexuality must be faced . to complete the triangle , there's the tall , taciturn native american ( eric schweig ) who owns the general store and lovingly yet secretly prepares gourmet meals for henry and sam . this fable about home and family is a major debut for first-time film-maker thomas bezucha ( a former designer for coach and polo/ralph lauren ) who is meticulous about minding details , using ballads like " welcome to my world " and " achin' , breakin' heart " to set up the concept of our universal longing to find a place in which we can love and be loved . in the paradise of big eden , what you are doesn't matter as much as generosity of spirit , respect and kindness . sure , the plot's implausible but it's a good-natured fantasy so allowances should be made . and rob sweeney's photography of glacier national park is spectacular ! on the granger movie gauge of 1 to 10 , " big eden " is a charming , quirky , off-beat 7 . it's a heart-warming romantic comedy about a gay man who doesn't die of aids or wind up alone at the end .
1	niagara niagara ( r ) bob gosse's niagara niagara follows a blueprint not unlike a lot of young-lovers-on-the-road movies . wild marcy ( robin tunney ) and calm seth ( henry thomas ) meet cute , literally running into each other while shoplifting at a local store . a mere couple of scenes later , the two embark on a journey to toronto from their small , unnamed american town in pursuit of a rare doll that marcy desperately wants . along the way , true love inevitably blossoms . what sets niagara niagara apart , though , is that marcy is afflicted with tourette's syndrome , a neurological disorder that causes sudden muscle and vocal tics . tunney , displaying an acting range not hinted at in the teenage witch thriller the craft , delivers an astonishing performance that won her the best actress prize at last year's venice film festival . to term her work a tour-de-force is not to imply that she attacks the scenery ; tunney's effectiveness lies in her modulation and vulnerability , which makes her depiction of marcy's illness--which often causes her to act violently--that much more convincing and tragic . she and the nicely subtle thomas develop a sweetly innocent and beguilingly off-kilter chemistry . their journey hits a few rough spots creatively along the way , mostly the fault of writer matthew weiss . a detour involving a kindly widower ( michael parks ) who takes the couple in brings the story to a screeching halt , and the key character of a trigger-happy pharmacist ( stephen lang ) is highly unbelievable . but these missteps do not blunt the power of tunney's bravura turn , which carries niagara niagara to a level of poignance it would not have otherwise achieved . ( opens march 20 ) " i didn't know what to expect . it's like something you chase for so long , but then you don't know how to react when you get it . i still don't know how to react . " --michael jordan , on winning his first nba championship in 1991 . . . or , my thoughts after meeting him on november 21 , 1997
1	the deer hunter , directed by michael cimino , is truly one of the greatest movies ever made . a captivating drama about the lives of a group of friends from a small russian-american pennsylvania community , the deer hunter promises to be one of those movies that you will never forget . in this academy award winner for best picture of 1978 , outstanding performances are turned in by all actors , and cimino's brilliant directing provides the perfect vision into the character's lives . the first act of the film provides us with an inside look into the lives of a group of men from a small community who work and hang out together . michael , portrayed perfectly by robert de niro , is shown early on as the natural leader of the group . after a days work , the men leave their jobs at a factory to head down to the local bar , where john ( george dzundza ) works . three of the men , michael , steven ( john savage ) , and nick ( christopher walken ) will be leaving shortly for vietnam , but not before steven gets married . after the marriage , the group , including axel ( chuck aspegren ) , spend one last day on a hunting trip , one of their favorite past-times . this sequence of events enables us to view the lifestyle of a normal group of men , who will be suddenly and permanently affected by the ravages and separations of war . the wedding scenes , although criticized by many as being quite long , actually enhance even more the purpose of the first act . the outstanding performances by de niro , walken , streep , savage , and cazale , who died very shortly after the filming of the movie was completed , really begin to shine through and promise not to halt in the near future . the second act of the movie begins with the trio of men on the front lines in vietnam , stationed in a south vietnamese village being attacked by the viet cong . the men are eventually captured and held in a floating prison on a river . this prison , run by the v . c . , initiates the horrifying scenes in the movie , where the prisoners are forced to play russian roulette against each other . steven , who is emotionally marred by this turn of events , is secluded in a tiger cage with water up to his face when he refuses to participate . michael shows his leadership again by convincing nick that the only way that steven will survive is if the two friends play against each other , and moreover , they must play with 3 bullets in the gun . personally , i felt that de niro's absolutely gripping portrayal really was displayed in a brilliant way in these and the following scenes . the men are eventually able to escape , but are separated . michael is able to get steven , who ends up losing his legs , to medical care , while nick finds his way to saigon and a u . s . army hospital . michael returns home and does not feel at all like a hero . he wants to avoid the celebrations and recognition that his friends would like to bestow upon him . he assumes that nick is still lost in vietnam . the third act concentrates more on walken's character , who eventually stumbles upon a small gambling operation where the game is , again , russian roulette . only in this game , you play for money . michael has learned that nick is possibly still alive and returns to saigon to attempt to find him . the two narrowly find each other at the russian roulette games , but do not link up until michael discovers nick participating in the games and tries to bring him home . a very emotional , and , for many , a very disturbing movie , the deer hunter is a truly magnificent movie that should not be missed . the greatest performances possible are turned in by all actors , and cimino's directing , which is considered to be at his all-time best in this film , is equally dazzling . do not miss this film , it will captivate and astound you .
1	review : ghost dog : the way of the samurai ( 1999 ) cast : forest whitaker , henry silva , cliff gorman , john tormey , gene riffini , victor argo , tricia vessey , isaach de bankole' , camille winbush director : jim jarmusch writer : jim jarmusch rating : good shot ( stars ) languid , yet pointed and focused , ghost dog : the way of the samurai sublimely savages our cultural fascination with the mafia and the sleek , ultra-cool , cinematic image of the hitman . juxtaposing the samurai's honor code of feudal japan against the tradition bound modus operandi of the american/italian mafia , it ceaselessly chips away with a sculptor's precision at the archaic foundations of both as they lumber , dinosaur-like , to function in the modern era . director jarmusch gleefully plays the iconoclast , ripping into mafioso precepts with splashes of acidic wit . using a palate of bleached colors , jarmusch lugubriously maintains a tone of desolation that belies the many sparks of laugh out loud humor punctuating the film . he doesn't cater to audience expectations of hyper-colorized , stylized violence and gunplay where no one dies . the action is presented in flat , brutal codas . bullets have permanence . death has consequences . the movie rises beyond standard conventions to become a meditation on the concepts of honor and loyalty . it is an anti-movie , of sorts . there are few photogenic , empathetic characters for the audience to fall in love with . this isn't a film that lovingly holds your hand . there are dark , contemplative moments and the film firmly holds you by the shoulder , just so , asserting itself for all to see . the fulcrum for the movie's thematic balancing act is ghost dog , a mafia hitman . a twist on the stereotypical image of the mob enforcer , ghost dog is a hilarious contradiction in terms . unlike the sleek , muscular killing machines one is accustomed to , we are given an inner city black man who is overweight and slovenly , replete with chapped , dirty hands and rumpled clothing . he wears a hooded sweatshirt , which he often pulls over his head , giving him a monk-like appearance . there are no acrobatic back flips and shiny super guns in his arsenal . he uses old , worn weapons and simply goes about his tasks in economical , efficient and pleasureless fashion . ghost dog is a disciple of the old ways of the samurai , distilling the essence of his life through the filter of a book , which he reads daily , hagakure : the way of the samurai . life consists of simple pleasures for him : ice cream , warm rooftop naps and good books . ghost dog lives , as it were , by the basic tenet expressed by his book ; one should start each day considering oneself as dead . living atop an abandoned building , surrounded by his flock of pet carrier pigeons , ghost dog exists in a netherworld lacking creature comforts and friends . he craves nothing more . as he puts it late in the film , " i've seen all i want to see . " he exists in a spiritual world of the mind , gaining moral sustenance from his readings . ghost dog wasn't always as he is presented . in several roshomon-like flashbacks , it's shown how ghost dog was assaulted by racist white males and beaten nearly to death until the timely intervention of a good samaritan , that " samaritan " being a foot soldier in an aging crime family . ghost dog pledges his life to the service of the man , louie ( tormey ) , as repayment . after years of loyal service , ghost dog is sent , by louie , to kill " handsome frank " , a made man within louie's organization who has run away with the crime boss's daughter , louise ( vessey ) . ghost dog wordlessly executes his task , witnessed by louise , whom he spares , as she sits watching a betty boop cartoon , clutching a copy of the book , roshomon . in a bit of synchronicity , louise loans the book to ghost dog . upset that frank was taken out by someone not from the family , the mob bosses , in turn , put out a hit on ghost dog in a perverse twist of loyalty to their assassinated comrade . the rest of movie holds the dated value systems of both the mafia and ghost dog up to the light of a new millennium with many acerbic asides as the two come factions come into conflict . the theme of old cartoons flares up time and again , each time showing cartoon violence that is in sharp counterpoint to the reality of ghost dog's world . each time a character is shown watching a cartoon , it's from the same era , betty boop , felix the cat , etc . , a reflection of days gone by . near the end , louise is watching a cartoon that's a departure from the previously shown ones . it's a bit of audacity on jarmusch's part that is nicely effective , despite it's surrealistic nature . as ghost dog floats through his world , his life is touched by two people . one is a sage little girl ( winbush ) who connects with ghost dog through their love of reading . she comes to symbolize a melding of the old ways and new sensibilities , just as louise ultimately does . by film's end , the fact that jamusch is so effective at illustrating the tenuous bond between the two is a testament to his skill as a writer . the other person in ghost dog's world is an ice cream ( de bankole' ) vendor who only speaks french , yet intuitively shares a rapport with ghost dog . the vendor is the literal stranger in a strange land . jarmusch , through rapper/composer rza , underscores his film with rap and reggae music , which at first blush seems dichotomous , but its primal rhythms serve to strengthen the fundamental nature of the movie . ghost dog seems to draw some type of strength from the rap music he listens to as he negotiates the streets in various stolen cars . ( which , in and of itself , presents another paradox about ghost's dog's sense of honor . ) the head mafioso is played by henry silva with a stone faced resignation . of all the cartoonish mobsters , he is the only one who appears self aware of his state in the world . gorman plays sonny , a lieutenant who respects the old ways , yet has a quirky affinity for rap music , a love comically shown in several impromptu displays . ruffini seems the truest reflection of the mafia . he is a husk of a man , assisted by two hearing aids , who barks out advice without truly hearing what he , or others are saying . whitaker carries the film by using what truly great actor's use , his face . ghost dog is reticent to speak , often going for long periods without doing so . the fact that whitaker can convey such a wide range of emotion through a gesture or look is a remarkable talent . although the film has a deliberate pace , some of the late night drives and walks taken by ghost dog dragged the momentum down . truly tragic is how ghost dog misinterprets japanese honor in his final confrontation with the mob . he reveals himself to be so desperate for spiritual guidance through the hagakure that he fails to truly adapt it to what is real and true in his world . carried on the shoulders of a remarkable performance by whitaker , ghost dog rises beyond being a characterization or icon , into a figure that garners sympathy , if not a bit of pity .
1	it has happened again . a movie that is well scripted , well acted , and well directed . it is involving , suspenseful . . . it even has an unexpected twist at the end that packs a punch like a blow to the solar plexus . but in order to accept its premise one must also accept a spiritual lie . the sixth sense is that movie . starring bruce willis ( armageddon ) as a child psychologist and haley joel osment ( forrest gump ) as a troubled youngster , the sixth sense is more spooky than scary , though it does contain disturbing images designed to startle . eight-year-old cole sear ( osment ) sees dead people . not just in dreams . and not just as lifeless bodies . he sees them walking around like regular people . and he sees them all the time . dr . malcolm crowe ( willis ) is trying to help him . he recognizes in cole many of the same attributes as one of his earlier patients whom crowe failed , resulting in that patient shooting crowe before turning the gun on himself . if crowe could manage to find a way to help cole , he believes he just might be able to put his own demons to rest . but first he needs to gain cole's trust . the boy is so frightened by what he sees , he has closed himself off emotionally , being unwilling to tell anyone . . . not crowe , not even his own mother ( toni collette , clockwatchers ) . . . about his " secrets . " crowe begins to spend more and more time with him , even as his own marriage starts to dissolve around him , his wife anna ( olivia williams , rushmore ) becoming cold and distant because of his neglect of her and his preoccupation with the boy . bruce willis underplays his role , allowing the excellent script to do most of the work of building character development . crowe moves from treating a troubled boy who won't communicate , to treating a troubled boy who is having hallucinations , to wondering if perhaps there isn't some truth behind what the boy sees . mr . willis does a serviceable job , letting the focus remain on the story instead of on his familiar action hero screen persona . eleven-year-old haley joel osment manages to impress us with his performance . he demonstrates an amazing amount of self-composure as well as an ability to play nuances in a complex character as if he were a seasoned pro . it is fine work for one of such a tender age . keep your eye on this young man . the supporting cast is also quite effective . toni collette , as the confused , frightened , and frustrated mother who can't understand what is happening to her child ; olivia williams , as crowe's once loving wife who is shutting down emotionally due to the lack of attention from her husband ; and donnie wahlberg ( ransom ) as crowe's ex-patient , now grown , who illustrates his doctor's failure to help him in the most vivid terms imaginable . twenty-eight year old m . night shyamalan ( wide awake ) directed his own script , maintaining a proper tension throughout the film and crafting the storytelling so expertly that the film's full impact is not reached until its final moments , when a surprising revelation forces a reevaluation of all that preceded it . it is a rare movie which manages to pull that off and mr . shyamalan , as the one responsible , is certainly to be commended . in giving the sixth sense a favorable " three star " review for its craftsmanship and artistic merit , i must also point out that , spiritually speaking , the film is highly misleading . there is no scriptural foundation upon which to base a belief in ghosts or the " living dead . " the concept of death being a doorway to another plane of existence is a devilish lie that has been around as long as man himself . the first lie recorded in the bible was devised by the serpent who assured eve , " thou shall not surely die , " a direct contradiction of god's admonition . that same lie has been perpetuated ad infinitum throughout the ages . scriptures do speak of a time when the dead shall rise but that wonderful demonstration of victory over death will not commence until after the second coming of christ . . . an event which has not yet occurred . therefore , the dead remain in a state of oblivion , having no consciousness , until that long-awaited time when the final trump shall sound . and then , you'll need six senses to register all the joy and rejoicing that will resound throughout the heavens .
1	damn those trailers . had it not been for the advertising of this film , which reveals far too much about its contents , i would have been glued to `under the sand' . as it is , the film retains some value , thanks to an excellent performance by charlotte rampling , and a more mature francois ozon in the director's chair . marie ( charlotte rampling ) and her husband jean ( bruno cremer ) lounge on the beach . she takes a nap while he goes for a swim . when marie wakes up , jean is nowhere to be found . she contacts authorities , but they can't find him either . did he disappear to start a new life ? was he killed by accident ? did he commit suicide ? marie still asks herself these questions a year later , and in order to move on with her life , she must find some answers . it's a fine premise , and this little movie uses it to the limit . the film moves at a leisurely pace , a bit slow , but relaxing . it's a very visual story , and you can pretty much just sit back without reading the subtitles . this is mostly thanks to the excellent camera work by antoine heberle and jeanne lapoirie , who shot the film in a dreamy haze , and the lead performance by rampling . rampling is so expressive in her portrayal of marie , you connect with her character instantly , despite that she's delusional . the scenes where she interacts with her husband , who she still believes is alive , are heartbreaking . she can't quite get over him . they've been married for twenty-five years . the other actors , particularly jacques nolot , are excellent too . the sex in the film is rather unneeded , but compared to ozon's `criminal lovers' , it's the disney channel . likely to cause some discussion afterwards , `under the sand' is a fine movie going experience . while it's hard to recommend as entertainment , it's a fine adult alternative about how we deal with loss . ozon seems to ask what you would do , and that's certainly a hard question to answer .
1	synopsis : bobby garfield ( yelchin ) lives in a small town with his mirthless widowed mother ( hope davis ) . bobby's world revolves around his friends , especially the spritely carol ( boorem ) . then one day , a new boarder arrives at bobby's house . ted brautigan ( hopkins ) is an enigmatic man to whom bobby takes an immediate liking . as the bond between bobby and ted deepens , bobby becomes privy to ted's great secret , an event which will change both of their lives forever . review : a small but enchanting movie , " hearts in atlantis " easily recalls another king-inspired coming-of-age film , " stand by me " , both in terms of its setting and the sentiment it conveys . " hearts " is a tribute to the magic of childhood , to those summers when the days seem neverending , and nothing means more than your closest friends . unlike " stand by me " , there is a supernatural element to " hearts " , but although it is key to the plot , it is not prominent . like " stand by me " , this is a mostly character-driven film , and as such it benefits greatly from superb casting . yelchin is very good as bobby , finding a good mix of innocence and resignation . more splendid still is boorem , whom i praised highly for her work in " along came a spider " and who is simply radiant here as carol . and then there is hopkins , who despite playing such a quiet , introspective character as ted , nonetheless commands our attention every time he is onscreen . less successful is davis , whose strident elizabeth comes across as overly cartoonish . i also found it odd that bobby and carol's other friend , sully ( whose death as an adult sets up the movie's flashback framing device ) , is paid virtually no attention . but hicks' direction is lovely without being cloying , and despite the movie's general lack of incident , it never ceases to weave its spell over the audience .
1	seen september 5 , 1998 at 10 p . m . at the sony nickelodeon theaters ( boston , ma ) , theater #2 , with matt perreault for free using my sony/loews critic's pass . [theater rating : * * 1/2 : okay seats , sound , and picture] modern society is now inundated with more sex and sexuality than it ever has been before , from teenage sitcoms to nc-17-rated films about fetishes . the biggest debate of the subject is whether or not it affects reality or just reflects it . " your friends and neighbors " takes a different approach as it's a film that revolves almost entirely around sex and how can be used for both pain and pleasure even within a small circle of friends . one of the most important aspects of the film that most be noted and analyzed before the film can really be dissected as a whole is writer/director neil labute's basic setup and some of the unique methods he employs to tell the story . firstly , and most importantly is the fact the script tells a rather complex , detailed story of lust , betrayal , arrogance , hypocrisy , greed , and just plain stupidity between six different characters ( three men , three women ) , without hardly any supporting characters , ( a few have a line or two ) , mostly extras . everything they do will somehow affect another character and ultimately come full-circle back to themselves , whether it be positive or negative . but to just state this is arbitrary , and explaining and criticizing the process is difficult . labute's ability to tell his story through a few characters is a remarkable feat , but what's specifically impressive is the fact the characters' names are never revealed until the end credits roll . for the sake of this review , i will describe the characters and refer to them as their main characteristic . another interesting accomplishment is the fact every scene takes place inside with limited focus . we're always able to tell where the characters are ( someone's home , the gym , a restaurant , hotel room , etc . ) , but what the city they live in , what year it is , what the society is like , etc . is relatively unknown . the film is a complete character study with the tight , intense drama of the theater . no one plot dominates the story , which makes the first act a bit tedious for its lack of background . we're simply dropped in on the characters' lives and are expected to figure out the rest . the characters are a group of middle-class white people who are all successful at what they do , but they're only concern right now seems to be their sex lives . first there's barry ( eckhart ) and mary ( brenneman ) , a married couple who are going through a dry spell not unlike many other couples in other situations who don't know what they're problem is . barry is kind of a dorky businessman who loves his wife , and the sex they have , but doesn't have a lot of ambition - he just follows everyone else . mary is a writer of some sort , but lacks aggression and emotion like her husband and is the meekness character , but ironically , doesn't hesitate to commit adultery just to feel something . labute's script does a good job in characterizing mary and barry as individuals , but is very light on chemistry and connection between the two . obviously , this is the theme , which is enhanced by the actors' good performances , but at the same time seems just a bit hollow . another couple is jerry ( stiller ) and terri ( keener ) who live together and seem to have been involved with each other for a long time , yet they constantly argue over anything and everything . their sex life is also fraught with problems and for some reason they continue to do it throughout their infidelitous relationship . if only one aspect of the film could use improvement , it would be this area . it's natural for a married couple to become bored with each other , but why would two people who can barely stand each other continue to have sex and live together ? what did they ever see in the other person to begin with ? labute never really answers , but since the film is more concerned with the payoff than the process , it still makes for good drama , tension , and manip ulation so intricate and deceitful it's fascinating . two other characters act as catalysts , cary ( jason patric ) and cheri ( natassja kinski ) . cary is an arrogant , hostile sex-maniac who defines the word " bastard . " somehow he is able to bend women to his will , either through charm or just attitude , into getting his way . he's the kind of guy everyone should stay away from as we realize he's secretly perverted , but somehow barry finds comfort in his company , although jerry is always nervous around him . patric gives an outstanding performance , so much so that we want to know more about him despite how intimidating and unlikable he is . cheri is a character labute uses as a catalyst to see how the other characters react to her . she works in an art museum and at some point throughout the film , each character will engage her in almost the exact same conversation and her reaction is always different , from becoming involved in a relationship with one , to brushing it off as small talk with another , to being outright appalled by yet another . she's a sweet woman , perhaps the most normal of any of the characters , and although her symbolism is obvious , her role as the outsider is the most relatable . i will not reveal who cheats on who and how each character is specifically affected by the others' action , as that's the hook of the film . the first two acts begin to set up the characters and each's scenarios , but it's often difficult to tell what they will do about it and with whom . the result is sometimes surprising , other times predictable , but the actual course of actions is always fascinating . for a while everyone has their fun , but ultimately each character's guilt , attitude , or ignorance will disserve them . one of the most important things to note is how realistic the story is supposed to be . since the characters only interact with each other there isn't much pop culture references , as almost everything has a deeper philosophy behind it . are we to assume that these people are , as the title states , our friends and neighbors ? i don't know of anyone going through the same situations as these people . often times the film is not unlike a network melodrama , other times situations are like those not seen outside a porno movie . but what this film does have that the others don't is repercussions in the end . although the film creates its own reality , it goes to show that even the immoral aren't immortal . in what way " your friends and neighbors " is supposed to work is open to interpretation . it definitely has a lot to say about the price that comes with infidelity , but it could have been even better had it expanded on that theme more specifically . still , it's an accomplishment in film-making because it has put a timeless theme into a modern perspective .
1	what's shocking about " carlito's way " is how good it is . having gotten a bit of a bad rap for not being a big box office hit like pacino's previous film , " scent of a woman , " and not having as strong a performance as he did in that one ( he had just won an oscar ) , " carlito's way " was destined for underrated heaven . that's what it is : an underrated gem of a movie . and what a shame because pacino and de palma both do amazing jobs with it , and turn it into a great piece of a pulpy character study . " carlito's way " deals with , well , carlito brigante ( pacino ) , a puerto rican ex-drug kingpin , who gets out of a long jailterm when his coke-addicted , curly-haired lawyer ( sean penn ) points out a legal technicality . of course , carlito was actually awoken in prison , and has decided to go straight , even if he's really a crook at heart . carlito , like barry lyndon , is a man who is trapped by fate at every turn , and can't escape into something he is not . carlito's attempts at a clean , legal life are thwarted at nearly every turn . when he first gets out , a friend of his ends up leading him into a big shoot-out , where he has to kill a couple people to survive . he's constantly getting bugged by the government to see if he's doing anything illegal , and his lawyer finds himself neck-deep in a pile of shit , needing him to try and help him out , which includes him doing some prison breaking . carlito , like ratso rizzo , wants to go to miami ( since , according to film logic , that's where it's at ) , but needs some funding . being a legend , he is quickly able to get a nice job running a big dance club ( this is the 70s , by the way , and since some of this takes place in night clubs , we get to hear all sorts of 70s classics , including several k . c . and the sunshine band tunes - my personal favorite ) . he gets a bodyguard ( the great luis guzman , at his best ) , and is soon running a pretty good business , even if he's constantly attracting underworld young thugs , like benny blanco " from the bronx " ( john leguiziamo ) , who is more than once pointed out to be a young version of carlito . on the other side , the symbol of promise and hope , is gail ( penelope ann miller - what happened to her ? ) , his girlfriend from before prison . she's a goregeous ballerina , and a stripper , and soon carlito is trying to get back with her , and take her with him when he finally leaves for miami . while this relationship is never fully defined or anything , we get a sense of love between them , and they have some truly interesting scenes between them ( she never gives him addresses or locales - he always has to track her down ) . all of these elements clash together at the end , in a brilliantly executed , emotional climax , which is inevitable . when i say inevitable , i mean we see it at the beginning and then backtrack , putting a great spin on it . sure , it's going to eleveate some of the tension , but it gives the film a lot of depth , as carlito is seen trapped by fate . what's amazing is the big chase sequence ( amazingly done by de palma ) has a lot of tension and thrills . like " apollo 13 , " we know what's going to happen , but we're still thrilled by what happens in the middle . it's also very emotional , thanks to a great script by david koepp , and amazing performances by pacino and miller . de palma is famous ( or infamous ) for lots of violence in his films . his earlier flim , " scarface " ( which starred pacino in the lead ) , has a ton of it , especially at the end ( and a nasty chainsaw scene towards the beginning which i'm still not over ) . but de palma actually reigns in more quieter scenes . to me , the best scene in the film is when carlito is on top of a building , looking down into the room where gail is doing ballet . this is the most brilliantly done , and most emotionally stimulating scene in the entire film , and probably the best in de palma film history . with a gorgeous soprano duet in the background , and rain pouring down onto a trashcan lid covering carlito's head , and a saddened , remorseful look on pacino's face , it's a tear-jerker ( well , for me , i dunno about you . . . ) . the acting from all is great , especially from the three leads . pacino was panned for his performance , chiefly because his accent wasn't puerto rican enough and , well , it wasn't as " strong " as his oscar-winning role in " scent of a woman . " well , his " scent of a woman " performance was great and all , but it was nothing really but , as comic kevin pollack said , a " foghorn leghorn impression . " in " carlito's way , " he's emotional , and strong , despite the fact that he's remorseful over his entire lifestyle , which he cannot change . i felt more for carlito brigante than i did for the tango-dancing , insult-throwing blind guy in " scent of a woman . " as i said , penelope ann miller is great , and she and pacino actually have very good chemistry . and they're scenes are well-written , with some good clever dialogue which adds some interest to an otherwise bland relationship . and sean penn is amazing as the coke-addicted rat attorney . every scene he's in , he has great energy , and even measures up to the greatness that is pacino . in smaller roles , john leguiziamo and luis guzman are great . " carlito's way " is one of those films which you heard about briefly , but when you finally watch it , you're absolutely blown away . it's a wonderful film , a highly underrated little masterpiece which was shelved after it didn't do so hot . but trust me and check it out . it's a great little film , and proof that the residential critics and mass populus are not always right .
1	all those who were offended by there's something about mary should not tread in the waters of american pie , a gratuitously sexual rollercoaster ride of raunch . and while this uproariously funny , gross-out summer movie is basically an exercise in bad taste , it also demonstrates a surprising sweetness in the end . american pie is the latest entry to the offensive teenage-targeted fare this season . i must question the studio that releases a movie like this . the producers are aiming these films at the 15-24 crowd , but while pushing the limit of possible sex and violence in an r-rated film . some have even been narrowly avoiding the dreaded nc-17 , a rating the mpaa gives when the adult content surpasses even that of a restricted movie . american pie was threatened with an nc-17 , but after snipping a few scenes from the finished product , it was given an r . but at least this new addition is not as careless and unforgiving as something like south park . it is sick , perverse , and ultimately disgusting - not to mention extremely funny . american pie is about four desperate teenagers who make a pact to lose their virginity by prom night . jim ( jason biggs ) , kevin ( thomas ian nicholas ) , oz ( chris klein ) and finch ( eddie kaye thomas ) are a quartet of high school students in their senior year who think sex is something they must experience to be successful in their lives ahead . jim inquires what it feels like when you reach third base , to which one of his friends replies : `like warm apple pie . . . ' . of course , this prompts the scene unfairly exposed in the trailers , in which jim and a freshly baked pie have a very intimate moment in the kitchen corner . there are many moments , such as this , in which director paul weitz uses a game-plan similar to the one frequently displayed in mary : to cause the audience to break down laughing in disgusting disbelief . american pie is a hard-fought effort that has replenishing rewards if you manage to stick with it . i loved the young cast in this movie . consider the subject matter that these actors have dealt with , obviously suggestiveness never rivaled in any of their previous projects , and you should appreciate their performances . biggs is more than enjoyable , and chris klein ( who recently played a similar jock in election ) is obviously a young talent on the rise . but in a teen-dominated movie , the best performance comes from comedian eugene levy ( of television's sctv ) , who is unexpectedly brilliant as jim's uneasy father . scenes in which the familiar father-son conversations are brought to interesting new levels are the funniest moments to be found in american pie . after levy discovers jim's new use for apple pie , he tells him , `i did a fare share of that sort of thing when i was your age . but i never used baked goods . ' it is performances such as his , and bill murray's in rushmore , that are often unfairly dismissed when awards are handed out . there are some less-than-original aspects of the film . a bathroom incident involving finch and a bottle of ex-lax is something we've seen before . if weitz is planning to take after the farrelly brothers , then this is a decidedly unwise move : the same prank was pulled in the brother's dumb and dumber , and used to greater effect . secondly , the characters are forced into a half-hearted climax that seems more artificial than amusing . but at one point , in which we discover that american pie does have a heart of it's own , biggs asks his buddies why he's going through so much pressure for something that's `not very important anyway . ' and so we realize that while the film is expressive about a subject that is hardly appropriate , it still manages to be mature . in it's own way .
1	kadosh means sacred in hebrew . amos gitai's fictional work , after spending most of his career doing documentaries , is a grim story about a failed hasidic marriage , even though the marriage is a loving one . the marriage will symbolize the clash of cultures in modern israel between the native israeli's modern viewpoint toward religion and the political savvy hasidic's intolerable one , as both groups are vying for control of the secular government . gitai ( devarim/yom yom ) is a labor party leftist , who believes that if the rigid hasidic ever got control of the government , it would sound the death knell of israel . the emphasis of the film is on how the ultra-orthodox jews of that sect live by the letter of the torah in everything they do and how they subjugate the women to accept their vision of god's law from only the male's view . that if they ever got control of the country , their intolerant attitude would subjugate the country the same way the women are . the story takes place in jerusalem's jewish quarters called mea shearim , where we are taken down sinewy back streets with placards pasted on the walls , and into the crowded apartments and prayer rooms where the protagonists live out their idea of the proper jewish life , which is much different than the way most jews live in israel . this is a controversial film , in that the women are unhappy and the male attitudes are to such an extreme patriarchal ones , that the film is bound to anger most viewers , no matter their belief . it is a slow-moving , meticulous film , that grabs hold of you by the collar and never lets go . the force of what is seen , though filmed in an objective manner , never taking a cheap shot at the hasidim , is nevertheless bound to leave questions about the nature of such a practice of strict observance . the film is meant to be critical of such a rigid people , as it implies how they kill the spirit of everything they touch and with their extreme phobic attitudes , it makes it impossible for them to unite the country when they can't at present live in harmony with their own people , and it would be even more impossible to imagine them living with their arab neighbors in peace . the film opens as meir rises at dawn and goes through his prayer ritual , where every prayer is made to the virtues of god . he even thanks god that he didn't make him a woman . his wife rivka accepts the fate she was born into and looks at him from the next bed where she sleeps separately according to hasidic custom . she looks at him with glistening eyes , not questioning the laws or rebelling against her secondary role and how her religion keeps her from studying the talmud and having all the modern conveniences of life , and from seeing movies and tv . meir is a talmudic scholar . his father ( abu warda ) is a rabbi at the yeshiva . he has been married for ten years and his wife has not been able to give him a child . since the hasidim look upon a woman's role in life being only to conceive children , and cook and clean house for the man , while the man's role is to spend his time in prayer , therefore there is an insurmountable problem in this otherwise loving marriage . she receives an anonymous letter that states " a woman without a child is no better than dead . " meir's response , is that it is written like that in the talmud . meir's father tells him that the marriage contract must be broken : " a man who dies without progeny rips a page from the torah . " all the blame is placed on rivka , who is thought of as unpure as the reason for her being barren . she will go through countless ritual baths to cleanse herself , as her rigid mother ( koenig ) dunks her in the holy water and says a ritual prayer for the 12 times she is dunked as an homage to the 12 tribes of israel . their religion doesn't permit them to be examined extensively by a doctor . rivka goes on the sly and finds out that it is her husband who is sterile , but she cannot tell him that because of their religion . so when meir's father chooses a younger woman for his son , she is exiled to live alone in a cold apartment in the same jewish quarters . rivka's spirited younger sister malka does not want to get married but wants to live a more liberated life . she has a long time romantic relationship with a fellow hasidic yaakov . but , because of the way they were both raised , she is still a virgin . when yaakov joined the israeli army to fight in lebanon , something his sect is not allowed to do , he is thereby banished from the sect even though he is still a believer . he now works as a singer in a nightclub . malka's mother is worried that her daughter won't get married , so she arranges with the rabbi for her to marry yossef , someone whom she doesn't love . yossef is a very stern follower of the order , he is also a political activist who drives around the city in a sound-truck with a bull-horn urging jews to stick together and fight their godless enemies . the two sisters are close and languidly discuss their options , with rivka telling her sister to accept the marriage , it will make her happy ; but , while malka is reluctantly forced into accepting it , she has other plans to ruin this bogus marriage . the harshest scene in the film is on malka's wedding night . yossef prays to god for a child and then robotically gets malka to spread her legs , and without the least bit of affection , only a nervousness shown on his part for the function he supplies , as he goes inside her and rams her hard , thrusting away until the act is completed and then retiring without a word or gesture of love . the sisters have choices , like everyone else in life does . but the choices are obliterated by one's beliefs , circumstances , and inward nature , and how difficult it is to carry out those choices if it goes completely against the way one is brought up . for the sisters , the choices are life or death ones . gitai by closing in on the daily rituals , tight living quarters and close-knit community , has shown how difficult these choices are for those who have never seen another world and have been kept in the dark all their life . the film ends with the forlorn malka walking atop of jerusalem and looking down upon it as an outsider would , and everything seems strange to her , all the things she once thought of as being set in stone are now harsh memories , as she has made her choice , and the price of that choice is very heavy indeed .
0	tom dicillo directs this superficial comedy about superficial people in superficial careers , all searching for deeper meaning . however , they won't find much meaning in the real blonde , and not enough real humor , either . joe ( matthew modine ) is a struggling actor , or he claims to be one , even though he has no credits under his belt . his girlfriend , mary ( catherine keener ) has no pretensions about her career : she's a makeup artist , working for the eccentric fashion photographer blair ( marlo thomas ) and supermodel of the month , sahara ( bridgette wilson ) . sahara , who has acquired a new age spirituality from repeated viewing of the little mermaid , has an on-again , off-again relationship with joe's best friend , bob ( maxwell caulfield ) . however , bob has gotten his biggest break yet : a starring role on a soap opera opposite the beautiful kelly ( daryl hannah ) , who may be that illusive woman he's always pursued : a real blonde . there are some moments of good humor in the real blonde , but not enough . the best stuff is in throwaway details in the background , such as sahara's perfume ads : " depression - it's not just a state of mind " . but to find humor in the superficiality of models and actors is to shoot fish in a barrel . and , unfortunately , the film's forays outside the realm of comedy are pathetic . take for example the film's framing device of an old lady and her dog . the story serves absolutely no purpose , makes little sense , and is completely tangential to the main plotlines of the movie . matthew modine and catherine keener have the most sympathetic characters in the film , but they're stuck in the most boring plotlines . modine whines and complains and would be completely pathetic if he was matched against someone stronger than elizabeth berkley , who appears as another struggling actor . keener's character has a stronger edge , but the insult self-defense class ( taught by denis leary , no less ) she is stuck in makes little sense . the movie's running time is under two hours , but it seems like it is well over it . there's just not enough humor to speed things along , and not enough meaning to propel any drama .
0	inspired by the 1958 film house on haunted hill starring vincent price . directed by william malone . starring geoffrey rush , famke janssen , and chris kattan . rated r ( contains violence , profanity , and brief nudity ) . synopsis : eccentric millionaire price offers $1 , 000 , 000 to each of his guests who appear at a gathering at a former sanitarium . the only catch is that they have to survive the night at the establishment , an establishment haunted by its former staff and patients . comments : house on haunted hill is based upon the original 1958 film of the same title directed by william castle and starring vincent price . in an obvious homage , the millionaire's name is price and he sports a thin mustache like price used to have . this is a pretty bad horror film , yet bad horror films sometimes are very entertaining , and house on haunted hill is just such a film . it is , surprisingly , better than another recent haunted house remake , the haunting , a film which owes its basis to the classic horror novel by shirley jackson . the haunting had literary pretensions and fell flat on it face . house on haunted hill owes its lineage to a b-movie 40 years old and makes no illusion that it's a crappy horror movie . thus , somehow , it proves slightly more successful . i can't think of another recent film which has had such an eclectic cast . it is this cast which lifts this ho-hum thriller into a borderline entertaining exercise in camp horror . price , the main character , is played by geoffrey rush , the academy-award winning actor of shine . rush seems to be making a downward spiral in the movie industry , a spiral reminiscent of ben ( ghandi , schindler's list ) kingsley's ridiculous appearance in the camp sci-fi classic species . i don't know why , but sometimes it's entertaining to see " quality " actors in bad movies . more surprises ? rising star taye diggs plays a stereotypical african american sports figure ( rather lamely too ) , and singer lisa loeb ( ! ) appears as a tv news reporter . the highlight of the cast , however , has to be saturday night live member chris kattan . kattan's comic sense provides several good humorous moments as he plays the hysterical proprietor of the former sanitarium . while the first half of the film leaves the audience guessing as to what's exactly going on , the second half dissolves into standard ghost story stuff and loses some of its suspense . a disappointingly cheesy ending really mars this movie too . house on haunted hill , i suspect , has just about left the second-run theaters . it's worth catching on cable next year , if you get a chance . if you have a choice , pick this movie over the haunting , it's the better of two evils , you could say . though , more appropriately perhaps , it'd be better to say that it's the better of two turkeys .
1	i must admit i'm going to be a bit biased in my review of the new romantic comedy serendipity , because that also defines how i met my current girlfriend . the magic and mystery of our fated encounter is also embodied in the quirkiness and freshness of the very funny and very romantic serendipity . i am not a big fan of the romantic comedy genre , but something drew me to this film . maybe it was the casting of the underrated jeremy piven in a supporting role , and the hilarious eugene levy . maybe it was my hope that john cusack would get the redemption he justly deserves after such crap as high fidelity , con air , and pushing tin . but maybe it was because i feel as giddy as a school kid right now with this whole romantic thing currently in my life . the story of serendipity is simple . two people , john trager ( john cusack ) and sara thomas ( kate beckinsale , looking ever so hot ) , have a chance encounter over a pair of gloves -- with buck henry smack dab in the middle . charmed beyond repair , these two knuckleheads grab a sundae together at a caf ? called serendipity , talk about that irresponsible thing called fate and the avenues it leads people down , and spend a few hours at the local ice skating rink . but with each of them already involved with other parties , sara has john write his name and number on a $5 bill and she writes her name and number on a copy of love in the time of cholera . sara declares that if this " thing " -- let's just call it love -- is destined to happen , fate will bring them together in the future . years later and on opposite coasts of america , john and sara -- both engaged but still unsure whether they have found their soul mates -- decide to seek each other out to rest their doubts . what happens then is an enjoyable and often hilarious cat-and-mouse game with the fates - involving such items as mistaken identity , a graduate homage , john corbett as a freaky new age musician , and eugene levy as an irate and crazed salesman -- to find out if that " thing " was right after all . fortunately , first-time screenwriter marc klein has sketched strong , well-rounded , characters to propel a predictable and corny narrative . coupled with deft directing by michael chelsom ( director of the very unfunny town and country and the very funny funny bones ) and the use of time-lapse camera work to illustrate the passage of years -- the film comes off with genuine believability and sincerity . both piven and molly shannon make nice sidekick characters on the flipside , films such as you've got mail , made in heaven , and even high fidelity are the quiet inspirations for the film's main journey at hand . but it's what happens to the unexpecting characters left behind in the romantic wake after john and sara find happiness this is the most unsettling part of the picture .
0	>from writer and director darren stein comes jawbreaker , the poorly told tale of what can happen when an innocent birthday prank goes wrong . at reagan high , four girls are sitting on top of the world . courtney shane , played by rose mcgowan , holds the title of meanest , most disrespectful soul in the school . everyone hates her , but everyone envies her due to her popularity . courtney is the " leader " of her clique , which also includes julie , played by rebecca gayheart , liz purr , played by charlotte roldan , and marcie , played by julie benz are the other three in the group . it is liz's seventeenth birthday , and julie , courtney , and marcie concur that they will play a seemingly innocent prank on her , but the prank results in the death of liz . just like stupid teens in any teen directed film such as this one , the foursome decide to cover up the death to make it look like a murder committed by someone else . and also just like in other teen directed movies , one of the four don't agree with hiding it , this time that character being julie . and finally , just like in other teen movies , there is a witness outside the group trying to hide the truth . this time that character being fern mayo ( judy greer ) , who is subject to many cracks from courtney's group , as well as the entire school . >from here , jawbreaker turns into a predictable tale of revenge , bad morals , and at least trying to do the right thing . not only is the script weak , on a whole the acting is horrid thanks to a large amount of the main cast . judy greer is undeniably awful as her one dimensional , annoying character , as she overacts every line she has . also on the bad side of acting is julie benz , almost falling to the annoying factor that greer delivers . on the positive side of acting , rose mcgowan performs well here , but doesn't match her wickedly clever performance as " tatum " , in 1996's scream . mcgowan's role is annoying , but this only adds to the film . she is wickedly mean , and even though she a well-written character , you downright hate her . faring even better than mcgowan is rebecca gayheart , who is always exceptionally believable as her roles . when the script feeds her a one or two dimensional character , she turns it into three , always putting strong emotion and power into her roles . gayheart isn't given as much to do here as she was in 1998's urban legend , but you can still get a strong taste of her acting skills in jawbreaker . jawbreaker drifts and mianders different sub plots throughout , hardly throwing anything for the viewer to get absorbed in . we get way off of the topic of the jawbreaker incident , and get into things that don't have anything to do with the actual film . the beginning and ending are strong , it's just the middle that needs a lot of help . during the body of the movie , it is undeniably repetitive , never progressing towards a conclusion . nothing to grab the viewer's interest is around , and the same , extremely annoying song plays over and over again . jawbreaker tries to get off on the same time of humor used in the 1995 film clueless , but falls flat . the few gags that actually work die off quickly and die off with a bang . all in all , a horrible disappointment . the bottom line : the tagline reads , " even the sweetest candies are sour as death inside . " yes , that is too true . no matter how good this film may have looked , it fails to deliver .
0	in the interest of being generous , i want to start this review with the scene that i liked in meet joe black . sir anthony hopkins , playing a super-rich media mogul , has gathered his family around him for dinner . his oldest daughter ( played by marcia gay harden from millers crossing ) , who has been obsessively planning his sinfully extravagant birthday party , presents him with three superbly decorated little cakes , which are supposed to be scale models for his big birthday cake . the daughter asks hopkins to pick the one he likes . hopkins , frustrated by the weight of planning for the whole elaborate affair , does what any man in his position would do : he punts . whichever one you like , dear , he says . and the daughter does exactly what any woman in her position would do : she cries . i liked that scene for two reasons . first , the cakes looked really cool . second , it was , perhaps , the only scene in the movie where people acted as you would expect people to act . meet joe black is chock-full of odd performances , people doing things for no discernible reason at all , and doing them in slow motion over the course of three hours to boot . it's easy to watch meet joe black for the abundant eye candy of the palatial homes and the beauteous claire forlani , but it's even easier to sleep right through it ( two people on my row managed it quite nicely ) . the difficult part of the movie is understanding the characters and their motivations and why someone thought three hours was an appropriate length for this overwrought mess . i know my audience had problems with the movie , because they thought it was a comedy . case in point : everyone should know by now that brad pitt plays the angel of death in this movie . however , the first we see of him is as a young lawyer in a coffee shop hitting on the glamorous claire forlani . ( it's not clear from the movie whether you need a law degree to become the angel of death , but it makes a certain kind of sense . ) it shouldn't take long for the observant moviegoer to realize that bad things are about to happen to mr . pitt . and indeed they do ( after a hideously prolonged sequence where pitt looks over his shoulder at the retreating forlani and forlani looks over her shoulder at the retreating pitt ) , because pitt walks into the road without looking and suddenly gets squished . well , when that happened , the audience howled with laughter , and continued to laugh at every comment that was remotely humorous . so , if you think that sudden violent death and sarcastic drawing-room humor are funny , i encourage you to go see meet joe black immediately . anyway , the deceased lawyer's body , no worse the wear from its massive injuries , is possessed by the angel of death and brad pitt takes over that role . the idea is that death ( given the pen name of joe black , so as not to disturb others ) wants to take a holiday and experience the world . if this weren't hollywood , we might get an interesting metaphysical discussion of life and death , but since it is , we get scene after scene of fish-out-of-water humor , just as if death is george of the jungle or crocodile dundee or some other poor schmuck who's wandered in from the jungle or the outback or whatever and doesn't know how to act in our society . it also doesn't help that the character of death is written so inconsistently . he claims to be on vacation , but he never does anything except hang around the seriously attractive claire forlani ( just try to get your travel agent to book that one ) . he speaks very slow and halting english but perfectly fluent jamaican patois . he knows everything about some characters , nothing about others . and as played by brad pitt , he's not especially menacing or charming or glamorous or intriguing , he's just there . it's as if someone told pitt , " never mind about acting in this picture , son , just stand there and look pretty . " it's as if pitt is doing his keanu reeves impression throughout the movie . i've used the phrase " angel of death " in this review very deliberately to contrast pitt's performance with this year's best angel performance , nicolas cage's in city of angels . where pitt is cold and unfeeling , cage is as warm and empathetic as the situation allows . where cage is genuinely curious about the nature of man , pitt is aloof and arrogant . cage struck instant chemical sparks with co-star meg ryan , where the chemistry between pitt and forlani is only understandable if you accept the notion that forlani's character is so shallow that she can't see beyond pitt's good looks . the movie's other top name is a much better actor , but that doesn't save meet joe black . sir anthony hopkins isn't given much better material to work with , unfortunately . he plays one of these good-hearted multimillionaire media moguls that only exist in hollywood . ( one wonders what might have happened if they had made hopkins's character more realistically evil . ) hopkins is marked for death due to a bad ticker , but death steps in and grants him some extra time in exchange for being his guide in the world . of course , no one can be sure of how they will act when death taps on their shoulder . but i have to wonder ( and in this movie , you have a very long time to wonder ) how you or i would act in a similar situation , especially if you or i were a multimillionaire . hopkins pretty much goes to the office -- and the major subplot revolves around who will control the corporation . fans of corporate intrigue will be fascinated , i'm sure . i stayed awake all the way through meet joe black , and i'm asking myself why . movies about death should encourage you to live life to the fullest , which is what i'm going to do now . go spend time with your family , go volunteer for a local charity , heck , go take a nap . don't go see meet joe black , because all it will do is move you three long hours closer to death . -- curtis edmonds " no children have ever meddled with the republican party and lived to tell about it . " -- sideshow bob
0	play it to the bone , the newest addition to ron shelton's sports - themed repertoire fails in numerous ways . like most of shelton's other great films ( bull durham , white men can't jump ) , this dud unsuccessfully attempts to use athleticism as a method of connecting characters and creating interesting subplots . shelton's films are not considered sports films , but they do heavily revolve around a specific game to tell a story . shelton has been so good in the past at using sports to analyze the structure of society that from his collection of films we are given an examination of different classes and races living in various different regions . play it to the bone is unsuccessful because not only is the boxing theme dull , but the side story of the two guys and a girl travelling across the country is even worse . the film has no social message like its predecessors . the relationship between the friends , two failed boxers who must face off against each other in the ring for 50 thousand dollars , is very confusing for a number of reasons . the whole film , since it is primarily a " buddy picture , " depends on the strength of the friendship the two characters have for each other . unfortunately , it is a very weak bond for the reasons listed below . 1 ) we never see how cesar ( antonio banderas ) and vince ( woody harrelson ) meet . the two are so different from each other , that a scene of how this odd friendship developed should have been mandatory . 2 ) vince and cesar argue every moment possible on their trip to las vegas . there is not one convincing moment dedicated to seeing the characters laugh together or actually agree on something . 3 ) the third character on the trip , grace ( lolita davidovich ) stands in the way . she is in nearly every scene with them , making it impossible to understand the difficulty the two male characters are going to have when they fight each other . 4 ) there are two many interfering , irrelevant side stories . vince is convinced that he sees jesus on a regular basis , cesar yells at the sky in spanish when he is angry , and grace tries to sell her inventions to hotel owner robert wagner . these boring tales only hurt the central plot . 5 ) when it comes to time for the two men to fight , they don't even hesitate to pound each other . wasn't the whole point of the road trip to show that these two are friends who could never hurt each other ? by the time the road trip part of the movie is over with , the film wants to be over . shelton , on the other hand , continues to tell his story . forty five painful minutes remain . the boxing scene between cesar and vince starts out very powerful and interestingly different from other boxing movies . however , the fight goes on for way too long and becomes very repetitive and predictable after awhile , kind of like the whole film .
0	louie is a trumpeter swan with no voice . in order to woo his lady love serina , louie makes friends with a young boy , sammy , who persuades teacher mrs . hammerbottom ( carol burnett ) to allow louie to attend class . louie learns to read and write and returns to his flock , but is laughed at once again when no other swans can understand his message of love for serina . to make matters worse , louie's father feels he's lost his honor because of the trumpet he stole for his son in this animated version of e . b . white's " trumpet of the swan . " as jane austen and henry james have become popular sources for adult filmmakers over the past decade or so , e . b . white is being returned to for children's films . the animated " charlotte's web " has become a minor classic since its release in 1973 and 1999 brought us a live action version of " stuart little . " " trumpet of the swan , " directed by richard rich ( 1999's animated " the king and i , " the " swan princess " series ) , is unlikely to be remembered along with those two . " trumpet of the swan " is receiving a regional theatrical release , but is sure to quickly appear on home video . boston is one of the targetted cities because our hero louie becomes famous playing his trumpet in beantown . he encounters a gypsy-like con man in the public gardens who pitches louie and his trumpet as an added attraction to boston's swan boats . louie stays at the ritz carlton before giving a concert at the hatch shell along the banks of the charles river . at this point , louie's earned enough money so that dad can pay for the trumpet and become musically capable enough to win over serina's father . " trumpet of the swan " features flat background art , some poor sound syncing and insipid , sugary songs . this effort would be better suited to saturday morning television than the big screen , but may be ok for the real small set .
1	one of my colleagues was surprised when i told her i was willing to see betsy's wedding . and she was shocked to hear that i actually liked it . her reaction was understandable when you consider that the film revolves around molly ringwald , who hasn't made a worthwhile film since 1986 . but the fact is , betsy's wedding is also an alan alda film . and while ringwald has been making duds for the last four years , alda has been involved with several noteworthy projects , including crimes and misdemeanors and a new life . written and directed by alda , betsy's wedding is a vibrant slice-of-life , mixing a few dramatic moments into a big bowl of whimsical humor . alda's comic elixir is smooth and refreshing--and a welcome change of pace from the usual summer fare . as bride and groom , molly ringwald and dylan walsh are the pivotal characters in the film , but they are by far the least interesting . walsh is a nonentity , with all the screen presence of a door knob . ringwald is simply unbearable and is easily the weakest link in the chain . she looks hideous with her short-cropped orange hair , red lip-stick and grotesque outfits . she's supposed to be a dress designer , but she looks more like a clown . and to make matters worse , ringwald's performance matches her appearance . thankfully , alda keeps ringwald's screen time to a minimum ; he is far more interested in the colorful periphery characters . the wedding is just a device to bring together the bride's working-class , italian family and the groom's rich , gentile family . ringwald's folks are homey and down-to-earth , with alda as her free-spirited father , madeline kahn as her practical mother , and ally sheedy as her lonely sister . walsh's clan , on the other hand , is prim , proper and ostentatious . when the two families meet and mingle , the movie becomes a story of culture clash , or as one character puts it , " money versus values . " ally sheedy , in a wonderfully understated performance , is one of the film's most pleasant surprises . sheedy expresses more with just her eyes than ringwald does with her entire body . it's anthony lapaglia , however , who seizes the spotlight . lapaglia plays stevie dee , a suave , overly polite mafioso who is formally courting sheedy with old-fashioned chivalry . lapaglia's sincere but dim-witted character is a riot . and what's uncanny is that lapaglia is a dead ringer for robert de niro , with a little bit of alec baldwin thrown in for good measure . lapaglia seems to have attended the de niro school of gangster acting , and his inspired performance is partly a tribute to his role-model and partly a rip-off . i don't know whether to say a star is born or a star is re-born , but i do know that lapaglia's over-the-top performance should not be missed . the scrumptious comic acting , however , extends well beyond sheedy and lapaglia . joe pesci , in particular , sinks his teeth into his role as alda's unscrupulous brother-in-law , a slum lord with mob ties , who is cheating on his wife ( catherine o'hara ) . alda , faced with challenge of both directing and acting , somehow finds just the right comic touch as the bride's financially-strapped father , a carpenter whose dreams are bigger than his wallet . the film adopts alda's psychological point of view as he tries to one : plan the wedding , and two : pay for it . as a filmmaker , alda's style of humor is remarkably restrained and tasteful . and while he doesn't have the comic genius of a woody allen , alda does possess the inspiration to make movies which are ten times more entertaining than the slop which usually passes for comedy .
1	mimi leder is probably best known for her stunning work as a director of the hit tv-show er . her mast famous episode , " love's labour lost " , dealt with the ordeal of doctor mark greene as he tried his best to save the life of a pregnant mother and her child . the way she moved the camera and created tension throughout every scene was amazing . there was more excitement and adrenaline rushed suspense than just about any of hollywood's big blockbuster movies . so it's only natural that leder would get to direct her very own hollywood blockbuster . and i have to say , after a shaky beginning , she does not disappoint . peacemaker deals with the theft of nuclear weapons by terrorists , which is obviously nothing new . the first half hour goes into detail , way too much detail , about how the weapons are stolen . despite a few good images , including a train collision and a very impressive explosion , none of this was very coherent . it's long and drawn out , and i would have settled with a more implausible beginning that would have moved the story along better . once george clooney and nicole kidman enter the picture , it begins to take off . george clooney is an air force colonel with connections all over the world . he has a nice sarcastic wit and the rough edges that you expect from most clooney characters . nicole kidman is head of a white house team on weapons smuggling . there is the usual flirtatious banter between the two , but that is dispensed with quickly . the story takes clooney and kidman across the globe , trying to figure out who has the weapons and where they are going with them . clooney goes through bouts of sarcasm , frustration , determination , and revenge while kidman works against her own insecurity and self-doubt . this is when leder starts to show her true stuff . she starts us off with a nifty little car chase as an appetizer . then we get clooney doing heroics in and out of a helicopter . then that leads us to the brilliant final showdown on new york city's crowded streets , and a madman with a nuke walking among them . mimi leder is a natural at creating suspense . she reminds me of wolfgang petersen in her ability to make the most routine action sequences exciting and breathtaking . nicole kidman is an intelligent female action hero . you're not gonna find her falling down so clooney can come back to save her . george clooney is a real movie star . many of you may have hated him as batman , but this guy is for real . he has a natural screen presence , and an ingratiating personality . he'll be around for a while . dreamworks is off to a satisfying start with peacemaker .
0	an experience like baby geniuses can have certain effects on an average moviegoer . you may be scarred for life after seeing this petrified piece of garbage , which is so disarmingly horrible that it may cause you to ponder it's hollywood existence . when i think of the screenwriters behind this film , i picture a room full of monkeys . the monkeys are pounding on their typewriters while scratching themselves . all of the monkeys combine their efforts , hop in a cab and take the finished product downtown to director bob clark's office . the designated monkey explains the plot by jumping up and down on clark's desk while flailing his arms and shrieking . the director appears to be deep in thought , until he slams his fist down on the desktop and exclaims `i love it ! ! ! ' the writing behind this project is embarrassing . for your amusement , i will explain the plot . dr . kinder ( kathleen turner ) and dr . heep ( christopher lloyd ) are two of the cold-hearted executives at the baby geniuses institute , where peculiar studies are going on . as the story goes , there is an ancient myth explaining that babies ( ages 2 and under ) know all the secrets of the world from previous life experiences . when they move past this phase , they become like any other drooling toddler . kinder and heep want to unlock the secrets using their test babies , namely little sylvester ( sly for short ) , who can break in or out of any given situation so efficiently that he would be right at home on the mission : impossible team . there is so much crap derived from this premise , despite the fact it's virtually identical to the plot in look who's talking ! ( a far superior film in any league ) . you will be able to determine the quality of the film by examining the opening scene . sylvester has broken out and managed to elude several security guards with his amazing intellect and kung-fu tactics . question : it's obvious the babies are super-smart , but why are they able to fight like jackie chan ? ? the adults in this film are furiously beaten by these youngsters in diapers . it's a shock when writers will stoop this low just to draw cheap laughs by using john hughes' familiar home alone formula . i also found it disturbing that the babies in this film have attitude and endless 90's knowledge , quoting numerous movies and insulting their adult captors . the effects in baby geniuses ( similar to the talking animals in babe ) are pathetic , the editing is a disaster , and the jokes are never funny . the only reason viewers may avoid vomiting is the argument that the babies are `cute' . i suppose they are . i can admit to smiling a few times because the babies were cute . other instances , though , i was howling in laughter due to the inane stupidity of the script . there are supporting characters who have no personality whatsoever ; their entire existence is based on punch lines . peter macnicol and kim cattrall , as an unwilling couple who have adopted sylvester's twin , are both miscast . then again , i don't suppose any performer could handle the uneven material without looking incredibly stupid . meanwhile , dom deluise plays a fellow who gets hit in the crotch with a monkey wrench ( hahaha ) . i would avoid baby geniuses at all costs . instead of watching this , i would recommended filling your bathtub with cement and going snorkeling . or perhaps you would consider going diving in shark-infested waters . anything to avoid this painful movie . the final line in the film , spoken by the bratty sylvester , is `if they think i'm doing the sequel for less than $20 mill , they're nuts' . sequel ? please have mercy .
1	part one of " the strangest movies ever made " series at www . mediajunkies . com by scott watson [light spoilers , nothing you shouldn't read] existenz has been called " a gooey matrix " , and while this is a correct description in some ways , in others it is completely off . the only thing the two films have in common is the idea of a virtual reality that is indistinguishable from normal , " real " reality . a major difference is that " the matrix " has a base reality that is obviously the true reality , while existenz does the impossible and makes us accept the most bizarre reality ever as true . and oh what a reality it is . david cronenberg has shown us before that he knows how to create strange movies ( naked lunch , crash ) , but this one is one of the strangest . maybe it's because of how the mundane is mixed with the bizarre . technology is organic , but only some of it . cars are normal . gas stations are the same . cell phones are glowing bug like appendages . you jack into a virtual reality game using a quivering pink gooey animal like apparatus ( referred to simply as a " pod " ) . high technology has been replaced with organic creatures , and it provides a truly surreal setting for the characters . a famous game designer , allegra geller ( a fine looking jennifer jason leigh ) , flees a demonstration of her latest game , existenz , after an assassination attempt . she is on the run ( from who , i'm still not sure ) , and has to save her pod by playing her game with " someone friendly " . that someone friendly is her dubious companion and security guard , ted pikul ( jude law ) . unfortunately he is lacking a fundamental requirement for playing , a bioport . sort of a hole in your spine ( ok , exactly like a hole in your spine ) , a bioport allows you to plug the vaguely entrail-looking wires from the pod into you , allowing you to play the game . luckily a bioport can be installed easily ( they install them in malls ) , so off they go to get one . after a crazy series of events at the local country gas station , they are able to plug in and play existenz . the plot itself is a surreal melding of conspiracies , reality distortion , chinese restaurants , and multi appendaged amphibian things ( " it's a sign of the times " ) . but the plot , while cohesive in it's own creepy way is secondary to just trying to figure out what the hell is going on in this universe . cronenberg just slaps this weird organic-tech world into the viewers lap , and it's up to you to figure out how all these things work . and that's the true joy of this film , entering the vaguely nightmarish world in which existenz takes place . you learn a little bit piece by piece ( oh , they make pods out of those ) , and it's just enough to get you to accept the world that is presented to you . there are all kinds of twists and turns as the characters wander around , including a fantastic scene in a chinese restaurant that will leave you trying to assemble something out of your moo goo gai pan for months afterwards . also the bioports are occasionally used for things other than porting into existenz , the specifics of which i will leave for you to discover . there's lots of little things that set off the weird-o-meter , like the little tiny pods that you can buy in the video game store , the two headed amphibian creature , and why that guy at the gas station's name appears to be " gas " . it all adds up to a supremely far out trip , and given the choice i think i would rather live in the matrix's virtual world . . . oh wait , i already do .
1	in a flashback , the teenage girl in the eccentric family in the canadian film , the hanging garden , tells her senile grandmother that she is going to a school dance . horrified , the grandmother wants to know if her granddaughter knows " the rule of 6 . " if you don't break off a kiss by the count of 6 , then you committed a sin with the boy . and most of all , the grandmother wants to know if she has " protection ? " she must carry a rosary in her pocket at all times . the richly acted film is written and directed by thom fitzgerald in a quirky but loving style . although some may refer to the film as yet another dysfunctional family picture , that moniker misses the mark . yes , every member of the household has their own special problems , but the writer didn't choose to name so many characters for various flowers by accident . this delightful little picture mixes love , tragedy and pathos , resulting in a hopeful and almost magical concoction . during the opening credits we observe the boy , sweet william , at the center of the story . first , he's an average sized young lad who is slapped off-screen by his father . next , he's 300 pound teenager , played with hopelessness and depression by troy veinotte . when the opening credits end , we cut to 10 years later . william is now an average-sized , reasonably happy adult , played with love and compassion by chris leavins . william has returned after 10 years absence to attend the marriage of his free-spirited and foul-mouthed sister rosemary to his first childhood lover , fletcher ( joe s . keller ) . kerry fox from an angel at my table and shallow grave plays rosemary with a compelling joy . nicole burnell , who gave such a devastating performance in the sweet hereafter , plays the teenage rosemary . the father of the family , whiskey mac ( peter macneill ) , is an alcoholic autocrat who is more obnoxious than harmful . his wife , iris ( seana mckenna ) , says that she would have left him years ago to at least go to some place warm were it not for her lack of money and her obligations to the kids . rounding out the family is christine dunsworth as nine-year-old violet , the sister whom william meets for the first time . as the exuberant irish music fills the air at the wedding in the family home , william wanders off to try on one of his old coats , which causes him to laugh at the size of his former self . the director manages to stage simple scenes in wonderfully imaginative ways . he takes a common wedding dress train and uses it to set up scenes in fresh and fascinating ways . rosmary's trip to the bathroom after drinking too much beer is beautifully orchestrated , and kerry fox is at her hilarious best trying to cope with the long train in a small bath , all while talking to her brother . as much as anything , the film is a series of character sketches . in one of the strongest we watch william in a flashback as he has his first sexual encounter , a homosexual one . although he is perfectly happy liking the same sex , his mother is aghast . a woman friend of hers suggests she take william to a local housewife , dusty miller ( martha irving ) , who , for a fee , will have heterosexual sex with william . with absolute finesse the director crafts a subtle scene that manages to yield significant emotional punch without being sensational . dusty , after asking iris to watch her daughter , takes william and gently introduces him to the joys of sex with the opposite sex . all of this notwithstanding , he still prefers males . the film is at its most poignant in several sequences in which the grown william comes face-to-face with himself when younger . this causes his ugly old memories to be reignited . in the most devastating , he has to come to grips with his former self who was so overwhelmed with the stress that he tried to hang himself . even here , the director touches your heart without ever letting the story dissolve into anything approaching a tearjerker . the ultimate result is an uplifting story that has more hope that one would ever expect from the outline of its plot . the hanging garden runs 1 : 31 . it is rated r for strong sexuality , language , violence and some teen drug use and would be acceptable for teenagers only if they are quite old and mature .
1	what do you get when you combine clueless and dumb and dumber ? to answer the question , you get director david mirkin's new comedy romy and michele's high school reunion . romy white ( mira sorvino , mighty aprhodite ) and michele weinberger ( lisa kudrow , tv's friends ) have been inseparable buddies since they graduated from sagebrush high in 1987 . however , when former classmate heather mooney ( janeane garafolo , the truth about cats and dogs ) confronts romy about the 10 year reunion , she is astounded that she forgot . watching pretty woman for the um-teenth time , they are reminded of how they wouldn't let julia roberts' character shop in the expensive stores because of her appearance . then it hits them : they are not successful . what are she and michele going to do ? romy's instant solution is lose some weight off their already slender frames , " bag a couple of boyfriends , " and get jobs . romy says this will be easy , but michele retorts that if it is so easy , why hadn't they already done it . robin schiff's script keeps the show moving with some nice one-liners . one of the best has romy reminiscing about her life's battle against the bathroom scales . " i was so lucky getting mono , " she says looking at her thinnest high school picture . " that was like the best diet ever . " the casting for the film is so perfect that one begins to suspect that the leads were chosen and then the script was developed . romy and michele use their high school yearbook to discuss the caste system at their high school . the film's editor david finfer dissolves the stills from the yearbook to live action flashbacks which makes the past come to life . at sagebrush high , the hierarchy consisted of the a group ( cheerleaders ) , the b group ( drama club ) and the c group ( nerds ) . romy and michele were none of the above . ridiculed as " the weirdoes , " they were constant targets for abuse . even though they were quite attractive , they had so much fun being together that they did not care about the others . that they make their own outlandish clothes helped keep the wall around them . complementing romy and michele's lightness , is janeane garofalo as the dark , pudgy heather mooney . heather , who invented a new cigarette paper for cigarettes with " twice the taste in half the time for the gal on the go , " has the success and the money that they would like . heather was even more of an outsider than they were in high school . garofalo's one-dimensional role is only a side show . this is a two person film with the other characters there merely for the two leads to bounce their lines off of . the genuine chemistry between sorvino and kudrow makes for a sweet and sometimes touching comedy . they have so much fun acting out their parts , their enjoyment spreads to the audience . ,
1	sick : the life and death of bob flanagan , supermasochist by fernando vallejo starring bob flanagan and sheree rose . interviews by kathe burkhart , kirby dick and rita valencia . produced and directed by kirby dick . running time : 90 mins . this film is not rated . the central themes of " sick : the life and death of bob flanagan , supermasochist " are pain and love , and its subsequent effect on a person's life . its protagonist , bob flanagan , who died at the age of 52 , suffered from cystic fibrosis , a mortal disease which debilitates the lungs by saturating them with thick coats of mucus , preventing him from normal breathing . the movie is about much more than recouperating ( or attempting to ) from this disease . an audacious , fabulously triumphant docudrama , " sick " chronicles the life of flanagan and his vicious , unthinkable acts of sadomasochism conducted with his mistress of 15 years , sheree rose , who amazingly provided much of the footage for the film . flanagan's idelogy crosses the realms of rebelliousness and becomes transcendental , similar to terry zwigoff's brilliant 1994 " crumb " , which also explored the dysfunction of an artist by painting not a sympathetic portrait , but a realistic one . both crumb and flanagan revelled in their defects . but flanagan was not only a man content on enduring the pain via lungs , he inflicted acts of pain on himself at a very young age , courageously defying god ( he was an irish catholic ) and turning his body into a work of art , which he unraveled in museums and lectures . behold these works of physical art . among them is a metal ball inserted inside his anus , and , --the most disturbing scene of the decade-- , nailing his penis to a board . flanagan was a man of great intelligence , wit and humor , as well as adopting a sense of candidness scarcely seen in modern filmmaking . not only did he approach his disease with humor , peforming burlesque acts in front of an audience , he was also revitalized by his approachment . most with cystic fibrosis do not make it past their earlier twenties ( there's also a subplot involving a female devotee who knew death was awaiting her . ) but the most outstanding thing about " sick " is flanagan's relationship with sheree . brimming with honesty , sensual stimulation and unapologetically sad moments of pain , their powerful bond lifts " sick " into a rare cinematic high , where we forget we are in an auditorium and become a part of these people . the last scene , where we see the hero murmuring the last words to his wife in a hospital bed , as he struggles for his last moments of life , is raw , tender , hideous . it goes a step beyond cinematic intimacy .
1	national lampoon's animal house , made in 1978 and set in 1962 , remains one of the -- no , fuck that noise -- * the * funniest movie ever made . and this isn't just my opinion , either ; everybody knows this , and that's why about a gazillion inferior rip-offs have been made , trying to duplicate its success . ( pcu anyone ? and the first person to bring up glory daze gets decked . ) animal house takes place at the fictional faber college , circa 1962 , where the omega frat calls the shots . these guys are wholesome , clean-cut , model-citizens . . . i . e . a bunch of assholes . greg , their leader , is going out with mandy pepperidge , but since the silly bastard doesn't believe in pre-marital sex , their relationship never goes further than a quick jack-off under the stars . neidermeyer is the supreme-bozo of the bunch , walking around with his dick out kicking freshman ass and trying to impress the muff . also hanging around these losers is babs , future universal studios employee and serious bitch . now let's just take a peak next door , at the delta house . over here , anything goes : you wanna throw shit out the window ? okay . you wanna crush a bunch of beer cans on your forehead and pour honey-mustard all over your chest ? go right ahead . the frat's leaders are otter and boon ( tim matheson and peter riegert ) . otter is the ladies' man , going out with another girl every night , and boon is the comedian . he's got a steady-date , katy ( karen allen ) , but she's sick of playing second-fiddle to a bottle of j . d . then there are the others : pinto , a wimp ; flounder , a blimp ; d . day , a biker ; stork , who may or may not have brain-damage ; and last but not least . . . bluto ! bluto , played by the late , great john belushi , is the man . he's the kind of guy who slugs back entire fifths of whiskey then proclaim , " i needed that . " the kind of guy who puts a cream-filled snowball into his mouth , puffs up his cheeks and spits it out , and then says " i'm a zit -- get it ? " the story is as follows : the omegas are getting the deltas kicked off campus . the deltas , knowing that fighting the omegas is stupid , decide to go out with style , throwing a wild toga party and ruining the homecoming parade . this is the fucnniest movie int he history of the world . do yourself a favor and go see it .
1	i guess it's a credit to jackie chan and the general likeability of the franchise that rush hour 2 could not be ruined even by the nauseating " comedy " of chris tucker . i'm a fan of jackie chan in just about any medium , and this movie lets him not only do his impressive-as-ever martial arts schtick , but show off his comic timing as well . it would have worked better if he was the only name above the title . the plot is your basic martial arts flick clothesline for stunts and special effects . this time around , the evil smugglers are led by ricky tan ( john lone ) , who makes his fortune by shipping counterfeit money into the united states ( i'm still not sure how you can make a fortune doing that : is there a place where one can exchange fake bills for real ones ? ) . the only way to tell the phony money from the genuine article is to set it on fire and see what color it burns . of course , it's up to hong kong detective lee ( chan ) and trash-talking lapd detective james carter ( tucker ) to take the bad guys out and the authorities , to the extent that they even exist , stay out of their way . rush hour 2 turns the tables on the first film in that here it's carter who gets the two of them into trouble and lee who winds up having to get them out . i guarantee that my rating would have been at least a half of a grade higher had anyone other than chris tucker been cast as the foil for jackie chan . he refuses to shut up . not only did his voice feel like a jackhammer on my head , but his jokes just aren't funny , a pathetic mixture of sub-par eddie murphy fasttalking blather and wannabe chris rock white-man-black-man jokes that wind up being more offensive than funny . i realize that in a movie like this some of the biggest laughs come from letting the actors ad lib beyond what the script dictates , but didn't anyone realize how irritating tucker's incessant ranting and raving was ? if this is all the comedian has to offer then i don't care to see any more of his films . fortunately , chan makes for a marvelous straight man , and he redeems the fledgling comedy completely . it's not often that one actor can so completely save a movie , but there is no other name for what he does ; whenever he's on screen , rush hour 2 comes to nearly breathtaking , often hilarious , life . much of it hinges on the dubious value of how cute it is to watch chan try to be a " player , " but who cares ? i can think of few high concepts that are funnier . the movie ends with outtakes that , as usual , show that chan isn't perfect , and that it does , indeed , take him a few tries to get some of his incredible stunts to look seamless . chris tucker botches some lines as well , and his mistakes are funnier than anything he says in the whole movie . a lot of people have pointed out rush hour 2 isn't very different from its predecessor in tone or style . but i liked the original , and i like the sequel , though a certain sidekick seems to have done his best to ruin it . director brett ratner ( the family man ) keeps it moving at an entertaining pace and manages to keep the laughs coming despite the fairly miserable hit to miss ratio of the jokes ( i guess sometimes the shotgun approach works ) . it's not great jackie chan , but it's jackie chan , and that's enough . up next : jay and silent bob strike back
1	my filmcritic . com colleague norm schrager nailed session 9 , brad anderson's throwback to spooky horror films from the 70's . it worked as an eerie homage without being self-referential or smugly postmodern . genre aficionados will acknowledge the similarities in tone to stanley kubrick's the shining and george romero's dawn of the dead without being taken out of the engrossing narrative ( i . e . , a psychologically addled waste management team clears out an abandoned lunatic asylum ; unspeakable dread ensues ) . in a double-whammy for 2001 , anderson shoots and ( mostly ) scores again with his eclectic riff on time-travel episodes from the twilight zone , appropriately titled happy accidents . much like session 9 , the cards are played very close to the vest here . is boyish , eccentric " sam deed from dubuque , iowa " a futuristic voyager from the year 2470 or just your run-of-the-mill psychologically disturbed nutcase let loose on the present-day streets of nyc ? as played by wonderful character actor vincent d'onofrio ( full metal jacket ) , it's up in the air whether or not we should accept his detailed monologues about life after the polar ice caps have melted . the question proves to be moot , at least for a time . even if the whole thing proves to be a creative delusion , one agrees with the character judgment passed down on him by his new girlfriend , ruby ( marisa tomei ) : " he's a freak , but he sure tells a good story ! " neurotic ruby thinks she may have found true love after a series of nightmarish dating disasters ( the junkie , the fetishist , the artist , the frenchman , etc . ) , but isn't quite sure how to handle " sam deed " when he starts explaining the barcode on his arm , his elaborately constructed fake identity , his pathological fear of dogs , his ability to speak five different languages , and his mission to change a crucial moment in time that may have ramifications on time's alternate realities . ( don't ask . ) it's all a bit much to take in . ruby's close friend gretchen ( cuz ya can't have a love story without the token friend , though nadia dajani invests the thankless role with warmth ) chalks it up as a sexy role-playing game , but her cautious therapist ( holland taylor ) warns her that co-dependency is rearing its ugly head again and she's in over her head with yet another doomed relationship . who ya gonna believe ? despite her winning an academy award , marisa tomei has always struck me as an annoying and unwelcome screen presence , one that undermines the pleasure of watching happy accidents . her brassy new yawk attitude never really meshes with her desperate desire to appear " cute " to her adoring fans . being loud and flashing a ( disingenuous ) smile does not necessarily equal " substantial and sexy . " it takes more than a crack team of hair and wardrobe people to imbue her with personality . then there's that damned voice , which strains to be oh-so-adorable . look , this stuff is purely subjective . some people feel this way about richard gere , others cannot bear to watch robin williams' hyperactive schtick . for my money , it's m . tomei with a bullet . happy accidents is a romantic comedy filtered through twelve monkeys ( or , more appropriately , chris marker's la jetee , especially with those still framed " memory " photographs anderson employs as a stylistic device throughout ) . modern manhattan is filmed with an otherworldly , vaguely alien eye with a color scheme oddly reminiscent of logan's run . as the stranger in a strange land , d'onofrio walks slightly out-of-step , wonderfully affable but often inscrutable with his wayward expressions and bemused detachment . this is science fiction told mainly via the power of suggestion ( though it often falls into the sci-fi trap of having entirely too much forced exposition -- we want deeds , not words ! ) at least twenty minutes too long , happy accidents eventually gets around to a race-against-time scenario that puts " sam deed " to the ultimate test . no movie can live in ambiguity forever , but anderson seems terminally unable to provide satisfactory conclusions to his otherwise well structured recent narratives . ( let's pretend the loathsome and predictable next stop wonderland never happened , shall we ? ) there are also some slow , repetitive stretches as ruby and sam go over the same arguments again and again over whether or not he's crazy . the premise is strong enough to sustain interest , but it's enough to throw a nod in the general direction of rod serling for wrapping up his ideas in half-hour time slots , commercials included .
1	i'm an avid fan of the " alien " saga , so this review is obviously a tad biased ( at least i admitted it ) . of course , that doesn't mean that i'm gonna be giving this a four-star review or something , because " alien : resurrection , " the fourth film in the cool-as-hell series is not an absolutely amazing film , much like the first two were . however , it's a very good film which never fails to entertain , and consists of yet another mutation in the style of the series . in short , i had a good time . " alien : resurrection " leaves off 200 years after the last one , where our heroine protagonist , ellen ripley ( sigourney weaver ) , the science fiction genre's answer to job , had killed herself after discovering that an alien was inside her body , waiting to pop out like it did to john hurt in the first one . of course , the last one wasn't very great or anything ( i liked it , though not as much as the first two ) , and more importantly , it wasn't financially successful ( a tawdry 55 million bucks ! ) . so back we are , with ripley back as a clone , which means we get another little satirical look at cloning ( not that that's a bad thing , but it's becoming a cliche ) . so she's cloned aboard an even more futuristic-looking ship called " the auriga " by some doctors ( including the necessary bad government guy , dr . wren , played by j . e . freeman , as well as the little-seen dr . gediman , played by none other than brad douriff ) , mainly because they have a version of her with the alien still inside her . once you get past the fact that you can't figure out where they got her blood ( although i think it might have been from the blood samples taken by charles dance in the third one ) , the film's okay . also on board are a band of mercenary pirates , including michael wincott , ron perlman , kim flowers , raymond cruz , dominique pinon ( a jeunet sytable ) and . . . winona ryder , who plays analee call , who turns out to have a bit of a secret ( i won't state it , but unless you've been shacking up with salinger for the past two years , you probably know all about it - although it's nicely covered up ) . there's a bit of a non-sexual-yet-slightly-homoerotic relationship between her and ripley , but it's never really deepened enough . oh well . well , as you might have guessed , the alien and its spawn escape and run around the ship . and it pretty much does away with most of the people on the ship ( including some shocks - dan hedaya , for instance , who's death is comical yet sad since , well , he's dan hedaya ) , and the remaining people ( about 7 or 8 ) are left to try and escape and stop the aliens from doing any major harm since the ship is heading quickly towards earth . of course , the plot is all balderdash , and just an excuse for some good old " alien " -brand fun . the real focus of the series seems to be on style , not really substance ( although there's always a bit of it , most notably in " aliens " with the relationship between ripley and the little girl ) . what's interesting about the series is that each film is stylistically different in its approach . " alien " is a claustrophobic exercise in quiet frights . " aliens " is a wild , tense thriller . " alien 3 " is a bleak , moody piece of semi-noir . " alien 4 " is kind of like an off-beat french film , filled with lots of humor , and cool scares . jean-pierre jeunet ( without his usual directing partner , marc caro ) creates a ship filled with the kind of scares films like " das boot " has , with echoes hinting at a possible threat . the chills in the film are really cool , especially with the music , which is sometimes turned down completely for certain scenes ( there's the most tense surgery scene since " face/off " towards the beginning ) . and not every chill turns into a bloody mess or anything like that . this all combined with some good old humor makes this as interesting visually and stylistically as the others . there are even a couple scenes which just stick out afterwards as being brilliantly executed . one is the aforementioned surgery scene . another one takes place between call and ripley , which is just awesome . the underwater chase scene and the ladder scene afterwards is one of the most tense , thrilling , and jaw-dropping scenes in the entire saga ( with a small allusion to jeunet's earlier film , " delicatessen " ) . and the way they do in the final alien is hysterically cool ( with a lovely allusion to " goldfinger " ) . but the best scene in the entire film ( i'm sure i'm not the first to mention it ) takes place when ripley sees all the variations on her as they cloned her ( she has a an " 8 " tatooed on her arm ) . it might be the most emotionally stimulating scene in the entire saga . the screenplay by joss whedon is not a great piece of work , as it never really deapens a lot of the characters . however , it does make us care about most of them , so that when there's very little of them , and it looks like one or more of them may become alien chow , we are pretty scared . and , yeah , there are some very funny lines ( ripley : " who do i have to fuck to get off this boat ? ! " johner : " well , i can get you off . but not this ship . " ) the acting is good all around , with stand-out performances from ron perlman as the male chauvenist pig johner , and leland orser ( the poor bastad in " se7en " who performed the " lust " sin ) as an anxiety-ridden wannabe woody allen who has an alien inside him . winona ryder is good , but not amazing like she usually is ( although she meshes well with the film ) . of course , and as usual , sigourney weaver steals the show . playing a variation on the ripley character ( less emotional , and more rude and bitter ) , she pulls it off while still being utterly lovable . she's not going to get an oscar nomination like she did for " aliens , " but she's just awesome . overall , it's a thrilling , entertaining film which doesn't really amaze like the first two , but is much more amazing than the third installment . the style is the best part of the film , which isn't really a bad thing , but it being the best part takes away from a lot of the depth the film occasionally tries to apply . but it's entertaining as hell , and it's definitely fit for the " alien " series .
1	in 1987 the stock market crashed , and oliver stone's wall street was released to critical acclaim and packed movie houses . wall street lucked out in its timing ; the recent crash gave the film a resonation it might not of had , and though its kill-or-be-killed approach to business was exaggerated , that very ideology was keyed into the mind set of the quintessential reagan-era businessman . stone constructed his film as a mythical good vs . evil tale relayed in the fast-paced milieu of the burgeoning stock exchange . critics and audiences lauded wall street , elevating its status to that of a contemporary classic . i'm proud to say that i will never be counted as one of them . i found wall street to be just as axiomatic and pandering as the majority of stone's output with its thin caricatures , obvious sentiments , and a charisma barren performance by the young charlie sheen . stone goes for broke in every scene ( the same could be said for nearly all of his works ) . this approach tends to bury his purported message beneath a heap of good intentions . he directs stock exchange scenes in typical hyperbolic mode with people shouting into phones as if they were in a plummeting airplane . it's all an excuse for stone to ratchet up the emotion with false intensity , rather than explore what these situations are really like . i have a feeling the brokers would be psychologically manipulative ( as they are presented in boiler room ) rather than laughably over the top . these guys are salesmen after all , not televised judges . more than anything i am baffled by why so many adore wall street . the only possible solution i can muster is its release date . and not just the timeliness of the " greed is good " subject matter : the film was plumped down in the eighties , a decade in which the one-joke comedy rose to an art form , and a group of glamorous brat packers smirked their way through inane high concept , low result movies . in my mind , the eighties will forever be remembered as a decade with not only a proliferation of bad movies , but bad music , bad hair , and bad clothes . maybe stone's after school special set in wall street was viewed as a welcome change of pace . boiler room is an equally well-timed film with some similarities to stone's piece of crap . they both feature a consequential father-son relationship , though boiler room's is much more subtle and touching . and they are both concerned with the power of greed , yet the men in boiler room are akin to poseurs presuming to be big shots rather than the slippery-smooth , heartless gordon gecko figures of wall street . boiler room is a message movie as well , though ( at least until the end ) doesn't shove it in our faces . boiler room is about the pursuit of cash and the degrees to which people will go for that cash . as i said , this film is indeed timely in a society where who wants to be a millionaire is the number one prime time show every day ( bringing about a revolution of prime time tv watching that hasn't been seen in quite a while ) ; not only do we want to be millionaires , we want to watch other people become millionaires ! in our super-judgmental , power-oriented culture the desire for money supersedes everything ; when you have money , you have it " all " . and seth ( giovanni ribisi ) wants it " all " the easy way . he's a well-intentioned college drop out who gets lured into working for an illegally run brokerage firm ( the kind that sells junk stock ) whereupon he meets others just like him . ben affleck is cast as jim , the company headhunter , who struts in commanding the room like a frat boy gordon gecko . his job is to influence trainee's into becoming enthusiastic employees by giving a speech that subtly attacks their man hood . it's ironic that he sells these pups the same load of b . s that they're told to dish out to prospective buyers . affleck's character is obviously supposed to recall alec baldwin's similar character in glengary glen ross , and that proves detrimental to the actor's performance . affleck shouts , curses and be-littles his rookie employees just like baldwin , minus the edge . when alec played the scene he became the part , spewing those brutal lines as if they were his own . by comparison affleck simply looks as if he were doing a really hammy line reading . the brokers approach their job with the fervor of overzealous jocks : they storm to work like football players on the way to the big game . rap music thumps on the soundtrack effectively illustrating who these guys think they are : intellectual gangsters . they aren't above a rumble as a test of man hood especially during leisure time where the lumbering scott caan seems all too eager to use his fists in minor disputes . we drink up this world along with seth , and watch him become seduced by it , just like we might be . as in all cautionary tales , boiler room begins with seducing us into its illustrious world of profit and wrongdoing , then smacks us with the consequences of all the recklessness . i know this story . we all do . but it can work if it's told with intelligence and energy , and that is how writer \ director ben younger tells it . as a director of ( please excuse my french ) mise-en-scene younger has much to learn . his style is sitcom bland . but his writing isn't . younger's script is well studied in the vernacular of this bunch ; his dialogue is like a junior david mamet . despite the moderate camera work younger fills his phone-pitch scenes with tension that comes from just the performances and the tightly wound script . the brokers \ hucksters counter every customer objection , gently bullying them into buying stock . these moments are filmed like psychological action scenes : a tense confrontation between a victimizer and a victim who isn't aware that he is one . with the exception of affleck's brief appearances , the performances are truly exceptional . ribisi , who has the edgy looks of a character actor , is extremely potent here , working his pale angular face , and eerie , plaintive stare for all their worth . he conveys child-like vulnerability ( his character seems to hide in a corner whenever things aren't going his way ) in some scenes , and in others he's ferociously cut throat . the jekyll and hyde contradiction works well in the movie : ribisi is confident when it's just him and the phone , but cowardly in front of authority figures including his abrasive father ( authoritatively played by ron rifkin ) . boiler room thankfully avoids wall street-like histrionics in the sales-pitch sequences ; the sales build slowly like a crescendo of intelligent psychological ploys . those ploys are taught to seth by chris ( vin diesel ) , a kind broker who alternates between seth's friend and his mentor . diesl shines in his minor role . this week i saw the sci-fi opus pitch black in which diesel plays a completely different role in an equally effective manner . in that film he has the kind of role that might have gone to arnold schwarzenegger in the 80's , and in boiler room he has the kind of role that might have gone to elliot gould in the 70's . nicky katt is also memorable as a superior broker obsessed with what he can't have . nia long , as the firm's secretary , ( a lone black women amongst many white men ) is ribisi's love interest in a part that at first looks to be as insignificant as most of the parts this talented actress gets , but develops into something more interesting . the two make an oddly likeable couple . long is smart and brash , and ribisi is charmingly aloof . at one point he says to her " i'm just lookin' for some chocolate love " . it's a terrible line but ribisi delivers it in such an innocuous child-like way , it becomes sweetly endearing . unfortunately , towards the end , the boiler room turns a tad schmaltzy . there is much crying , hugging , and sorrowful stares . this is okay when taken in small doses , but younger's conclusion is constructed as a series of these boo-hoo moments , one following the other . a particular misstep is his attempt to show the effect that seth's manipulations have on one of his poor victims . it's not a bad idea but the execution is lacking , with those scenes feeling tacked on to further spell out the message . that message being , " greed is bad " . yes it's patently obvious , but boiler room conveys it by introducing us to a culture that i haven't seen much of in the movies : the disenfranchised twenty something entrepreneur . and all wall street did was introduce us to a simplistic fantasy world of saints and sinners . boiler room offers neither extreme . it gives us what is in between , and for that i am thankful .
0	set in harlem during the great depression , rival gangster " families " go to war over control of " the numbers " , an illegal gambling lottery . " runners " take bets from potential lottery winners and deliver them to private locations for drawings . the undisputed leader of the harlem numbers is the madame queen ( cicely tyson ) who is challenged by dutch schulz ( tim roth ) , a ruthless hoodlum . by turning against the queen , dutch defies his partner , the infamous lucky luciano ( andy garcia ) , who wishes to respect the queen and keep the peace . the queens' army strengthens when an acquaintance , ellsworth " bumpy " johnson ( lawrence fishburne ) is released from prison and becomes a bodyguard for her . he proves himself worthy in short time as he thwarts an assassination attempt ( on himself and the queen ) , and later takes control of the queens army when she is jailed for tax evasion . bumpy's reign is not as restrained and subdued as the queen and he declares all out war on dutch . bloody gang warfare ensues . bumpy faces many obstacles during his reign . his new army questions his methods . his girlfriend ( vanessa l . williams ) and the queen disagree with his violent solutions . most importantly ( in his eyes ) , dutch has become a more formidable foe than he imagined , and seeks help from lucky luciano to assassinate him . there have been so many movies dealing with organized crime that it must be hard to write an original story dealing with it . this movie is not original at all . in fact , i was angered by how many similarities there was between this film and , arguably , the best gangster movie of all time , the godfather . if you are going to borrow ideas from another movie and not give credit , why not borrow from a lesser known movie ( say , millers crossing ? ) . how could the credited screenwriter chris brancato not give credit to mario puzo himself ? here are just some of the major similarities ( i stopped counting at 10 ) . crooked cop assaults blood relative of the leader . gang extracts revenge on crooked cop . wife ( or girlfriend ) questions her partners' murderous activities and leaves him . high ranking " officer " betrays the leader . blood relative of the leader murdered . war erupting between the " families " . high-ranking officer disapproves of the leader in front of other family members . new leader runs family differently from previous leader . large meeting with all families involved . the setup in this movie is done rather well . i enjoyed the portrayal of the network of " runners " sprinting through the streets collecting bets for the queens lottery . this was the way of life in harlem , and most people involved with the queen did so because it was the only way to support their families and put food on the table . number running was the only way for the harlem population to find work . i also enjoyed the interaction between the angry , violent dutch and the calm , patient lucky . after about the 30-40 minute mark all of the similarities with the godfather start appearing , one after the other ( and in short order ) . it was a huge distraction , and an insult to my intelligence . who was the screenwriter kidding here ? some of the individual performances were well done . andy garcia was very convincing as lucky , unfortunately his screen time is reduced to a supporting role . tim roth effectively plays the cocky villain , much like his roles in " the cook , the thief , his wife and her lover " and " rob roy " . the good performances and convincing setup during the first third of the movie do not make up for the lackluster story that follows . a couple of coincidences is one thing , over a dozen is an insult . directed by bill duke ellsworth bumpy johnson . . . . . . . lawrence fishburne dutch schultz . . . . . . . . . . . . tim roth lucky luciano . . . . . . . . . . andy garcia the queen . . . . . . . . . . . . . cicely tyson francine hughes . . . . . . . . . . vanessa l . williams illinois gordon . . . . . . . . . . chi mcbride written by randy turgeon , january 22 , 1998
0	if you don't think kevin kline in drag is funny , wait ? til you see will smith in drag-it's even less funny . by the time jim west ( smith ) disguised himself as a belly dancer to bail his captured comrade , artemus gordon ( kline ) , from the clutches of evil dr . loveless ( branagh ) , i was unequivocally bored by wild wild west , the new summer blockbuster from men in black director barry sonnenfeld . is the old west really a breeding ground for high comedy , anyway ? ( if your answer is no , then you recall rustler's rhapsody or back to the future part iii ; if your answer is yes , you're thinking of blazing saddles , but that movie was a parody of the western genre , not a nineteenth century romp . ) 1869 . jim west is a quick-draw lawman who teams up with brainiac federal agent gordon , under orders from president grant ( kline again , whose impression , for all we know , is dead-on ) , to apprehend legless loveless , the mad inventor who is plotting to divvy up the united states and sell it back to britain and spain . how will loveless accomplish this ? well , by hulking around the desert in an enormous , mechanical tarantula , of course . bosomy dance hall girl rita escobar ( hayek ) , whose scientist father was kidnapped by loveless , joins west and gordon on their gadget-filled train . ( gordon first discovers rita in a cage , waiting to be rescued . ) racial politics obviously prevented the filmmakers from pairing dull rita romantically with west , despite the movie's " hip " attitude toward the black thing . ( west automatically shoots anyone who calls him a " nigger " before that person can finish speaking the word . super . ) at any rate , i kept waiting for rita to say something humourous , but she's a walking dress-up toy . ( her single comic moment is also the best shot of the film : she bashfully reveals bare bumcheeks through the peek-a-boo flap of her pyjamas . ) jim west is the role that finally stymied will smith , whose comic timing has always been hit or miss , as episodes of " the fresh prince of bel-air " demonstrate . smith's a better reactor than actor , which is why he was so thoroughly engaging in men in black-he didn't start out a hero . in wild wild west he's required to exude eastwood cool and amuse at the same time ( and from frame one ) , a difficult feat i'm not sure any living performer could pull off . smith is ill equipped , for example , to handle the moment in which jim west performs stand-up for some rednecks at his own hanging . what attracted sonnenfeld to this material ? this isn't the first time he has adapted a tv show for the big screen ( the addams family , anyone ? ) , but it's the first big stinker of his career as a director . wild wild west is poorly-paced bombast , full of doa gags ( ted levine shows up as a general who uses a gramophone horn for a hearing aid ; levine played buffalo bill in the silence of the lambs-he's too intense to get an intentional laugh ) , lousy special effects ( the bluescreening is amateurish-foregrounds are never proportionate to the backgrounds ) , and frequent illogic . ( to wit , its ridiculous villain so badly wants jim west out of the way that he . . . drops him onto a steel platform to do battle with some generic , ugly henchmen , instead of shooting him at point blank rage with one of the many guns on board the tarantula . ) wild wild west's bright spots , such as the cool opening credits sequence , bai ling's all-too-brief appearance as a femme fatale , or the brilliant " his master's voice " joke , are all part of the film's first half , which is more clever and enjoyable , at least , than its second . when , towards what seemed like the end of wild wild west , gordon proposes the idea of building an airplane and west rejects it , there was a collective groan among audience members : it meant we were going to have to sit through another loud action sequence before gordon builds the glider , the invention of which would inevitably lead to the proverbial whiz-bang finale .
0	instinct is the kind of movie that inexperienced moviegoers will undoubtedly label as " powerful " or " touching " . i have a name for it myself : " gross " . this is the sort of film where somebody stands up to a bully , the bully looks at the " rebel " threateningly , about to hurt him , and then everyone else whom the bully has heretofore controlled stands up too . how that scene is still present in so many movies today appalls me : aren't present day moviegoers beyond being " inspired " by something like that ? this is one example ( there are actually some more in instinct alone ) of filmmakers insulting the audience's intelligence . instinct's plot is brimming with potential : world-renowned anthropologist ethan powell ( anthony hopkins ) disappeared for two years whilst doing research in the jungles of africa . he was found and is coming back to the united states a convicted killer ; he murdered to african policemen who were allegedly trying to capture him . after committing a few more brutal acts of violence in the airport , the authorities stick him in a prison's " psychotics ward " . assigned to do an evaluation on powell is a bright ( or so we are told ) young psychiatrist theo caulder ( cuba gooding jr . ) . caulder starts out doing the evaluation merely for the purpose of furthering his career . of course ( and no mainstream filmmaker would ever have it any other way ) he starts really caring for powell and he becomes fixed on helping powell prove that he is not a psychotic and that he should not be in prison . and then there's the inevitable " heartless meanie " character , in the form of donald sutherland who plays caulder's mentor . he cares for caulder but does everything he can to discourage him from helping powell . let's get one thing straight : dr . theo caulder is the most blatantly incompetent psychiatrist i have ever seen , on screen or off . any good shrink will listen to what his patient has to say no matter the subject because any good shrink will learn a great deal about his patient that way . not good old theo . no , he asks purposefully pointed questions and when powell dares to venture to another subject caulder says " we need to talk about this right now . " this is a flaw only in the sense that it detracts from instinct's already dubious credibility ; unfortunately it's also the least of its problems . director jon turteltaub , who made the delightful john travolta vehicle phenomenon as well as the surprisingly above-par cool runnings decided to make this movie so shamelessly sentimental that , contrary to what this movie's promotion would have you believe , it has much more in common with patch adams than with the silence of the lambs . it's not the kind of sentimentality that can almost bring tears to your eyes ( what dreams may come aptly demonstrated that ) but the kind that brings vomit up your esophagus ( excuse the graphic depiction ) . it aims to " inspire " rather than to touch hearts . as yoda would say , inspire it does not . it is the ultimate sign of futility when a screenwriter ( the very experienced gerald di pego ) has to resort to literally telling the audience a movie's story . indeed , somewhere in the beginning of instinct , one of the characters actually reads aloud the film's plot to another character . this , like the instance i mentioned in the first paragraph of this review , is a horrid insult to our intelligence . i am forced to wonder whether turteltaub and di pego did not think that we could figure out what instinct is about simply from regular conversation . i think that anthony hopkins is one of the greatest screen actors , and he chews the scenery in this movie , brilliant as ever . oscar winner cuba gooding jr . on the other hand is dreadful . his performance is at least part of what makes his character seem so incapable of being a shrink . i liked the guy in jerry maguire as well as in as good as it gets but here he fails to project any shred of credibility or real feeling . i love animals , and instinct's prominent save the gorillas/live in harmony with nature theme is certainly something i could sympathize with . however this movie's execution is completely unacceptable . tone down the violence and this will be a chick flick . ? 1999 eugene novikov
1	synopsis : in phantom menace the galaxy is divided into power groups whose interests will inevitably collide in later sequels . there is an overarching galactic united nations-type organization called the senate presided by a weak chancellor . within the senate two camps are at odds : a bickering , isolationist alliance called the republic and their aggressive rival the trade federation . preserving law and order are a council of jedi knights who are meanwhile searching for a prophesied chosen one of virgin birth . manipulating events behind the scenes is a dangerous , reemerging clan called the dark lords of sith , so shadowy and secretive that they comprise a " phantom " menace . jedi knight qui-gon jinn ( liam neeson ) and his apprentice obi-wan kenobi ( ewan mcgregor ) witness an invasion of teenage queen amidala's home planet naboo and befriend a gungan named jar jar ( ahmed best ) . on the desert planet of tatooine the two jedi , jar jar , and amidala ( natalie portman ) attend a lengthy drag race involving the young boy anakin skywalker ( jake lloyd ) . the five protagonists try to solicit help for freeing naboo by visiting the city planet of coruscant where a lot of debate and political maneuvering takes place . can they free amidala's helpless planet ? opinion : on tv last night i watched young , wannabe celebs pay $400 a ticket and come running out of theaters to bask in front of news cameras , gushing with testimonials of the phantom menace's greatness in exchange for a few seconds of being on national television . given this kind of media mania i wondered if phantom menace , the most anticipated movie of 1999 , could possibly live up to the extraordinary hype that preceded it . does phantom menace match the exaggerated hype ? director george lucas answers , " it's only a movie . " to me , any movie with russian-sounding accents for bad guys , jamaican accents for good guys , and middle eastern-sounding accents for seedy gamblers accents can be expected to be more tongue in cheek than profound . visually , star wars : episode i --the phantom menace ( 1999 ) is a kid show where parents can take their young ones to marvel at child-friendly cgi characters and wondrous backdrops even if the character dialogue ( mostly geopolitics ) is beyond the level of children . it is left to parents to patiently explain the conversation : droid origins , family lineage , the definitions of terms like blockade , appeasement , federation , alliance , symbiosis , satellite-controlled robots et cetera . at least this much is clear : there's plenty of eye candy , and in the last few minutes it's good guys and joe camel lookalikes versus a caped , horned red devil character and his mechanical hordes . weaknesses : weaknesses lie in the writing and in the performance . at first it seems like the film is to be an invasion story , but then phantom takes an hour-long detour to cover one chariot race before returning to the invasion theme . this dilutes the central story . additionally , smaller scenes seem written self consciously , as if they were added more to fill us in on extraneous background information for other movies rather than form an integral part of the present movie . veteran actors liam neeson and ewan mcgregor noticeably outperform the other acting leads . better ensemble chemistry between the five leads and background information that is central to a tight story line could have made have given phantom stronger performances and storytelling punch . strengths : on the bright side phantom menace as a big-budget production is far ahead of the competition in terms of making whimsical creatures , worlds and vehicles appear real . the film boasts sophisticated , top-of-the-line visuals and quality exotic costumes , a musical score entertaining enough to stand alone , and three worthwhile sequences in the second half . bottom line ? seeing the film is entertaining and informative , like a visual theme park with star wars filler information serving as dialogue between impressive money shots . we are bound to be completely inundated by star wars publicity , music and tie-ins for the next few months .
0	it's amazing how a comedian can have the some of the funniest stand-up around but completely fall flat in the movies . take adam sandler . on the basis of his first two cds ( " they're all gonna laugh at you ! " and " what the hell happened to me ? " ) , he's the best thing to hit comedy since robin williams . but when you put him in front of a camera , it just isn't the same . i kind of enjoyed happy gilmore and thought that it warranted a marginal recommendation , but his latest film , the waterboy is about as funny as a root canal . seriously , i'm willing to wager than there were more laughs in saving private ryan than there are here . in fact , i found this movie to be more depressing than comedic . the first half hour generated not one smile in me , with it's scenes of emotional abuse towards adam's character of bobby boucher not only by the cruel football players , but also by his very disturbed mother ( kathy bates - what is the world coming to ? ) . granted , after the film gets rolling , there are a few mild chuckles throughout ( i'm even willing to admit that it actually had me laughing once or twice ) , but not nearly enough to sustain the waterboy for it's nearly hour and a half running time . you're all familiar with the plot because you've seen it at least a million times before ; everyone picks on the hero until he shows a hidden talent and leads the underdog team to victory over the champions , in the process not only winning the respect of his teammates but also getting the woman he loves . and believe me , i'm not giving anything away by saying that sandler's team wins . if you would actually feel any degree of suspense watching this movie , then god be with you . the only things that keep this bomb from getting the big banana are the winning performances from henry winkler as the insecure coach and the severely underrated fairuza balk as bobby's love interest . i mean , they should be lending their talents to some loftier purpose , but they do extremely well with what they are given here . kudos to both of them . my advice to adam is to try and follow in the footsteps of veteran comedians like williams and steve martin , who made a very smooth and successful transition from stage to screen . rely more on actual comedy rather than strange voices and rude noises to make people laugh . or maybe even show what dramatic talent he might have , like jim carrey did with the recent truman show . with the obvious and considerable talent that he possesses , he just can't keep going on like this .
0	i can't recall a previous film experience where the fairly good time i was having turned as sour as quickly as it did during feeling minnesota . for forty minutes or so , i was lured into a loopy if occasionally over-wrought romantic comedy , and i was even giving keanu reeves the benefit of the doubt . then , rather suddenly , i was clubbed over the head with a nasty bit of violence ; shortly thereafter , i was whacked in the gut by another . feeling minnesota is a film that made me feel violated , as though i had trusted writer-director steven baigelman to bring me a cool glass of water and instead he threw acid in my face . feeling minnesota tells the story of a topless dancer named freddie ( cameron diaz ) who finds herself in deep trouble when her boss red ( delroy lindo ) suspects her of stealing from him . red's punishment is to force freddie to marry his bookkeeper , sam clayton ( vincent d'onofrio ) , who is far from the man of freddie's dreams . enter jjaks ( keanu reeves ) , sam's estranged younger brother , who arrives at the wedding just in time to catch freddie's eye and have sex with her in the bathroom . united in their mutual attraction and their mutual loathing of sam , jjaks and freddie take off together , but sam isn't ready to let them go without a fight . freddie , meanwhile , isn't ready to let sam's money go without a fight , and thus begins a series of violent confrontations . there is both style and substance to the beginning of feeling minnesota , as baigelman opens with an effective montage showing jjaks and sam's intense sibling rivalry as boys , and their mother ( tuesday weld ) sending jjaks away to live with his father . it does a great job of setting up jjaks' unstable life , a life which has landed him in trouble for petty crimes and always trying to please his family ; reeves' wounded look is just right for jjaks . the wedding sequence includes a number of nice moments , most notably the aforementioned bathroom scene in which a simple question is given a very funny spin . most important , baigelman begins to establish the connection between freddie and jjaks with humor and economy , as in a scene where they both spontaneously begin singing along to the replacements' " i will dare " on the car radio . you would have every reason to expect that relationships -- both familial and romantic -- would be the focal point of feeling minnesota . unfortunately , you would be dead wrong . i suppose i should have expected daisies and valentines after an early scene in which red threatens freddie as she tries to avoid the wedding , but i certainly didn't expect what i got . what i got was yet another in a long line of recent films trying to ride the tarantino wave by mixing gags and brutality , or rather creating gags about brutality . suddenly , the story of romantic entanglements and family conflict becomes a story about a corpse , and everything which had come before degenerates so completely that virtually nothing is recognizable . the sibling rivalry not only becomes little more than an excuse for one round of beatings after another , but there is no consistency to the characterizations . vincent d'onofrio turns in a manic performance as sam , whose jealousy , competitiveness and apparent sense of inferiority seem far more in keeping with what we know about jjaks , while reeves turns into a framed hero too reminiscent of chain reaction , and both of them spend most of the second half of the film screaming and covered in blood . there are films which have managed to employ a radical shift in tone successfully ( jonathan demme's something wild and neil jordan's the crying game come to mind ) , but they didn't try to draw an audience with the promise of relatively innocuous entertainment . i don't want to dismiss baigelman's successes out of hand -- he gets a fun performance out of dan aykroyd as a crooked cop , and some well-crafted comic moments -- and it is not his fault that fine line has chosen to promote feeling minnesota as a light-hearted caper . it _is_ his fault that he violates his own characters for the sake of shock value , and that he can't make his two halves into a whole . feeling minnesota left me feeling used , and there's not much funny about that .
0	after the recent animated debacles of , " a rugrats movie , " and " a bug's life , " i am seriously considering raising my highly negative rating on dreamworks' other insect film from october , " antz . " i hated that movie , and yet , it is so much better than these latest two excursions . " a bug's life , " is the second animated insect film in the last two months , and i hoped for the best , considering it was done in the wonderful style of pixar's last film , 1995's " toy story , " but in no way does , " a bug's life , " even remotely match up to that . flik ( david foley ) , an ant , who along with his many comrades , has the job every year of gathering up the seasonal harvest , only to have to give half of it away to the dominating grasshoppers , led by hopper ( kevin spacey ) . flik , however , feels all alone and unwanted in the world , especially after he accidentally loses all of their food , and the ants are threated by hopper to gather up a whole other season's load by the time the last summer leaf falls from the trees . banished from ant island , flik leaves the colony in search of some strong reinforcement to help out , but through a misunderstanding , returns with a handful of helpless circus bugs , including a walking stick ( david hyde pierce ) , a dung beetle ( brad garrett ) , a gypsy moth ( madeline kahn ) , a male ladybug ( denis leary ) , and a caterpillar ( joe ranft ) . " a bug's life , " has one thing going for it . only one thing . with its glorious , bright colors , the computer-generated animation is a spectacle to look at . the film itself , unfortunately , is a lifeless , unamusing contraption without any of the flair or excitement of , " toy story . " the characters in , " a bug's life , " are an assortment of either unlikable or dull insects without any charm or personality , other than to stand around and recite arbitrary and thoroughly unfunny one-liners . the thin story was also stretched out to a nearly unbearable 94 minutes , and it often felt as if they ran out of ideas throughout , and so they made up pointless scenes to pass as time-filler . after giving such scathing reviews to the animated films from this year , i was beginning to think that i had simply outgrown them , but then i realized this is just not so . i still adore almost all of the older disney films , and many of the newer ones , such as 1989's , " the little mermaid , " 1991's , " beauty and the beast , " 1993's , " the nightmare before christmas , " and yes , 1995's , " toy story . " maybe this has just been a bad year for children's films , and hopefully , the upcoming , " the prince of egypt , " will not be a disappointment . as for , " a bug's life , " i did not enjoy anything about it . not the story , not the characters , and not even the voiceover work , which was far more lively in , " antz . " " a bug's life , " goes down as yet another failure for disney , and it is a sad state of affairs when their best film in the last two years has been the minor jonathan taylor thomas picture , " i'll be home for christmas . "
1	when i first heard of contact , the hype was building it up as a sci-fi blockbuster . now , with that in mind , coupled with the knowledge of jodie foster's involvement in the project , i thought " what in the world is foster doing in a sci-fi blockbuster ? ? ? " . as it turned out , my expectations were completely nullified and turned topsy-turvy . robert zemeckis , back from the euphoria created by his last film , forrest gump , once again proves his mastery in fusing tales of adventure with along the endearing lines of human spirit . don't get me wrong , contact is sci-fi ? but with a definite difference . based on the late carl sagan novel of the same name , the story delves itself in questions on science and god ; fact and faith . allie ( foster ) is a radio astronomer . she spends her time listening to the stars , via ultra-huge communication dishes in search of intelligent life beyond the solar system . her passion for `long-distance communication' is the result of her younger days being spent avidly in front of a ham-radio system ( a hobbyist radio communication device ) which her late-father bought for her . a scene which particularly strengthens the audiences' view of the passion is when she asked her father whether she could contact her late-mother through the ham-radio system in which her father replied " not even the most powerful radio in the world can do that , now " . allie's research is based on the seti project ( search for extra terrestrial intelligence ) , in which she listens to radio emissions from other galaxies in the hope of finding one which would suggest intelligent manipulation . her work has never been off the scrutiny of the us government , which considers it a waste of taxpayer's money and politically unviable , her supervisor ( tom skerritt ) pulls the plug on seti . undaunted , allie managed to gather a loyal group of `believers' and eventually found funding from a large private corporation . the following months were treacherous to their hopes and research as they are contantly pressured by the government but all that changed when one day , she caught an emission of a seemingly intelligent repeating sound-wave . the news of her find attracted hordes of alien believers , cultist , the media and of course , the government . the situation became intense upon her discovery of pictorial plans on building a form of transport which were embedded within the repeating sound emission . as the world join forces to build this transport , allie is desperate to be the one to go . she enrols herself among a few hopefuls , to represent the world when the transport is ready for operation . her eligibility for the spot failed when she is questioned on her beliefs in the existence of god by the president's spiritual advisor ( mcconaughey ) ; allie , being an atheist , a result of her belief in fact and science , refuses to budge upon questioning . at this point the movie plot thickens considerably as she is romantically involved with the president's spiritual advisor . a strong point which propelled the movie is the depth of its main characters played by foster and mcconaughey . from the very first meeting scene , it is obvious that the two of them was sort of kindred spirits but they were worlds apart in almost all aspects , foster being a person drawn to science and facts and mcconaughey being one who believes in faith , hope and the power of the unseen . the meeting of their worlds , added with the situation which they are put into makes the entire storytelling process near flawless . many people who read the synopsis of this film would find it a tad too ridiculous , but by actually immersing yourself in it , gives you an entirely different perspective ; one which is free from bias and pre-conceptions . zemeckis and his team of screen writers have done a remarkable job in telling this tale through film . contact works by not delving in controversy but rather , touches the thinking audience , urging them to ponder upon the questions raised in the film concerning fact and faith ; whether one can actually find compromise within . i consider contact as one of the must-sees for this year .
1	notting hill's trailer is awful : a laughless , schmaltzy montage . the movie was desperately marketed to the anti-phantom menace crowd , the same lovelorn females who ignored the love letter . and it apparently worked . perhaps the presence of julia roberts-whose allure beyond those perfect teeth still escapes me-had a lot to do with notting hill's opening weekend success , but the film's staying power is based on word of mouth . allow me to spread some more good buzz for notting hill . grant stars as william thacker , a travel-bookstore owner who works and resides in a tiny english district called notting hill . into his shop one day wanders famous actress anna scott ( roberts ) . a common thief , some spilled orange juice , and some stilted conversation leads to their first , highly impetuous ( or is that improbable ? ) , kiss . days later , william sneaks into her hotel suite under the guise of a magazine journalist , and so begins a passionate , albeit surreptitious , affair . ( aside : notting hill's portrayal of press junkets is deadly accurate . ) only anna's celebrity-or william's lack thereof-threatens to drive a wedge between them . richard curtis has tapped into fantasy we all have considered , and for at least its first half-hour the picture's " beauty and the beast " -like scenario is ( romantic ) escapism of the highest order . as with groundhog day or pleasantville , while watching the high-concept comedy notting hill one constantly imagines him/herself in the lead ; it's william's ordinaryness that entices the spoiled and bored anna . curtis ( who previously penned four weddings and a funeral ) is also smart enough to know that the unlikely couple's situation is not enough to fuel two hours' worth of entertainment , so some of notting hill's finest moments revolve around william's eccentric friends and family . by now , dear reader , you've probably heard a lot about rhys ifans' performance as william's imbecilic welsh flatmate . yes , he's a crowd pleaser , a walking sight gag , but his character is not nearly as involving as the wheelchair-bound ( and appropriately named ) bella ( mckee , the anguished waitress of naked ) or max ( tom mcinnerny ) , her lousy chef of a husband . in the movie's best sequence , william , anna , and company sit around bloated from max's latest concoction and hold a contest : the last brownie on the table goes to the diner with the saddest life . the scene ends only as a british writer would end it . if anything , fantastic bits like these dull the main plot's dramatic impact . roberts and grant , especially , are appealing , but their relationship is convolutedly interrupted too many times ( four weddings' suffered similar flaws ) , and william and anna ultimately only have one thing in common : they're lonely . ( worth noting in roberts' and grant's favour : the ubiquitous " i'm just a girl , standing across from a boy , asking him to love her " episode is not nearly so syrupy as it appears in clips , and it features some of the best emoting either actor has ever done . ) notting hill is nonetheless enjoyable ; on the visual side of things , i especially appreciated michell's playful changing-of-the-seasons number . if only ( and this is a surprisinly minor gripe ) he had lopped off the egregious epilogue ; for a story that thrives on what we bring to it , the filmmakers work too hard to tidy things up , leaving our imaginations in the lurch .
0	once upon a time jean-claude van damme was a decent action hero . the muscles from brussels bursted into the hollywood market with mindless adventure films , boasting his spectacular martial-arts ability . some of these excursions were fun . but now it seems like watching a van damme movie has become a painful chore , with no rewards but the virtually guaranteed helping of mind-numbing action . and when the action goes sour , what is there left to enjoy ? i'll explain . knock off is about a pair of counterfeit jeans salesmen working out of an office in hong kong . marcus ray ( van damme ) , a babe-magnet and stylish dresser , heads up the company with an annoying weasel of a partner ( rob schneider ) . they become part of a plot involving microbombs implanted in counterfeit jeans , seemingly by a mole in the business . i'm going to reveal about everything in the next paragraph , so if you want a review devoid of spoilers , skip onto the next one . i'm not quite sure who gives a crap , but i'll issue a warning anyhow . tommy is really working with the cia . his boss ( a very hammy and flat paul sorvino ) is the mole , and he wants to cause carnage with these tiny but immensely powerful super weapons . he even stoops so low to put them into children's toys . if you thought this plot outline sounded intriguing , then you probably will enjoy knock off . if you think that this ridiculous set-up couldn't even fill five minutes of screen time without causing you to roll over laughing , this might not be your cup of tea . knock off sucks . it stoops to ridiculous levels that most individuals could only conjure up in horrific nightmares . it amazes me how far these producers will go to sell something , simply because van damme is the star . the plot is pathetic garbage strung together by inane action sequences that will baffle your mind , the performances are so wooden you could use them to row a canoe , and the action itself is an absolute catastrophe . director tsui hark ( who teamed with van damme in the superior , but still lame-brained double team ) is at the helm , and he would rather attempt to dazzle us with fantastic camera angles than engage us with the plot . i suppose i enjoyed some of the camera work , but the incessant desperation of it all made me rather nauseous . the picture freezes in the middle of an action sequence , speeds are altered consistently , and the camera tricks mostly apply to traveling up gun barrels as the weapons are fired . it all sounds very cool . trust me , it isn't . as much as it scars me to say this ( har , har ) , van damme is terrible . sure , he does lots of fancy kickboxing moves and dodges giant crates with the greatest of ease . he looks like he's doing a bad impersonation of jackie chan , and his performance is stiff and tired . i hate to say it , but perhaps it's time for mr . van damme to give up his day job . it's really a test of endurance watching knock off . i suppose there's some enjoyment derived from schneider's character , who is extremely annoying , but provides the film's better moments . and what is the beautiful lela rochon doing in this movie ? hopefully she grabbed her paycheck and then fled the premises like an olympic sprinter . knock off doesn't even stand strong as a mindless but entertaining action film , like a handful of van damme's others . no , this movie is an embarrassment to the entire action genre of modern filmmaking . and considering how low hollywood has stooped as of late in that department , that is certainly not saying much . note to self : avoid universal soldier 2 : the return upon release in august ? 99 .
0	capsule : lesbianism examined in the same hushed and reverential tones reserved for a terminal illness . potentially interesting idea made stagy and boring . claire of the moon is such an impossibly serious and sober movie that i was waiting for someone to sneeze , just to break the ice . it's a perfect example of what my wife calls an s . f . e . movie , where s . f . e . means so f * * * ing earnest . movies like this need wit and brashness to be absorbing . claire is one strained speech after another , written delivered with all of the energy and spontenaity of a dmv clerk . claire takes two women , claire and noel , both writers , and throws them together in the same cabin at a women-only writer's retreat . claire wrights light comedy , while noel is a scholarly authority on porn and sexual behavior . obviously , the two of them are going to have plenty to talk about , and for the entire one hundred and twelve insufferable minutes of this movie , that's all they do : talk . the movie sets up its ( microscopic ) plot with beat-a-dead-horse-into-glue obviousness . the evening talks at the camp are chaired by a motherly type named maggie , a self-professed lesbian , and when noel owns up to also being a lesbian , claire looks like she's been hit with a sockful of wet sand . the movie then quickly degenerates into lots of scenes where noel glances at claire with significance , and claire looks out over the water reflectively . ( ugh ! ) the most amazing thing about the movie is how people so intelligent can talk so much and yet get so little through their thick heads . all of this , of course , leads up to a scene of complete inevitability : claire and noel , in a scene that should have come an hour earlier , because then the movie ends without even the benefit of reflection about what's just happened . we never get a hint about how any of this has changed anyone , only how they felt about things that didn't even happen yet . the problem with claire . . . is not lesbianism as such , but the leaden way it's handled . why is it that any " serious " ( a better word would be adult or at least thoughtful ) examination of sex in a movie almost always winds up producing a movie that's unwatchably boring ? the way this movie deals with lesbianism , we might as well be watching an overheated docudrama about aids . many other movies have used the same subject in ways that are a thousand times better -- more engaging , more creative , more intellectually and artistically interesting . look at john sayles' lianna , or the interesting and little-seen desert bloom ; both of them have more life and vibrancy than claire . what this movie needed was a good swift kick in the pants .
0	adam sandler vehicles are never anything special , but continue to make a load of money . which really goes to show the sad state of cinema today . while good comedies like rushmore , to choose a recent example , gets limited release and doesn't make a lot of money , big daddy got a huge release and has made a lot of cash . it's also nothing special and doesn't deserve the money it's making . but i digress . sandler plays sonny koufax , a unemployed new yorker with a seemingly low mental age . his girlfriend makes a ultimatum to him : either wise up and get responsible , or she's leaving him . by a strange set of events , koufax ends up with julian ( played by twins cole and dylan sprouse ) a five year old kid . after a failed attempt to impress his girlfriend with the child , koufax decides he wants to keep the child . however , social worker mr brooks ( mostel ) finds out that koufax isn't the real father and wants to take julian back . koufax along with his new girlfriend layla ( lauren adams ) fight to keep the child . big daddy really isn't that good . many of the jokes revolve around toilet humour , and supposedly we are meant to find julian and sonny peeing against a wall to be funny . there's the occasional good one liner , but these are usually strangely delivered wrong and lose most of the humour . the film , after all these silly gags , then suddenly turns sentimental , and this is where big daddy really goes from bad to hideous . the court scene at the end of the film is useless and unbelievable , and not helped by the soppy overacting . it's a poor attempt to win over the audience . adam sandler basically plays the same role he has in his last few films ( except the wedding singer . ) joey lauren adams is much , much better , and deserves a far better film than this trash . steve buscemi pops up in a funny cameo , and his scenes are pretty funny . rob schneider is also funny as a crazy delivery man . the two twins who play julian are o . k , they start out rather well , but then becoming annoying and brattish halfway through and finally turn 'all american' wholesome goodness at the end of the film , where the tear juice is turned up high . big daddy is really nothing special , and is not even worth it for a few chuckles . although it is actually well put together , with nice direction , good production design and even some montages , this professionalism can't help the fact that the script and characters are trash . big daddy is for die hard fans of sandler , and that's about it .
1	an energetic , visually stunning , but intellectually hollow recreation of the mysterious life of jeanne d'arc . in history jeanne d'arc is lost in an ocean of mystery and controversy , which creates the perfect launching pad for talented and creative directors , who can basically alter the story as they wish . she came in a time where people desperately needed a saint . a hero that could rescue them for misery and deliver peace and happiness . director/writer luc besson ( 'nikita' , 'leon' ) portrays his version of the peasant girl who commanded the armies of france and was burned at the stake for witchcraft . besson tries to recreate the person behind the legend . he tries not to show her as a saint or a villain . he shows her as a human being . in a time where blood was almost pouring from the sky , and the air smelled of rotten flesh , it is hard to keep your sanity . the only support and hope is in god . at the age of 13 , jeanne ( milla jovovich ) watches her own sister murdered and raped by the english soldiers . this terrible event makes a lasting impact on jeanne's mind . god is no longer her support . he has become her obsession . she starts seeing visions and signs that command her to raise an army and free france from the siege of the english tyranny . with the help of the wise yolande d'aragon ( faye dunaway ) and charles vii ( john malcovich ) , whose grand royal ambitions and life are at stake , jeanne raises an army and marches towards the english walls . after this the film stays mostly on the battlefield , where besson demonstrates his ability to direct amazing action sequences , only occasionally resorting to a calmer tempo . the movie is filled with dreamy , symbolic images of pure artistic craftsmanship , that create a surreal and occasionally paranoiac atmosphere . the film is lost in time and space , hysterically jumping back and forth in jeanne's thoughts , imagination and conscience . besson's visual style permits the audience to enter the medieval age , feel the smell of fresh blood and the adrenaline pumping in your body in the heat of battle . but the film is far from being flawless . the script needs a lot of polishing . except for jeanne , there are no real characters . and although a grand star cast is assembled , their characters are nothing more than props , not more alive than the costumes that they are wearing . as for the maiden of lorraine herself , she is portrayed as a simple girl , too small for her divine task . in the latter part of the film , we see her as hysterical , confused and on the brink of madness , with her past purity and innocence for ever lost . jovovich handles the part with more panache than one might expect . but though her screen time is incredible excessive , both malcovich ( 'being john malcovich' ) and dunaway ( 'titus' ) surpass her rather overacted and simply unprofessional performance . and even hoffman manages to breathe some life into his dreadfully small part . besides casting jovovich , besson's only mistake is his extreme sense of patriotism that in the end ruins his so gloriously crafted painting . there are some viscously evil englishmen that murder , pillage and betray with a smile on their faces . and some incredibly brave and noble frenchmen , represented by the " three musketeers " of this story -- the brave gilles de rais ( vincent cassel ) , the wise aulon ( desmond harrington ) and the strong la hire ( richard ridings ) . though all those actor perform well , their characters are nothing more than symbols -- banners that proclaim the glory of france . and thus , there is no sense of realism in this film . 'the messenger' has muscles instead of brains . there is some relief in the end , where besson lays down his armor and starts thinking . dustin hoffman's appearance helps and the film ends elegantly and surprisingly effective with a climax worthy of praise . jeanne's character is unlocked , but whether god was in the picture or not , is never quite explained . was she a confused peasant girl driven by her own hunger for revenge ? or was she truly a messenger of god ? the film poses as many questions as answers and nothing is completely obvious . bess o messenger' is nothing more than a fairly good film . it is not much that you remember of it after you leave the theater . maybe the sound , the dreamy sequences , but certainly not the dialogue . it is an elegant and adrenaline pumping history lesson for the mtv-generation , that although presents some interesting material , works better when it's on the battlefield .
1	usually when one is debating who the modern queen of the romantic comedy is they will bring up names like julia roberts or sandra bullock . others will mention meg ryan . but for me , it's not even close . janeane garofalo is not only the queen of the romantic comedy , she is the best comic actress in hollywood right now . and it's a good thing she's starring in the matchmaker , because without her presence the movie would be bland , unfunny , and dull . garofalo stars as marcy tizard , a top aide to boston senator john mcglory , who is suffering in the polls . in an attempt to capture the irish vote , he sends marcy on a mission to a small irish town called ballinagra in search of other mcglory's that never moved to america . unfortunately for marcy , her visit coincides with the town's annual matchmaking festival . things get off to a rocky start for marcy though . she has no hotel reservations ( for no rational reason ) and the tiny confined room ( tired old cliche' ) she has to stay in has a visitor in her bathtub . his name is sean , and marcy finds him repugnant at first , so you can obviously tell where this is headed . the movie runs into a few roadblocks . for instance , the story is very thin . none of the characters ( except the old local matchmaker ) are nearly as interesting as garofalo . some of the characters , like the political aide played by denis leary , have wandered in from a completely different movie . i think the director realized this and decided to throw in numerous shots of the beautiful irish scenery , and several close-ups of garofalo's winning smile . the strange thing is that it works . garofalo's charm and the irish scenery could carry the thinnest of stories , and it carries this one .
0	a cop with a troubled personal life . a ruthless villain . a friend of the cop . a _dead_ friend of the cop . a quest for vengeance . a new partner . a romantic interest . a chase scene . a chase scene _in san francisco_ . a woman in peril . a confrontation . an explosion . the end . yawn . yawn . yawn . the preceding has been the plot of approximately twelve thousand and six action films ; this one just happens to be called metro . i have learned to expect little from films like metro , and consequently i am bored by them more often than i am genuinely disappointed . with eddie murphy on board , however , you hope for something extra , some kind of spark . when a film makes watching eddie murphy a tedious experience , you know it is doing something terribly wrong . murphy stars as scott roper , a hostage negotiator for the san francisco police department who is exceedingly good at his job . with his personal life , he is considerably less successful , facing an unhappy ex-girlfriend named veronica ( carmen ejogo ) , a gambling problem and a mountain of debt . then his professional life gets a jolt as well when a friend and colleague ( art evans ) is murdered while investigating suspected jewel thief michael korda ( michael wincott ) . finding korda becomes very personal to scott , and he joins with new partner kevin mccall ( michael rappaport ) to foil korda during an attempted heist . but all is not well even with korda in jail , as scott , veronica and kevin all continue to face life-threatening danger . metro ( the title , in case you are wondering , means absolutely nothing ) is so badly put together that even the most casual viewer may notice the miserable pacing and stray plot threads . in the first place , korda's rage over being discovered before he can make his big score is rendered completely pointless when he proceeds to hit the target anyway ( and , incidentally , to screw it up ) . a reference to payoffs in the police department , followed by a conspicuous decision to keep scott off the korda case and a couple of pointed glances , is dropped abruptly with no resolution after about forty-five minutes ; even the relationship between scott and new partner kevin is so perfunctory , with kevin disappearing entirely after taking a bullet for scott , that you may yearn for bickering buddies . worst of all is a plot structure which places the main villain ( the always menacing michael wincott ) behind bars for far too long , leaving a lot of time to kill with the tedious reconciliation of scott and veronica . you can't blame murphy for being unable to muster any enthusiasm for the scenes with his bland leading lady , but he should have known better than to take this role at all . scott roper exists in an uncomfortable middle ground between the kind of street-wise fast-talker murphy has built a career on and an actual three-dimensional character , and murphy is never able to reconcile the two . the script seems to have been doctored for him , with a gambling problem turned into a bit of character color and his supposed inability to form relationships turned into a cause for gags rather than actual conflict , yet there is still too little comedy for murphy to work with . for much of the film , he walks around with an intense frown , and it is over 90 minutes into metro before you hear that trademark laugh for the first time . murphy is stranded with too few solid punch lines , and nearly all of the ones he does have bounce of ejogo and fall to the ground limply . i suppose i should give director thomas carter credit for taking the obligatory san francisco car chase ( how much do you want to bet on the likelihood of seeing a car soar over a hill ? ) and doing a few interesting things with it . as vehicles are sent flying and passengers sent sprawling by a runaway cable car , it is possible at least for a moment to take some pleasure in a goofy spin on a familiar situation . carter does an even better job by taking that old suspense stand-by -- the medicine cabinet mirror which will close to reveal a killer standing behind someone -- and using it to defuse tension not once , but _twice_ . the fact that carter was able to demonstrate even that much recognition of cliches , and a willingness to subvert them , makes his involvement in the rest of the disaster that is metro all the more puzzling . an action film like this plods so relentlessly and obviously from point a to point b to point c that you might find yourself shouting out " point c ! " while they're still getting to point b , or getting up with the rest of the audience after the big explosion which signals that nothing else of any consequence is going to happen .
0	for about twenty minutes into mission impossible 2 director john woo ( the killer , hard boiled , face off ) appears to have made an exciting , elegant , charming spy thriller , kind of a post millennium james bond adventure with a strapping american ( read : unsophisticated ) hero more willing to drop kick villains than out fox them . sadly , as the picture progresses , the final product begins to bear a closer resemblance to a souped up , two-hour long episode of magyuver . and not a particularly good one at that . what went wrong ? mi2 begins flashily enough , that initial flash leading us to believe that it'll soon give way to something of a plot , but it only gives way to more flash , then digresses further into a presumably unintentional parody of itself with much slo mo posturing and countless action set pieces wherein bad guys seem to deliberately leap into the way of tom cruise's firing gun just so they can die really cool . early on , during a car chase between soon to be lovers ethan hunt ( tom cruise ) and nyah nordoff-hall ( thandie newton ) , woo works some of his trademark magic . in one hypnotic , though completely inexplicable sequence , the director slows the action down to a languid semi-stall as cruise and his stunning opponent stare into one and other's eyes with come hither sexuality ? ? ? just as their respective cars smash and spin in accordance , coming ever so close to toppling over a neighboring cliff . prior to this we see the famed trailer opener of cruise climbing a steep mountain , sans scaffolding , then leaping from one jagged rock formation to another . why ? i haven't the foggiest . i doubt even john woo could provide you with a logical reply . with mi2 woo has become a slave to the summer movie machine , the one that jettisons logic for gravity defying effects and story for more gravity defying effects . it's possible that these " spies " could be adrenaline junkies climbing mountains and crashing into each other as means to get off , though of course this is never explored . the scenes i've described are really only included to titillate , not to give any insight into character . god forbid . woo certainly knows how to make each set piece energetic , but they remain individual set pieces never connecting to form anything more than splices of beer commercial-like visuals . still in terms of crackerjack eye candy , the opening has much to cherish . cruise and newton first meet during a vigorous flamenco dance featuring several welcome woo devices ( the graceful slow mo artistry of synchronized movement juxtaposed against the stage 1 romance of two attractive individuals discovering how attractive the other is ) . between the frantic dancing , woo trains his camera on cruise and newton as they make with some sensuous eye contact . the scene is a little over the top in a bon jovi music video circa 1988 kind of way , yet it has style and something of soul , and woo casts a bit of a spell on us . sure it's all smoke and mirrors , but we can see that there happens to be a talented maestro behind this particular product . thandie and cruise later meet in a bathtub in a scene that's about half as playfully charming as the jennifer lopez \ george cloony trunk meeting in out of sight . they flirt and exchange obvious double entendres . newton bats her eyes flirtatiously . cruise grins a little too slyly . the cruise character , ethan hunt , has been drastically altered since the first film . here cruise plays him more as a hip , sexual dynamo than the square jawed robot he impersonated in part 1 . he's cool and dashing , which is precisely the kind of role we want to see cruise in after watching him sleep walk through eyes wide shut ( which might just be the longest episode of red show diaries ever committed to film ) , and blustered his way through magnolia ( quite possibly the most overrated performance of the 90's ) . sadly as the film progresses we see less of cruise's initial " i'm the man ! " charm and more slo-mo close-ups of his preening mug . mi2 falls apart on nearly every level during its repetitious third act , which is essentially one hour long action sequence that just won't stop . the whole thing commences with an utterly generic gun battle ( the first gun fight in the film ) , which really should be unheard of in a john woo film , but alas this particular battle could've been staged by anyone from renny harlin to joseph merhi ( of course excepting the " symbolic " pigeons who seem to find their way into every john woo picture ) . we've all seen guys slide across the floor in slo mo while firing a gun in each hand . it isn't done any differently here . the action is pure hard target \ broken arrow theatrics with nothing to propel it but the apparent need to see tom cruise drop kick face less villains while his hair whips stylishly in the wind . he's cool for sure but he's made to be as empty as the movie . the actor isn't used so much for his boyish appeal as for his chiseled looks ; he smiles narcissistically into the camera at literally any moment , be it during a gunfight , before one or after one . when he's not beaming away , he's staring into the lens with cold eyes trying to look mad as hell , but woo's editing seriously undermines the effort . he fetishizes cruise's angular face with such glee that it turns into a naked gun style spoof . i half expected cruise to peel off his facemask and reveal that he's really austin powers . in a classic woo action moment , ethan hunt struts past a fiery doorway glaring at the baddies within its frame like a pin-up boy angel of death . the gunfight turns into a daring escape which turns into a reckless mission which turns into a motorcycle attack in which bad guys seem to angle directly for cruise to kill them like some kind of mass suicide ritual ( one dumb bastard even jumps his bike over the gun toting cruise , basically inviting our handsome hero to shoot him in mid air which he does ) . the lead bad guy ( played by the appropriately british dougray scott ) and cruise face off in a mentally deficient game of chicken ? ? ? on motorcycles . though instead of jumping off to the side at the last moment , the two grown men leap directly into the other giving each other a mid air bear hug , only to fly about a hundred feet ( still in bear hug position ) , land on a beach below and begin a mano-e-mano fist fight that ends with the bad guy pulling a " so you thought i was dead . . . " . not to worry , cruise takes care of the problem without even breaking a sweat . what a hero ! you may have noticed that i opted not to describe an iota of mi2's plot . my reasoning is simple : i'm not sure of any good it would do . the film itself has absolutely no concern with story , only with hurtling forth to the next " special " effect . i wasn't kidding when i told a friend of mine that mi2 has less plot than the average aerosmith video . nobody will go to this for the plot , and if they do they'll surely regret it . as summer movies evolve ( or devolve ) character and plot have become increasingly whittled down to nearly nothing . in mi , the plot seemed to be built around brian de palma's ( that film's director ) stylistic flourishes , while in mi2 the plot only serves to give us an intermittent breather from woo's non-stop masturbatory pandemonium . it's irrelevant in every sense , as is character . all that ultimately matters are those pesky smoke and mirrors .
0	ok , i admit it--i find camp amusement with the spice girls . yes , the same spice girls of the gimmicky individual " identities , " they of the annoyingly infectious bubblegum pop hooks and cheesy unifying mantra of " girl power . " but not even their guilty pleasure appeal isn't enough to carry their big screen debut , a junky mess which would be more aptly named shite world than spice world . the film begins amusingly enough , with a cheeky 007-esque title sequence in which the british quintet-- " scary " ( melanie brown ) , " baby " ( emma bunton ) , " sporty " ( melanie chisolm ) , " ginger " ( geri halliwell ) , and " posh " ( victoria adams ) --are introduced one by one ( to , much to my surprise , excited and only slightly mocking cheers from the press audience ) as they croon the silky ballad " too much " ( a tune that would sound right at home in an actual james bond film ) . a few minutes and an elton john cameo later comes an introductory tour of the numerous plotlines that run through the film : ( 1 ) the spicy ones go on a european publicity tour leading up to their first live concert at london's royal albert hall ; ( 2 ) a film producer ( george wendt ) and a screenwriter ( mark mckinney ) pitch various film ideas to the girls' manager , clifford ( richard e . grant ) ; ( 3 ) a documentary film crew follows the girls ; ( 4 ) a pregnant " mate " ( naoki mori ) of the group rapidly approaches her due date ; and ( 5 ) a tabloid publisher ( barry humphries ) attempts to destroy the group with the help of a sneaky shutterbug ( richard o'brien ) . capped off by a live rendition of the girls' bouncy hit " say you'll be there , " a wealth of laughs and merriment is sure to follow , right ? wrong . it's all downhill from there as spice world collapses into a series of misfired comedy sketches . i must give the girls credit for their refreshing willingness to make fun of themselves , but writer kim fuller and director bob spiers can barely come up with a funny joke between them , much less a organized framework for all the " wacky " goings-on . spice world jumps from vignette to vignette , subplot to subplot with no direction and little sense , at one minute having the girls meet with aliens ( no joke ) and at another having them stage a daring rescue of two young fans who fall into the water during a boat ride . while a decent joke slips through the cracks here and there--during a " dance bootcamp " scene , the girls sing the lyric " we know how we got this far/strength and courage and a wonderbra " --much of the material is not even funny on the chuckle level . some gags are just plain pointless , such as roger moore's recurring role as the mysterious chief , who dispenses cryptic , metaphor-heavy advice to clifford . the only reason why i can think anyone would find that funny is the fact that moore once played james bond . ha ha . as weak as the script is , i think there's one insurmountable problem with even attempting to make a spice girls movie , and that is the girls themselves . the point is not that they can't act ( and , for the record , they really _can't_ ) but that their individual personas , which works as a gimmick over the span of a four-minute music video , are too thin to survive outside of the truncated , video bite mtv world . posh ( who garnered the most enthusiastic cheers during the introductions ) comes off best by default because her persona ( rich bitch ) most easily translates into character in a film . baby's persona ( young innocent ) , to a lesser extent , also works , but the remaining girls' identities are a little harder to flesh out . there really isn't much to do with sporty besides having her exercise every so often ( which is _exactly_ what fuller and spiers do ) , and , after all , what exactly entails being " ginger " or " scary " ? apparently , just their wardrobes . spice world manages to pick up some steam in the late going following a flashback performance of the spices' signature hit , " wannabe . " the song is as grating as ever , but the energy of the number gives the proceedings a much-needed shot in the arm , setting the stage for a wave of self-referential humor stemmed from the screenwriters' film ideas ( the film almost mirrors robert altman's the player in the way the film snails into itself ) . this section of the film , involving all manner of derring-do involving a speeding bus , is perhaps its most effective , but it also points up how all the other storylines ( the publisher , the documentary crew ) lack a satisfactory payoff . spice world is harmless entertainment suitable for the entire family , and it will please the spice faithful . but this sloppy enterprise surely won't win them any new fans , which is what the group sorely needs to bolster its rapidly waning girl power in the states . once the hype disappears , spice world will likely serve as the the spices' final hurrah in america .
0	the 13th warrior reeks so badly of melodrama and poor acting that it carries a worst scent than a canine's least appetizing residue . the best part of the film would be a close contest between the closing credits and a brief moment in the middle where the screen goes entirely white and you hope that the film has slipped and caught ablaze in the projector . my vote goes for the ending credits , where you can start trying to put the awful experience behind you . ibn fahdlan ( antonio banderas ) is an important official who is banished from his home for sleeping with another man's wife . he encounters a group of norse warriors who convince him to join them on a mysterious journey to be taken by 13 men . fahdlan is chosen as the 13th and last warrior in a moment that is so desperately overacted and overdone that numerous persons at the screening i attended broke out into laughter . the movie proves to be a new low point for banderas , who's acting seems closer to that of his role as the lover and caretaker for a dying gay man in 1993's philadelphia , than that of a warrior . in the film's supposed pay off scene , he exclaims " i was wrong , these are not men ! " , a line intended to be the most memorable quote of the production . unfortunately , banderas delivers it in a fashion that makes chevy chase's career look like oscar material . the film , based on michael crichton's best selling novel , eaters of the dead was shot under that name some three years ago , and after numerous rewrites not only does the dialogue seem completely phony , but the plot is incredibly difficult to follow . at the same time , the 13th warrior makes you think about numerous questions . questions like " why do the characters always have perfect lighting on them even when it is pitch dark ? " , " why does no one ever have blood cover both sides of their face , but rather just one side ? " and finally , " will the manager give me a refund ? " 90 minutes into the 103 minute film , a man invites of the warriors " come with me , there is a woman who can help . " unfortunately , there is nothing that could help this film . the most appropriate ending would have been for the 13 men to join hands , form a chorus line , and break into a rendition of " springtime for hitler . "
1	it has been 20 years since a terrence malick film hit theaters . his new film , the thin red line , is a strange , beautiful , enigmatic mess of a movie . the first thing that jumps out to one when they see the advertisements for this film is the huge cast . it is filled with above-the-title stars . the cast , for the most part , gives great performances . john travolta , whose role is nothing more than a cameo , seems not to have attacked his performance with that much verve . george clooney , whose role became a cameo in editing , gives a strange performance . one wonders if he knew that his performance would become the object of ridicule through a character's narration . the rest of the cast , especially nick nolte and elias koteas , are unambiguously fantastic . these actors ( and they are , with two exceptions , men ) were lured by the name of malick . terrence malick is a cinematic legend . he has often been called " the j . d . salinger of cinema . " his two previous films , badlands and days of heaven , are spectacularly beautiful and obscure motion pictures . after he made them , he disappeared for 20 years . this film marks his return . what he's made with the thin red line is a film that seems less concerned with plot than with the emotion of the moment . the narration which fills the film ( and perplexes many ) not only lets us hear the narrators ( the characters themselves ) pontificate , but also lets us hear such of-the-moment thoughts as " i'm scared . " the rather simple plot of the thin red line is used as a canvas on which many stories are painted . the plot couldly simply be boiled down to an assault on a hill . a plot synopsis for the thin red line is difficult , because the story is fractured . many stories are here , from the clash between the lieutenant ( elias koteas ) and the savage colonel ( a voracious nick nolte ) to the private ( ben chaplin ) who uses his love for the woman he left behind to keep him going . the fracturing of the story is ultimately a fault . it is as if an artist spent an incredible amount of time artfully sculpting tiny statues and then threw them into a box , shook the box , and poured the results onto a table . this basically creates a mess , but the stories can be discerned and enjoyed . i'm not declaring that the film has no structure . while saving private ryan used warfare to bookend the plot , malick uses reflection and glorious shots of nature to bookend about 90 minutes of combat . the battles in the thin red line are astonishing and display a mastery of filmmaking . the astounding cinematography in this film must also be given notice . this film uses color and light in such a fantastic way , that it will be sad to see it degraded when it has to bee transferred to video . ultimately , malick has crafted a film that is a movie that enjoys looking through the treetops more than regarding the war that rages below them . the film is filled with nature photography and the regarding of nature . while some have said that the anti-war message and pro-nature tubthumping was juvenile , it was done with so much complexity and thought , that it cannot ever honestly be called childish . after seeing the thin red line , i was haunted by it and am quite ready to see it again .
1	okay , let me first say , this is a beavis and butthead movie . if you do not like beavis and butthead , do not go to see this movie ! ! ! ! ! however , if you do like them , i recommened you get out right now and go see it . the movie starts off with the boys wondering what happened to their tv . they notice that it has been stolen and they vow to find it . this wind their way through america searching for dallas ( she is a woman ) . they look for her because as they are searching for the tv , they find a drunk who wants them " to do " his wife . well , of course they think he wants them to score with her when actually he wants them to kill her . and the fun starts their . this movie is a mix of funny gags that anly beavis and butthead could pull off . it is quality entertainment that only fan of beavis and butthead would enjoy . i enjoyed this movie alot because mike judge knew how to keep pace . even when they were crawling through the desert and i thought the movie started to lag , he manages to keep the laughs coming . if you expecting changes from the show keep looking . the same character , the same voices , the same everything from the show and that's what makes it good . you might think with a movie from a tv show , you can change a few things . often times this spells disaster for films because the film makers veer away from what made the show popular in the first place !
1	most people fit into two different categories : you either love woody allen , or you hate his guts . my family , for the most part , hates him and his movies . i think he's very funny , but his shtick has gotten forced and contrived over the years . so maybe taking his body away was the best decision any producer could have thought of . unrestrained by physical boundaries , allen's humor comes shining through . those who had problems with his physical appearance will be able to join the rest of us in laughing at allen's intelligent observations of life . those who had problems with his verbal comedy may want to skip this one . in 1995 , a film was introduced to audiences which sparked their imaginations and showed them something they'd never seen before . toy story used state-of-the-art computer technology and presented a world of toys who would come alive when no humans were present . many critics will call that a better film , but i believe they only say that because it was a completely original motion picture . antz , however , has upped the ante considerably . disney's a bug's life isn't due out for another two months , and dreamworks seems to have received the better end of the deal . by beating disney out , they have satisfied the audience's thirst for computer-animated films . but don't let that fool you : disney is definitely not scared . in the past two years , competitions have broken out between studios . in 1997 , it was the volcano duel . in my opinion , dante's peak came out way ahead of its predecessor , both in time and in quality . volcano had an original premise , but destroyed that with some very ridiculous situations . in 1998 , there are twice as many competing films . first was the comet competition , and armageddon blew away it's cheesily dramatic competitor deep impact . but now , it's even more interesting , as one beloved studio ( disney ) goes up against the newcomer ( dreamworks ) . who will prevail ? time will tell , but i'm sure that mr . mouse has nothing to fear . this may sound like i didn't like antz ; on the contrary , i'd put it up there with toy story . but due to it's pg rating , many parents may be put off by some of the dialogue which shouldn't appear in disney's version . some of the dialogue in antz pushes the envelope for a family-oriented film . sexual innuendoes and profanity pop up occasionally , which makes dreamworks' animated feature geared more for an adult crowd . the humor is also written especially for adults , though many kids were laughing in the theater i attended . this is the type of film that should be made for families more often : entertaining for kids and entertaining for parents . antz begins with a hilarious monologue which seems a meld between woody allen's shtick and franz kafka's metamorphosis , the short story of a man who wakes up to discover himself as a bug . z ( allen ) is a troubled ant , believing he was not made to be a worker . " when you're the middle child in a family of five million . . . " he comments about his neglected childhood . one night , z is sitting in a bar with his friend weaver ( sylvester stallone ) , discussing his pathetic place in life . in walks princess bala ( sharon stone ) , whom no one recognizes without a crown . bala asks z is he would like to dance , and they engage in a pulp fiction-esque dance while everyone else is following the leader . after discovering that she is the princess , z falls in love , but there's a problem : bala is getting married to general mandible ( gene hackman ) , a ruthless leader who merely wants to control a better and stronger colony . in order to do that , he must eliminate not only the queen ( anne bancroft ) , but the weakest of the colony , namely the worker ants . but to get rid of the queen , he needs to get rid of the loyal army ants who would be willing to die for her . he and colonel cutter ( christopher walkin ) come up with a plan to send the loyal ants off to battle , where they will surely be killed . the queen is reluctant at first , but decides it is best for the colony . meanwhile , z wants to meet bala again , and he asks weaver , an army ant , to switch places with him . so z gets sent off to battle , but he manages to survive the slaughter by the termites . the battle sequence is absolutely stunning , though you may have flashbacks to starship troopers , which contained a very similar sequence . however , antz and that 1997 film were both in production around the same time , so the similarities are merely coincidence . the second half of the film revolves around z's kidnapping of bala , and their search for a mythical place called insectopia . there , an ant can be his own boss and have all the food he wants . the adventures z and bala get into are surprisingly high in tension , especially one involving a magnifying glass . looming over the targets like the spaceships from independence day ( in fact , i'm just going to assume that the producers referenced id4 intentionally ) . the ants look up in awe , and then a beam of fire blasts into the ground . visually , it's an exciting rush of adrenaline . but don't be fooled . . . little kids shouldn't see this , as they may just try and copy it . after seeing antz , i vowed never to intentionally step on an ant again . hopefully , children will learn that killing ants is rather cruel . as an animated film , antz is probably the best you will find to date . visually , it's as stunning as what dreams may come . the best aspect of animation is the fact that the characters aren't limited by gravity . they can take ridiculous situations and make them seem plausible . one great moment involves a mass of worker ants bunching up to form a wrecking ball . the animation is so perfect that you can virtually see every single ant on the ball . however , the most exhilarating scene involves bala getting stuck to the bottom of a young boy's shoe . it's truly a great example of film making at its finest . with computer technology , the animators have carefully made the ants' faces look similar to the actors providing the voices . the best example would have to be barbatus ( danny glover ) . at one point , you can even see the pores on his face ( although , i doubt ants have pores . . . do they ? ) . barbatus also has a touching but rather gruesome scene as he has his final words with z without a body . young kids may be disturbed by the site of a dismembered head , but a good deal of humor is derived ( more appropriate for adults , of course ) . disney's a bug's life looks good , but i don't know if they will be able to best dreamworks' newest animated feature in terms of animation . if not , then dreamworks will have done something no other studio could do : go head to head with the big mouse , and knock him down ( yes , anastasia was good , but not nearly as good as even the worst of disney ) . vocal talent is always essential to an animated feature , and antz has one of the best line-ups seen since toy story . in fact , it far exceeds that one . woody allen has always been funny , but here he transcends most of what he's done in the past few years . without a body , his comic timing is the most noticeable thing . in fact , i'm pretty sure that the writers let him improvise a lot of his lines . sharon stone as bala shows off some of her comic ability , though for the most part , stone works best as a dramatic actress . sylvester stallone ( teamed up with stone once again ) is beginning to solidify his statement that he wants to be an actor , not a typecast action star . after a snub at the oscars last year , stallone is proving himself as the serious ( or comedic , as illustrated here ) actor that he is . gene hackman is superb as the gruff-talking general , almost doing another take on his crimson tide persona . christopher walkin is probably more noticed by his voice , and so many people will remember him from such hits as batman returns . anne bancroft has a minimal role , but she's effective nonetheless . danny glover has a small role , but he does a very , very good job . dan aykroyd and jane curtin also lend their voices as two lovesick , euro-trash bees--both are very unrecognizable , especially aykroyd . jennifer lopez plays a worker ant who falls in love with weaver , although most people won't recognize her voice either . many people will recognize grant shaud's voice as the foreman . he played miles on the tv show murphy brown . this is definitely a huge cast with some high-profile names , and it will definitely help it's grosses . of course , you can probably tell where a lot of the $60 million budget went to , also . directors eric darnell and lawrence guterman are relative newcomers ( though guterman did direct a 1994 feature , headless ! ) . but both show an incredible talent for this type of a picture . tense at times , and very funny throughout , the two hold this film together like professionals . the screenplay by todd alcott and chris weitz is quite simple in plot , but it contains a lot of subtlety that makes the film more suitable for adults . kids will delight in the animation , while parents can laugh heartily at the humor . most of it will go over young children's heads . does that mean you shouldn't take kids to see it ? not at all . they will have a lot of fun watching this one . what is great is the themes that are given to us . part social commentary , part romance story , and part moral drama , antz gives everyone something to talk about , whether it be the animation , or the discussions of individualism and community . thankfully , it's not subtle in either aspects . antz is rated pg for mild language and some intense action . sometimes the language can be pushing the limits for a family movie , but the violence is what should keep kids at home . the battle scene has ants melting in acid , and bugs being speared to death . and the magnifying scene shows an ant disintegrate in the beam of sunlight . but other than that ( and some sexual innuendos ) , it's a perfect choice for some wholesome fun at the theaters . i doubt many children will understand the sexual innuendos unless they are old enough , but it's still advisable to leave really young children at home . have i confused you enough ? if you do take your kids , i recommend seeing the film with them , because more than likely , you'll enjoy it the most .
1	no matter what you suspect , this isn't your usual action thriller . the usual suspects is an intelligent crime mystery story from up-and-coming director bryan singer . it's one of those movies that , after everything is revealed rapid-fire at the end , you immediately want to rewind and watch again because earlier scenes take on a new light . plot twists a-go-go are what you get here -- i gave up trying to figure out the mystery of keyser soze after awhile and just sat back and waited for them to reveal it to me . keyser soze is a name you'll hear at least a hundred times if you watch the usual suspects and for good reason . it's not only the name of the mysterious ( and possibly even mythical ) crime boss in the movie , it also sums up the movie -- " keyser soze " in latin means " an intelligent crime mystery story from up-and-coming director bryan singer . " or maybe i shouldn't have bought a foreign-language dictionary from the same company that makes those 99-cent encyclopedias sold in supermarkets . at the movie's opening , a group of known criminals are brought in for a police lineup , including mcmanus ( stephen baldwin ) , keaton ( gabriel byrne ) , fenster ( benicio del toro ) , buckney ( kevin pollack ) and verbal ( kevin spacey , winner of the best supporting actor academy award{symbol 153 \ f " times new roman " \ s 10 \ h} for his performance in the movie ) . verbal is so-named because he frequently rambles on about anything or nothing . he also earns his name as the movie's narrator , spouting memorable lines like " the greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn't exist " ( although , obviously , he does exist -- what else could explain kris kross having a comeback in 1996 ? ) while being interrogated by police detective chazz palminteri ( any actor with multiple z's in their name is okay in my book ) . we see the story unfold as spacey retells it . the five felons , upon being released from the lineup , get their revenge on the police by exposing a corrupt taxi service -- whereby elite criminals pay to be smuggled through town in cop cars -- and stealing all the money and drugs in the car . it's a definite case of male bonding for the five criminals , who later find out they were brought together by the unseen keyser soze , who sends a minion to them with an offer they can't refuse . namely , they have to destroy soze's main competitors in organized crime by infiltrating a ship , shooting a bunch of people , burning all the drugs and stealing $91 million cash . spacey does a terrific job of bringing his seemingly unintelligent " cripple " character to life and baldwin , byrne , palminteri and the rest make for a good supporting cast . the usual suspects is one of those movies that deftly mixes scenes of violence and explosions with an underlying sense of mystery and suspense , keeping the viewer guessing until the very end -- and then still leaving a few details open for scrutiny and discussion . i suppose all that would be cleared up if i really had rewound the movie and watched it again instead of changing the channel and wondering in disbelief what the hell kris kross was doing on mtv . a different mystery , i guess , which may turn into a _murder_ mystery if that video ever comes on again . . .
1	do film critics have morals ? are there any unwritten laws an ethical movie critic would or should follow ? naturally we don't want to go into a film with any preconceived notions , which is pretty tough but something we all have to accomplish . secondly , and along the same line , we can't prejudge a film because of it's stars , director , etc . the difference ? well , in the first one , we'd go into a film thinking it's going to be dumb or it's going to be good , and that would affect our viewing ( that movie sounds and looks dumb , so i'm not expecting much ) . on the second hand , we're simply assuming it will be bad or good because of a personal " grudge " against the film company ( it's made by disney ? oh , it's just a merchandising ploy then ) , the actors ( jim carrey's in it ? it's gonna stink ! ) , or the director ( who ? can't be that good ) . this is more of a biased viewpoint as opposed to a first impression viewpoint . make sense ? ok , but what about comparing ? isn't that kind of along the same lines ? when we compare a certain actor or director or even composer's credibility in one film to another they were involved in , is that really fair ? sure , in sequels you can expect and accept comparisons a lot more , but what about jackie brown , for example ? is it fair for me to take the review and turn it into a comparison of pulp fiction , just because quentin tarantino directed and wrote the screenplay for both ? i think it is , and i'll tell you why . a good critic should be able to view the film from the " average joe ( or jane ) " viewpoint , while still taking into account the artistic integrity behind the film . sometimes that can be tough . " the acting was superb , but i was bored " or " i loved it ! ! it was sooooo cheezy ! " might be used to describe a film . these are contradictions , and a critic has to weigh both sides and come to a suitable balanced critique . but which is more important ? and which is better ? an extremely well shot and acted film that is boring , or a really amateurish film that you wanna go back to again and again ? getting back to the point , my philosophy on comparing films being fair works because we're reflecting what the public wants to know anyway . every average person out there who's interested in this film is likely to ask " how does it compare to pulp fiction ? " and so , as a critic , i'm already responsible to ask that same question . jackie brown stars pam grier , the " blaxploitation " heroine from the 1970's , who is likely to make a big comeback thanks to her role as the title character . tarantino's pulp fiction is in big part responsible for john travolta's sudden revival in the movie industry , and with talks of an oscar nomination , the same is likely to happen for grier . ( we've made it thru comparison #1 ! ) jackie is a 44-year-old airline stewardess who brings in extra cash , and probably her main revenue , by smuggling large sums of money into the united states for ordell robbie ( pulp fiction's samuel l . jackson and comparison #2 ) . ordell is in the illegal firearms business and has enlisted the aid of louis gara ( robert de niro ) , a bank robber who just got out of prison after serving four years , to help him accomplish a scheme worth a half- million dollars . trouble arises when jackie is stopped by atf agent ray nicolet ( michael keaton ) and taken into custody for possession of narcotics , as well as having more money than is allowed in an airport without being claimed . naturally this proves an obstacle to ordell's plans and , not as friendly intended as we'd hope , he posts jackie's bail after she is put behind bars . the thing is , ordell is in this for no one more than himself , and as we learn from his previous actions , he's willing to kill anyone who stands in the way . jackie finds herself in a tight squeeze . ordell won't think twice about taking her out if she fails to help him as she's always done , yet at the same time , a compromise with the authorities would be in order if evidence against ordell was provided . it comes down to a simple question : would jackie rather face ordell or prison ? what ensues is a rich and intriguing example of storytelling as we question who jackie is really out to help : the law , ordell , or maybe just herself . coming into play is another 70's veteran , robert forster as jackie's bail bondsmen max cherry . max's obvious fondness for jackie will become a major benefactor in her fight to beat both sides of the system , and forster plays him with subtle charm that adds depth to unbrewed romance . also involved is ordell's " surfer girl " girlfriend melanie ( bridget fonda ) , a ditzy sun- bleached babe who spends her time watching tv with a bong in hand . fonda does the best she can with an essentially thin role , but there's nothing more to her , and therefore , she becomes a tossable addition to an otherwise flourishing bouquet of characters . de niro is also wasted in his role as a quiet nobody crook out to score a few bucks for himself . de niro is a brilliant actor , but a character who hardly ever speaks doesn't need a de niro to play him . compared to pulp fiction ( comparison #3 ) , the characters in jackie brown and very thin and replaceable . in pulp fiction , even the small , seemingly irrelevant characters were wonderful , complete , and lifelike , whereas jackie brown has such common figures that it wouldn't have suffered much with a lesser talented cast , the exception being grier . tarantino wrote this script with grier specifically in mind , so to say that she is made for this role is a reversed truth . sadly , grier too could have received a bit more attention , especially when the story is all about her newly-jarred perception of life . jackson teams up with tarantino again , but the chemical reaction isn't as awesome as the first time . jules was the rambling , bible-quoting hitman in pulp fiction , and jackson is the only person who could have pulled it off . and although jackson is really , really good in jackie brown , i don't think he's quite as irreplaceable . in fact , maybe a new face would have been better . jackson could've remained tarantino's jules , and a new guy could have become ordell , forever to remain so in our memories . sadly , these characters are too much the same , except ordell just isn't as impressive , and putting this in the hands of jackson once again is only going to deter from our fond recollections of jules . another problem is that ordell is way too focused on in the beginning . this is grier's film , so why spend so long getting to know a man who will become more of a supporting character as the film progresses ? it not only makes the movie feel a little too slanted , but it makes for a slow beginning because we have to take longer getting to the meat of the story . it is likely that those pouring into the theater to see this film are going to be those anxious to partake of tarantino's quirky dialogue and eccentric directing style , and not so much those interested in seeing a silver screen adaption of elmore leonard's novel " rum punch " . for those movie-goers , don't expect another pulp fiction and you'll be satisfied , for the script oozes with the familiar brash qualities that has made tarantino an icon of 90's film- making . the directing has toned down a bit , however , yet we're still reminded that this is tarantino's movie thanks to odd split-screen story-telling devices and scenes being replayed multiple times from different viewpoints . so getting back to the question that i began with , this isn't pulp fiction at all . it's good , but it isn't anything that made pulp fiction such a revolutionary effort in the first place . this is a more conservative tarantino , but not one that won't satiate true fans . if you can realize that this isn't going to knock your socks off , then you'll be happy to at least let it massage your feet . after all , we all know how much tarantino loves that particular part of the human anatomy .
0	when i first saw the preview for cruel intentions , i turned to my friend and said , " dangerous liaisons for kids ! " it was clear to me that the film would be an obvious chunk of plagiarized nonsense , owing everything it is to stephen frears' 1988 masterpiece . imagine my surprise to see that writer/director roger kumble has given credit to his source material : choderlos de laclos is recognized for his novel les liaisons dangereuses in the opening credits . and i was impressed . in fact , i was much more impressed with this recognition than with the actual film , which is an appalling excuse for a movie . it's kiddie-porn hackwork , complete with earthy sex-talk and fully-clothed hand-jobs . i suppose this kind of movie was inevitable ; with all the teen high-school angst movies coming out , there was certainly room for a pretentious and laughable movie about a bunch of teenagers who think they're smarter and more beautiful than all the other people on earth combined . cruel intentions is a mess in every possible way , and it fails primarily in the way i expected it to : i hated all the characters , and i hate everything they do . i also hate ryan phillippe , so perhaps my opinion is not as objective as it could be . phillippe plays ( check out this name ) sebastian valmont . wow . isn't that a memorable name ? i could just say it over and over again . sebastian valmont . it kind of rolls off the tongue , in the spirit of phrases like sanguine vapors and velvet sandwich . sebastian valmont is the coolest guy who ever walked the earth ; there is no woman he can't have , no material object out of his reach . he has all the money , all the sex -- all at his fingertips . and , luckily , his parents never enter into his life -- no , in the world of cruel intentions , adults don't really exist . the ones who do are irritating . sebastian valmont lives with his stepsister , kathryn merteuil ( sarah michelle gellar ) , the bitch-queen of the universe , and also the woman every man wants . since these two rich kids are so bored , they only thing they can do is challenge each other with meaningless sexual liaisons . kathryn wants sebastian valmont to de-virginize cecile caldwell ( selma blair ) , a naive dork-chick who has somehow wronged kathryn . but it's too easy for sebastian valmont -- he wants to nail annette hargrove ( reese witherspoon ) , the " paradigm of chastity and beauty . " so , sebastian valmont and kathryn make a deal ( which is too explicit to state here ) . but -- dear god ! -- sebastian valmont actually begins to fall for poor annette hargrove . dangerous liaisons is a great movie because the characters are all believable , and because of its masterful acting . cruel intentions is bad for many reasons , but it lacks both believable characters and masterful acting . kathryn merteuil is simply a hateful witch , a girl so loathsome that i would probably enjoy pouring hot lead on her . she is supposed to be mean , but glenn close gave the character some depth in dangerous liaisons . gellar , while aesthetically pleasing , is one-dimensional and utterly repulsive . witherspoon has a truly beautiful face , but her character isn't the moral staple she's supposed to be : sure , she won't have sex until she's in love ( is this really a * moral * issue ? ) , but she does some things in the last few scenes that are more than a little reprehensible . but i can't forget mr . phillippe , who continues to exceed my expectations with his impenetrable , invulnerable blandness . i have to give him credit and say that he did , in fact , manage to change his facial expression about three times during the course of cruel intentions . and there's one point in the film in which he shouts , thereby defeating my hypothesis that he is vocally monotone . true , he is bad , but it doesn't help that he has no character to work with . kumble has drained all the interesting aspects from this character , leaving us with a sex-crazed lunatic who is supposed to be sympathetic because he falls in love with a moral flower and shuns the wicked bitch . the film fails in every other way , too . first of all , nobody talks like this . even the " intellectuals " i know don't bother with this kind of pointless and pretentious yammering . for a while , the movie looks like it might play itself for laughs , but it ends up taking itself so seriously that there's no way we can join it . cruel intentions also manages to come off as soft-porn in more than one scene . earlier i mentioned a fully-clothed hand-job ; this occurs between kathryn and sebastian valmont , both of whom are intended to be hateful at this point in the movie . so , if we hate them , then what's the point of an extended sex scene ? titillation , of course . it can't even work under the pretense of " meaningful love scene , " because we hate the characters . it's interesting to note some of the parallels between cruel intentions and dangerous liaisons . kumble is clearly familiar with the earlier film ; many of the scenes have a similar tone , and there are moments in frears' film that kumble imitates almost completely ( such as the last scene , in which [spoiler warning ! ] the antagonist is humiliated in front of her peers ) . but kids don't act like this . nobody acts like this . in his translation , roger kumble forgot character development and sympathy -- some pretty crucial elements . the result is a picture of confounding badness , a kiddie-porn mess that thinks it's really deep and profound . i'll give cruel intentions credit for realizing its influences , but that doesn't change the fact that it's awful .
0	" have you ever heard the one about a movie so bad that it made a guy run out of the theatre screaming ? " obviously the producers at columbia tristar did not think that we suffered enough from the first installment , and so to finish us utterly , they have now released " urban legends : final cut " . this is another " scream " -like feature , consisting merely from the recycled materials of rip-offs from the most pointless movies of all time . amy ( jennifer morrison ) is a film student who is attending a film school filled with uninspired film students who do not have a clue about what to do . but just as she reaches the halfway mark of her final semester at prestigious university's film program -- where each year's best thesis production takes the coveted hitchcock prize , a virtual one-way ticket to hollywood success -- she has a chance encounter with campus security guard reese ( loretta devine ) , whose tale of a series of murders based on urban legends at another university inspires amy to try her hand at a fictional thriller organized along similar lines . soon enough , fake -- and real -- blood starts to flow , and amy is being chased around by scary killer , while her cast and crew get slain , one by one . is the culprit the original urban legends murderer , just some random psycho , ! a member of the faculty , one of her competitors for the hitchcock , or is there something even more stupid going on ? this is another one of those tiring , pointless teen slasher flicks : neither scary , funny , or interesting . it simply lacks the ability and the story to entertain . the body counts and screams continue to grow , as the weak level of intelligence sinks rapidly . in fact watching films like that after having watched " scary movie " is impossible keeping a serious face . several times i tried to prevent myself from laughing , without succeeding . and then i realized that practically the whole theatre was laughing . it's the same thing that has been told and told and told over and over again as if it was the revelation of the century . how many times must we tolerate the same clich ? s that have haunted the slasher genre since its birth ? it has been so many films about masked killers that most of us have developed an allergy for them . they are the most stupid , meaningless , predictable and soulless films in existence . however , director john ottman manages to make " urban legends : final cut " into one of the worst achievements of this godforsaken genre . what was done with a sense of redemption for past failures and irony in " scream " , ottman takes seriously . for that reason alone , it is worth a look , just to realize how bad a movie can be . it's tough to find comparisons for such an achievement , and we have to dig in ancient history to find a movie that would match its intellect . even movies like " lost in space " and " mission to mars " seem spectacular in its shadow . we have not seen such waste of t ! ime and resources since " showgirls " ( 1995 ) . no matter how hard i tried to find positive elements in this so called production , i came up with nothing , except the way the killer was dressed . here i feel that i have to compliment the costume designers trysha bakker and marie-sylvie deveu , that have wisely replaced the well known scream-mask with a very elegant fencing mask . jennifer morrison ( " stir of echoes " ) is all right , and the other actors' best achievement is keeping a straight face when pronouncing the words from the script . in fact the only thing that is terrifying about this film ( with the exception of its screenplay ) is its portray of film schools . if these graduates will be the directors of the future , then hollywood's golden days are over . rumors are already spreading through the internet that columbia tristar is already developing a third installment . let's just hope and pray that it's just an urban legend .
1	the sweet hereafter could serve as a textbook example of the difference between television movies and " real " movies . consider for a moment what a television producer would do with a book that features a fatal school bus accident and a lawyer out to sign up the bereaved -- lots of hot sensationalism interrupted with breaks to sell beer and toothpaste . top-flight writer and director atom egoyan delivers instead a film with tremendous power whose most notable trait is its touching subtlety . based on a respected book of the same name by author russell banks , the movie represents a rethinking of the story's structure , not merely a literal adaptation of the novel . told in linear form by four narrators in the book , egoyan's version happens instead in overlapping time sequences and without a narrator . the author is even on record as applauding egoyan's changes . in the press notes the book's author describes the story as " a parable of lost children . " he says it asks what a town does in the absence of its children . picking up on this , egoyan has a flashback in which a sitter , nicole burnell , played with grace by sarah polley , reads parts of " the pied piper " from an old , illustrated book to her two charges . periodically throughout the picture , nicole's readings are heard in voice-over . you have never heard this moving poem read so sweetly or in such an appropriate moment . they and the rest of the town's children come into harm's way -- some live and others are seriously injured . and the entire small canadian town where the accident occurs is never the same again . although the physical damage is inflicted mainly on the children , the adults bear the emotional scars of the loss . ian holm , in arguably the best performance of his distinguished career , plays mitchell stephens , an intense man of quiet misery . mitchell is the outsider in the story set in a small , snow-encrusted community in the british columbian wilderness . his mission there is a singular one , to sign up the parents so that he can sue someone , anyone , on their behalf . if this seems crass , well it is , but mitchell approaches his job with the dedication of a religious zealot . the story unfolds slowly and always believably . each little aspect has its own fascination . as mitchell interviews wendell and rita walker , played with quiet realism by maury chaykin and alberta watson , he has a simple task . he wants them to suggest some model couple in the village who has a lost a child so that he can use that couple to form the basis of the suit . wendell ticks off one town member after another and then , as one can in a small town , enumerates each person's numerous faults . although the town is no peyton place , people there do have their foibles . one of the best parents in the town appears to be billy ansell ( bruce greenwood ) , who rides his pickup behind the school bus everyday just so he can wave good-bye to his kids . well , single parent billy's fault is that he has regularly scheduled trysts with the married rita . his confessions to rita about his feelings of loss are one of the many heartfelt outpourings in the story . the accident itself , a simple one of a bus hitting a patch of ice , isn't shown until the middle of the picture , but , nevertheless , the mystery about it builds throughout the film . although the picture is no detective story , finding out exactly what happened is a subtheme in a movie that is primarily a character study of a town gripped by tragedy . as the injured bus driver , gabrielle rose , dolores driscoll plays the role of a dedicated individual who loves kids with a passion and for whom the tragedy takes on special meaning . to round out the story , mitchell has his own private tragedy to bear . his daughter zoe ( caerthan banks ) is a drug addict who has bounced in and out of one half-way house and recovery center after another . fond of calling her dad on his cell phone so she can ask for money or help , she interrupts him at many emotionally charged moments as he attempts to sign up the townsfolk . ( " i can help you , " mitchell tries to reassure billy . " not unless you can raise the dead , " billy snaps back . mitchell's pitch is never an easy one and worrying about zoe only makes it harder . ) mychael danna's haunting music sets the stage for tragedy . the cinematography by paul sarossy is sweeping in its outdoor grandeur , but it is in the warm , shadowy , intimate moments indoors where it works best . the show , which is ripe for emotional manipulation , never plays with its audience . still , when the house lights go up , you may feel as i did . i could barely breathe ; i was so overcome by the sum total of what i had witnessed . more than anything , the film is like a master painting . each cinematic brush stroke is carefully laid down by egoyan with the beauty building with each dollop of paint . with the final color in place , the masterpiece is complete , and the ending credits roll . the sweet hereafter runs 1 : 50 . it is rated r for mature themes , sexuality and some profanity and would be fine teenagers .
0	capsule : liebes meets tod . this was a film about sex and death . a morgue attendant accidentally revives a dead woman through necrophilia and brings her into his world which is heavy on orgies . this film says something obscure about the relationship of sex and death , but imparts no insights . to make matter worse this print was poorly subtitled into english from french . 0 ( -4 to +4 ) - an attractive 18-year-old dies on a disco floor and gets sent to a morgue . one of the attendants , ben ( jean-marc barr ) is so attracted by her that he attempts necrophilia . we see him crawling away after a shock . in the middle of sex the dead teen has come back to life . - the morgue attendant was just adding a new form of sex to his collection of kinks . he was already part of a group that gets together for s/m sex . the revived teen , teresa ( elodie bouchez ) joins them . - moral dilemma of teresa's father . ben has abused his daughter's body , but in doing so has saved her life . - part of this opaque allegory is a man saved from suicide who joins in the sexual hijinx . also involved is a man in the final stages of dying of aids , a close friend of the morgue attendant . he does not get involved in the orgies . - the subtitles of our print were white , often on a white background making them often hard to read , but i don't think there was a whole lot of meaning there that was lost . - the title means " don't let me die on a sunday . "
0	an attempt at florida film noir , palmetto fails at the most fundamental levels . it's slow moving , uninvolving , and plain just uninteresting . harry barber ( woody harrelson ) is an ex-newspaper man , just out of jail after being framed for a crime . his luck hasn't been the best , but things are looking up when a mysterious woman , rhea malroux ( elisabeth shue ) , approaches him with a proposition . she wants harry to help her and her stepdaughter , odette ( chloe sevigny ) , pull off a fake kidnapping scheme to get $500 , 000 out of her stingy , but rich , husband felix ( rolf hoppe ) . at first , all harry is expected to do is provide a threatening voice on the phone , and to collect the money ( of which he gets to keep 10% ) . but , as the deed is carried out , things are not what they seem , and harry gets caught in the ensuing storm . palmetto pulls out all the stops to achieve a film noir film , but the effect never quite comes together . it's got the sultry florida heat , seductive women , and even curvier plot twists , but the whole thing smells of paint-by-numbers . sure , the right ingredients are there , but the end result is much too artificial . a lot of the problems lie with the script , which , though providing some genuine surprises , is packed full of leaden dialogue and bland situations . even the plot twists don't seem to flow well with the rest of the story . some of them , for example , come from so far afield that they seemingly only make sense because the writer needed a twist ( for example : harry's spontaneous job offer , or the whole typewriter situation ) . the characters are mostly lifeless , played to type , but not much more . woody harrelson plays harry with such imbecilic thick-headedness that it's hard to even picture him as an ex-journalist . elisabeth shue vamps it up , but doesn't add anything special to the role . chloe sevigny gives a terrible performance , trying to be a sexy 17-year old , but she just leaves a bad taste in your mouth . some of the supporting cast ( notably gina gershon and michael rapaport ) give stronger , but , in the end , meaningless performances . and to top it off , the pacing of the film is much too slow . as the movie grinds to a halt , you're given too much time to wonder why you're wasting it watching palmetto . if you're in the mood for this type of movie , you'd be much better off going out and renting some classic film noir .
1	when i was asked to see this movie with a friend , my initial reaction was ? not hugh grant ! ' i was perhaps wrong to be so harsh , but after his insidious flirtation with a street hooker , i just could not picture him in any romantic lead . what makes this movie a wonderful experience is not the fact it stars hugh , but because it stars julia and carries with it a brilliantly written script . this writer richard curtis , whose exceptional first work ? four weddings and funeral' shows us that he is a master in the domain of the romantic comedy , with splashes of drama thrown in between . hugh and his hair , is almost identical to the character that made him famous in ? four weddings' . he plays an ordinary guy who is down and out on his luck . unfortunately , he is type cast in this role , but fortunately it works well for him in this movie . if only he would dither a little less . julia knows this role well . the glamorous movie star who is searching for true love . there are moments in this movie , that you almost weep for her pain felt loneliness . how sad it must be to be so wealthy and beautiful , but to have no one to share it with . the writer deals with difficult issues of love and social class on various levels . how differences in social standing can make it almost impossible for love to grow in such a harsh environment . how the media can be as cruel as it can be attentive , and how fulfilment in life and love can be found in forgiveness and sacrifice .
1	it is easy to label something sentimental or tear jerking when one has not experienced the heartache of losing a child ? whether that may be in life or in death . after having said that , i will also say that this movie does all of the above very well . one gets that choking sensation in the throat ( because of grief ) when one brother forgives another for a costly mistake , or when a husband hugs his wife after a long estrangement . there is no ocean , no drownings and it does not conjure up memories of yet another ? ordinary people' . in fact the only thing remotely connected to the ocean is probably tap water and the toilet flushing ( not that this literally happened in the movie ) . so what are the lessons learnt : 1 . don't take your children to class reunions . 2 . don't leave them alone in the lobby , not even for a second . michelle pfeiffer once again plays the role of a highly-strung wife and mother , a trend that started with ? a thousand acres' and ? one fine day' . my comment is that she is exceptionally fine strung in this movie , so much so that when she has a nervous break down , the veins on her temples bulge impressively . whoopi golberg also puts in an understated performance , playing a lesbian cop , with a name that makes one want to reach for a lollipop . lastly , who are the ideal companions for this sort of movie ? my grandmother comes to mind .
1	when quentin tarantino made " pulp fiction " , he was not only making the greatest film of the 90s ; he was also making what i believe to be the most influential movie of all time . but before you send me hate-mail for not giving that title to " citizen kane " , hear me out . much like " citizen kane " , " pulp fiction " has changed movie making forever . but i think the latter has had a tad more impact . " pulp fiction " has actually ushered in a new era of film making . it has altered the way films will be viewed . " fiction " has spawned so many imitations , i've lost count . sure , some have been excellent ( " bound " and " the usual suspects " spring immediately to mind ) , but any serious movie-goer recognizes " pulp fiction " as the original neo-noir of the 90s . in this review , i hope to change all the people's minds who have criticized it for it's excessive profanity and violence ( which , by the way , isn't really that graphic ) . the most brilliant aspect of tarantino's masterpiece is the screenplay . it is filled with so much classic dialogue ( the " quarter pounder with cheese " speech will go down in history ) , it should be required reading for any film student , if it isn't already . the story ( told in unorthodox non-linear format ) centers around three main episodes , all of which eventually intertwine . the first , titled " vincent vega and marcellus wallace's wife " , deals with a very loaded john travolta ( i forgot to mention the cool heroin shoot-up sequence ) taking mia wallace ( a star-making performance by uma thurman ) , his bosses wife , out on a date to a cool 50s restaurant called jack rabbit slim's . they talk for a while ( with the occasional " uncomfortable silence " ) , mostly about a guy called tony rocky horror . after giving marcellus' new bride a foot massage , he was thrown off a building and into a greenhouse , giving him a " speech impediment " . they also partake in a cool dance contest and end up twisting to the chuck berry classic " you never can tell " . i won't reveal the rest of the story , but i'll definitely say that it turns out to be a real bummer of a night , despite the cool trophy they win . the second story ( the least of the three but still four stars ) stars bruce willis ( proving he can play someone other than john mcclain in the " die hard " flicks ) as boxer butch coolidge . previously in the film ( like i said , it's told in non-linear form ) , he had made a deal with marcellus wallace that he would take a fall in a match . as it turns out , he not only doesn't take the fall , but he ends up actually killing his opponent . he takes a cab to his half-witted girlfriend's apartment , and to make a long story short , ends up going back to his own place to retrieve a gold watch , sort of a family heirloom explained by christopher walken in a hilarious flash-back sequence . on his way home , he bumps into ( literally ) marcellus . the two winde up prisoner to two hillbilly sex murderers , which results in the infamous " gimp " scene , which is very reminicent of the " squeal like a pig ! " scene from " deliverance " . the last ( and best , in my opinion ) of the episodes features john travolta ( again ) and samuel l . jackson ( in the best performance of any supporting actor ever ) as two slightly off-kilter hitmen trying to rid themselves of a bloody car . they seek help with a friend of jackson's ( played by the q-man himself ) , desperately in need of a stress ball . they end up calling a " cleaner " of sorts , played by the god among men harvey keitel , to help them out . in the end , the story brilliantly loops around itself , actually ending where it began . if you haven't already seen the film ( or even if you have , for that matter ) , i suggest you invest your money in a copy of the letterbox collectors edition . it features two previously unreleased scenes and the original film restored how it was originally meant to be seen . earlier today , i bought this version and watched it a few hours ago . what the pan-and-scan did to this movie is inexcusable . that version cut out , like , half the movie . what i have missed in the past years of viewing this flick is amazing . for instance , when travolta and jackson are in the apartment near the end , the widescreen version allows you to see that several things on the walls make crosses . this might help explain the divine intervention that takes place . just a theory . . . one of the things that pisses people off so much about this movie is that tarantino borrowed alot of scenes from other movies ( i . e . " psycho " " kiss me deadly " , " deliverance " , etc . ) . but why shouldn't he ? it's not like he out-right and blatantly stole . give the guy a break . in case you haven't already noticed , i believe " pulp fiction " is a supremely excellent film and one of the best of all time ( up there with such greats as " casablanca " and " the godfather " ) . trust me , you will not see a better film come out of the 90s . and besides , it's one hell of a ride . note : if anyone knows how i could get a " bad motherfucker " wallet , please e-mail me . any help would be greatly appreciated .
0	by starring in amy heckerling's " clueless " two summers ago , alicia silverstone proved she wasn't just another pretty , pouty ingenue , showing a buoyant comedic craftiness that blew all previous jobs -- namely a stint as the aerosmith girl and a silly turn as the lethal lolita of " the crush " -- out of the water . her only work since that 1995 gem has been in june's " batman & robin , " where she overcame the underwritten role of batgirl . now , she's the star and producer of " excess baggage , " a hopelessly phony film that demonstrates how an ill-composed story can drag an otherwise solid performer down to its level . silverstone's emily t . hope is stuck with a billionaire father ( jack thompson ) who neglects her emotionally . in an outlandish plan to gain his affection , she fakes her own kidnapping -- emily uses an electronically disguised voice to call her dad and set a pricey ransom , ties her legs together and mouth shut with duct tape and locks herself in the trunk of her bmw . but before the police can " rescue " her , professional auto thief vincent roche ( benicio del toro ) jimmies the locks , hot-wires the engine and makes off with both the car and emily , who's still trapped in the back . when vincent discovers emily , the two don't exactly hit it off -- she annoys him , he annoys her , and at the advice of his slimy car salesman partner ( harry connick , jr . ) , he decides to drive her out to the middle of nowhere and leave her there . along the way , of course , they get into a whole heap of trouble , and come to realize that being together is the only way to get out of their sticky , felony-studded situation . it doesn't help matters that emily and vincent are being trailed by cops , crooks and even her shady uncle ray ( christopher walken ) , who's wise to his niece's ploys for attention and has mafia connections . for at least a half-hour , " excess baggage " bounces along fast and efficiently . during this time , emily and vincent sport engaging personalities as well as a nice role-reversal twist -- she's an awfully aggressive , combative victim and he's quite the aloof , seemingly vulnerable captor . but once it's past its set-up , the situation suddenly becomes uninvolving as the story tries to be too many things at once . a road movie , a teen comedy , a mob thriller , a drama about family relationships -- you name the cliche and " excess baggage " likely covers its territory . of course a romance develops between the two leads , but it all seems forced , and thus characterization is manipulated to cause the finally happy outcome . " do you like my tummy ? " emily coos to vincent at one point in the film . huh ? did i miss something ? the hard-edged , foul-mouthed grrrl is suddenly gone and replaced with a pair of batting goo-goo eyes . then again , " excess baggage " becomes so weak in so many areas that the personality transplant is not a complete surprise . a supporting cast attempts to do what they can with colorful but empty secondary roles , but the movie isn't game enough to use them all and therefore seems overcrowded . motivations keep shifting , resulting in an often confusing narrative . scant existing story background confuses matters even worse and adds to the growing list of unanswered questions . " excess baggage " has too many characters , too much plot and juggles with one arm behind its back and a remaining shaky hand . i loved silverstone's turn in " clueless " as an aloof , pampered beverly hills matchmaker inspired by jane austen's " emma . " looking back at the skill she displayed for comedy there , it's simple to justify any high expectation or enthusiasm that i had mustered for " excess baggage . " sadly , however , " excess baggage " is no " clueless . " but , on the other hand , it is clueless .
0	the marvelous british actor derek jacobi stars in writer and director john maybury's love is the devil about the popular modern artist francis bacon . as always , jacobi's acting is impeccable , but the movie tries hard and succeeds at being unentertaining and opaque . the movie convincingly argues that francis , played by jacobi , was a completely despicable and vain individual , but it never provides any insight into his work or any motivation for his attitude . when interviewed by a fawning talk show host , francis calls his style " chance brushstrokes . " starting with a burglary of francis's flat , the film uses loud sound effects that sound like they were lifted from a cheap horror movie . the camera shots are heavy on the avant-garde angles -- lots of wide-angle close-ups and distorted shots filmed through colored-glass reflections . the director is much more interested in filmmaking style than in the substance of the story with the result being a sterile examination of a lonely and vain man . daniel craig , in a lifeless performance , plays the burglar and boxer , george dyer . when francis lays eyes on him after the break-in , francis promises not to call the police if he'll stay for sex . he stays for the entire movie but never respects the man with whom he shares a bed . he thinks that francis's paintings have " no bloody use , " and the movie presents no counterargument . writer maybury barely outlines francis's character , and george and the rest of the supporting cast remain a complete enigma . we learn little of george other than francis's reason for liking him -- george's " amorality and innocence . " francis's love of sadomasochism is shown early and often . " boxing is such a marvelous aperitif for sex , " he reflects to george on the way to watch a boxing match . as the fighter's head is sliced open with a heavy blow , the camera cuts to a gleeful francis whose own head is soaked by the flying blood . francis appears to be in complete ecstasy . another of francis's favorite activities is viewing old movies of atrocities . as the carnage mounts , we witness an orgasmically happy francis in the audience . in a film that tries obsessively to shock , one dream sequence portrays a family in a car accident . francis's mind slowly examines every bloody limb of the mother , the father , and the boy . sometimes the script throws us tidbits of francis's wisdom which illuminate little while merely sounding insightful . ( " i'm optimistic by nature . i'm optimistic about nothing . " " loneliness is my only true companion . " ) we learn more details about francis's makeup techniques than about the man himself . he prefers shoe polish for his hair and sink cleaning powder for his teeth . full of metaphorical interpretations , the film's best scene occurs late one night when george has to get up to go to the bathroom . mistaking francis's picture of a toilet for the genuine article , he urinates on it and then crawls back into bed contentedly . like a parody of a bad art house movie , love is the devil has horrid characters filmed bizarrely and confusingly by a director who is much more interested in technique than storytelling . by the end , the audience hasn't learned any more than it could have in a three-minute sketch . love is the devil runs 1 : 30 . the film is not rated but should be considered nc-17 for violence , profanity , graphic sex , nudity and sadomasochism and is unacceptable for most teenagers .
0	i want to be involved in show business one day . and i refuse to do any sequels to any movie i may make because i believe they only get worse . this movie proves it for me . i was a little worried about the last batman film , as i thought joel schumaccer , taking over from tim burton , would screw it up . i also assumed val kilmer would screw up as bruce wayne . they didn't . kilmer did a good job , and the cast was left to carry the movie , which they did ( even jim carrey as the riddler and i can't stand jim carrey ) , because schumaccer messed up the direction with his glitzy gotham and his awkward camera angles . this film is different . the cast is still impressive , but here , not only does schumaccer mess up with the direction ( he's one of those directors who's good with actors , terrible with camera angles ) , but writer akiva goldsmith doesn't really give an impressive cast anything to do . the cast is impressive : clooney is a surprisingly good wayne/batman , o'donnell is a crafty robin as usual , they could've casted somebody better as batgirl ( my friend likes neve campbell ) , but silverstone is not bad , and thurman is a good poison ivy . the major problem is schwarzenegger , who is a terrible freeze . his accent is so heavy , you can't understand what he says , and the trouble with action stars like him is they cannot act , and they know it , but they figure that if they flex their muscles , say a limited amount of stuff , and kill a bunch of guys , then they figure nobody'll notice . that's the trouble with me , * i * notice . schwarzenegger does not deserve billing over clooney , or as much money as he got for this , but hollywood thinks he does . patrick stewart was the person i'd heard that was considered to play freeze , and he would've been so much better . or sean connery , but not arnold " i'm not an actor , but i play one in real life " schwarzenegger . i realize that you must be a star to play a major role in a batman film , but it would've been nice if they'd casted a star that had talent for the role . akiva goldsmith's screenplay avoids some stuff that happens in a normal batman film . in a regular batman film , they'd concentrate on the relationship with the girlfriend a little more , but elle macpherson's julie madison is so limited here that we never get a real sense of who she is . there is talk of a fifth batman movie . my interest to see it is low , but i hope it's better than this . if you don't want to waste your time , rent any of the other batman movies from blockbuster . any other .
1	in 1994 , an insider's look at a scandal-ridden run for the democratic presidential nomination ( closely based on clinton's 1992 campaign ) was written anonymously ( former newsweek writer joe klein later claimed true authorship ) . now , the book , primary colors , has been made into a movie , directed by mike nichols , and , in light of recent presidential scandals , seems to be more relevant than ever . but the film is more than a diatribe against , or a paean in praise of , the president . it is a fascinating look at the political machinery , and the ethical quagmire , that surround modern politics . jack stanton ( john travolta ) is the governor of a small southern state running for the democratic presidential nomination . he is charismatic , but has several flaws which threaten to doom his campaign , and strains his relationship with his wife , susan ( emma thompson ) . the film is told from the point of view of henry burton ( adrian lester ) , grandson of a civil rights leader , who is swept away by stanton's ideals and helps to organize the campaign . he joins political strategist richard jemmons ( billy bob thornton , looking an awful lot like james carville ) , and campaign advisor daisy green ( maura tierney ) . governor stanton's past repeatedly pops up to haunt him , a fact that his chief rival , lawrence harris ( kevin cooney ) , consistently uses to his advantage . to help clean up the stanton campaign , jack and susan bring in an old friend , libby " the dustbuster " holden ( kathy bates ) . the acting throughout primary colors is superb . it would be worth seeing the movie for bates' wild performance alone . she enlivens the atmosphere with energy in a truly boisterous performance . travolta does a fair clinton impersonation as governor stanton , although his accent does stray a little . emma thompson delivers a strong performance as his suffering wife who can't let anything show that might hurt the presidential run . the problem with political movies is that they tend to alienate over half of their audience by promoting one side or the other , or else the movie is vague to the point of boredom . primary colors treads lightly on this issue . though stanton is clearly portrayed as a democrat , and there are a few minor barbs thrown in the way of republicans , the movie touches on few actual political issues . in fact , most of the " bad guys " are fellow democrats on the same road to the white house . rather than issues , the film is primarily concerned about scandals and spin control . although the film strays into some obviously non-clinton territory , it is difficult to completely separate it from reality ( particularly when certain scenes seem to highlight the president's current troubles ) . primary colors' chief problem is its length . it runs about 15 minutes too long . there are some scenes which could have easily been cut . for example , midway through the film , the candidate gives a speech to an assembly of laid off machinists . the scene's only apparent purpose is to establish stanton's character , which has already been done in similar scenes earlier in the film . the extra length isn't long enough nor tiring enough to be annoying , but it mars an otherwise excellent film . republicans , democrats , and political agnostics should all be able to find something to like in primary colors . it's a funny , and at some times shocking , look at the modern political process .
0	remember tom cruise and brian brown as rival bartenders juggling bottles of booze in " cocktail " ? remember how stupid that looked ? and remember the scantily-clad dancers of " flashdance " getting doused with buckets of water ? well , " coyote ugly " does those films five better ( or six better if you count john goodman ) , since here we have piper perado , maria bello , tyra banks , melanie lynskey , and izabella miko doing the absolut spinning and jiggling thing while pouring pitchers of perrier all over their semi-naked torsos . no , goodman doesn't flip jim beams or wear anything particularly risqu ? in the film but he * does * get up on the bar and start gyrating with the rest of them . and the central character's love interest , played by an australian actor named adam garcia , proves * he * can get up on that bar and start shimmying along with the rest of them too . what seems to have started life as a victoria's secret photo shoot quickly deteriorates into one heck of an embarrassing movie . violet ( perado ) is a south amboy hopeful who tries to make it big as a songwriter ( not a welder ) in new jack city . as na ? ve as they come , she's fobbed off by music producer's receptionists by the scorn-ful and has her apartment robbed hours after touching down in chinatown . and , like her mother before her , she gets stage fright whenever she tries to do the open mike night thing . when she sees a trio of babe-a-licious barkeeps thumbing through a stack of $20s in an all-night diner , violet simply has to check out this bar they call coyote ugly . lil ( bello ) , the no-nonsense owner , agrees to give violet an audition but violet blows it . still , lil gives violet another chance . a riot breaks out ( riots are the order of the day at 'ugly's , since the staff are relentless in flaunting their sexual wares , flambeeing the bar , and soaking the patrons with diet sprite--this is certifiable behavior in case i didn't mention it ) but violet successfully subdues the crowd by singing along to blondie's " one way or another " on the jukebox . she's hired ! and cured , since this little episode gives her the confidence to sing in an amateur talent contest where her dad ( goodman ) , the junk food-eating , laundry-impaired toll collector , comes to see her and is as proud as punch . the end .
0	plot : a rich psychiatrist with a great home life gets his cute daughter kidnapped by some bad guys who want him to extract some information from the mind of one of his nutty patients . of course , the patient is not cooperative and the doctor only has a few hours to comply with their demands , before they kill his daughter . pretty good premise , no ? critique : if you're not a fan of movies packed with plot holes , inconsistencies and yes , even more plot holes , heed my words and skip this hollow thriller . and i don't like saying that either , since this film actually had some potential and started off pretty well . sure , the story is basically just an amalgamation of ransom , primal fear and nick of time pureed into one , but the whole " psychiatrist working against the clock " thing , actually had me engaged at first . but it's at about the halfway mark of this movie , that the bottom drops out and all that we're left with are a lot of questions and very few plausible answers . we get the overly smart kid who manages to " pull one " over on the bad guys . we get a weak woman with her leg in a cast beating the crap out of a tough bad guy . we get douglas' character , a new york uppedity psychiatrist , suddenly turning into an action hero , with moves and attitude to boot . and what about the film's main plot point ? why would the bad guys still give a crap about this thing after 10 years , and even more so , why would they only give the shrink until the day's end to do his part ? ( you waited 10 years , what's another few days ? - or why not set up another heist instead ? ) . i'll tell you why , it's because we wouldn't have a ( bad ) movie otherwise , that's why ! and many , many more . ugh , whatever the case , it was just about the time that douglas' character suddenly removed murphy's character from the mental home ( and how come she went with him so nicely ? i thought she didn't trust him ) , that i turned to my buddy and asked when the movie had turned into a joke . and a few bogus chase and action sequences later , we were left with a long-winded ending that did little to answer any other questions i might've still had , and actually brought up even more contradictions . badly put together , this movie features some decent acting , some nice cinematography and an initially interesting premise , but loses it all in a haze of plot miscues which ultimately leave you with little care for anyone . in fact , if it wasn't for brittany murphy's excellent portrayal of a traumatized teen , jennifer esposito's embarrassing performance as a police woman ( yeah , right ! watching her delivering lines was the funniest part of this flick- but it wasn't supposed to be ) and michael douglas' cool " regular guy " part , there would be little reason to remain seated until the end of this picture . incidentally , can anyone please give me one good reason why esposito's character was in this movie in the first place ? she was completely superfluous . and on top of all that , by the end of this flick , the director seems to have realized how dumb the audience must be to have bought most of the garbage that he'd been shoveling out for the hour and a half prior , and decides to add insult to injury by flashing back to an earlier character's death when one of the bad guys dies , just so we know ( as an audience ) , that the two are interrelated somehow . ooooh , thanks , mr . fleder . . . i appreciate the spoon-feeding , dude . . . yum , yum . . . but how about explaining every other plot point in your film that made no sense ? whatever . either way , i don't give a rat's ass because this movie is a dog and that's unfortunate because it actually did have some good points going for it . see it if you like dumb thrillers . incidentally , if you appreciated along came a spider , you will likely enjoy this film as well . they both start off with interesting premises , only to toss all logic and sense out the window about halfway through . where's joblo coming from ? along came a spider ( 4/10 ) - girl , interrupted ( 5/10 ) - kiss the girls ( 7/10 ) - primal fear ( 7/10 ) -- seven ( 10/10 )
0	_dirty_work_ has a premise of deliciously mean-spirited potential . mitch weaver ( norm macdonald ) and his lifelong best friend sam mckenna ( artie lange ) are losers in life : they were constantly picked on in school , and now they cannot hold regular jobs . but as the trailer goes , " there is one thing mitch weaver is good at--revenge . " so he and sam parlay their unmatched skill in getting-even schemes into a marketable revenge-for-hire business called dirty work inc . this should be the groundwork for a wonderfully wicked black comedy , but for a film called _dirty_work_ , what ensues is rather clean of spirit . in fact , what makes mitch and sam start up their business is not a giddy desire to give bullies a taste of their own medicine , but rather a more sappy reason : sam's father ( jack warden ) needs a heart transplant , and in order for him to move at the top of the recipient list , his compulsively betting doctor ( chevy chase ) asks the guys for $50 , 000 to pay off his bookie . so for all the scheming that goes on , beneath every underhanded plot is--gasp ! --a heart , which undercuts the inherent nastiness of the premise . not that there isn't a lot of nastiness on display--there is , but of a different sort . there are frequent sexual references , most prominently in the form of prostitutes and sam's impotent father's ongoing lust for them . and for a film rated pg-13 , director bob saget ( yes , that bob saget , of _full_house_ and _america's_funniest_home_videos_ fame ) and writers frank sebastiano , fred wolf , and macdonald himself , stretch the boundaries of good taste rather far--arguably a bit too much so ( was not one , but two separate instances of sodomy between animals really necessary ? ) . but the issue , of course , is not so much of taste as it is humor--as in , is it funny or not ? the answer is a resounding no . it's not that macdonald isn't a funny guy . he was one of the more consistently funny performers on _saturday_night_live_ before his much-talked-about firing , and his dry brand of smartass wit translates well to the big screen ; it also doesn't hurt that he's a natural , likable screen presence . he is able to give some of his lines a nice acid touch , but , for the most part , the oneliners , as written , are flat , and the broad slapstick gags just don't work ( one running gag has him being literally tossed out of buildings--a real riot ) . still , macdonald's few shining moments are just about the only moments the film has . the late chris farley , as hysterical as he ever was , is amusing in a cameo role , but , as a whole , the supporting players are amateurish and seemingly free from any directorial guidance . saget tries to juice up the proceedings with kitschy cameos by gary coleman , adam sandler , and john goodman , but their minimal novelty value cannot prevent _dirty_work_ from sputtering to the end of its brief 81-minute running time . the film closes on a sad note of desperation , an indulgent reel of outtakes from which only those involved in the production would derive any amusement . come to think of it , i cannot imagine anyone but those involved in the production to find much amusement in the entirety of _dirty_work_ .
1	john carpenter directed this stylish and gory vampire flick to which has it's good side and it's bad . it's held up by some good performances and dazzling special effects leading up to an ending that's pretty satisfying . james woods gives an outstanding performance that almost covers up the movie . the good side : some neat scenes of vampires and violence . the bad : no scares . yes that's right , even though being directed by one of horror's most cherished directors , 'vampires' is the least bit scary , if not at all . james woods stars as jack a vampire hunter out to stop the plans of the 'master' vampire valek played by thomas ian griffith whom wants vampires to walk in the daylight . daniel baldwin plays his sidekick montoya , a wise-cracking guy who really isn't that funny . in the opening scene jack along with montoya and the team of vampire hunters , find an abandoned house to which vampire occupy . of course we all know sunshine kills vampires , and that is just how they kill these vampires : hooking them to ropes and dragging them outside letting them burn to death . after throwing a party for what happened , the vampires that did not die come back to trash it . they kill almost all of jack's team , leaving only a few alive . sheryl lee plays a prostitute katrina who was bitten by valek , but not yet turned into a vampire . she is rescued by jack and ? flees with them on their search for valek . they have to fight they're way against vampires , leading up to a finale that is well-done with great special effects . 'vampires' definately could have been done better . the make-up , special effects and story are first rate , but there is no scares or terror that the film could have had . it to me had more humor than horror , almost being compared to 'fright night' with the mix of violence and comedy . john carpenter does a great job of directing this film . he eases through some tough times and saves the flaws , which are noticeable but forgettable . the script is clever and funny , with many lines that make us laugh out loud . i much enjoyed 'vampires' with a few exceptions . it's one of those films you see but don't take to heart . you enjoy the time you spent and go on . the recently released 'psycho' is the same way , it's not as good as you'd hope but it is fun and entertaining . 'vampires' is a good horror flick with no scares but plenty of other content to please the viewer .
1	larry flynt is a self proclaimed smut pedlar and the owner/publisher of the multi-million dollar hustler publications company . the people vs . larry flynt is the story of larry flynt's fight for the freedom to circulate and sell his pornographic magazine , hustler . based on a true story , the film is almost a documentary in that it's a very vivid and detailed look at larry flynt's life . woody harrelson gives an excellent performance . he conveys flynt's peculiarities and his character with depth and focus . by the end of the film the audience actually finds themselves , somewhat grudgingly , liking larry flynt . this is some feat given flynt's apparent lack of any morals or ethics and his extremely smutty and childish behaviour in court . however , flynt has a number of things going for him , he's rich , he's funny , and most importantly , he says exactly what he means . larry flynt's wife , althea leasure is played by courtney love . larry meets althea at one of his clubs , and they fall in love ( a very sexual and open love ) . both of them indulge in a world of too much sex , and eventually too much drugs . flynt had been taking an excessive amount of pain killers after being paralysed from the waist down ( which was especially upsetting for him ) by an assassin . althea had joined him in taking the drugs . following an operation flynt decides to stop taking drugs , althea does not have any such plans , nor the determination to follow them . as the film progresses we see her become increasingly frail and sick . courtney love obviously has a great understanding for althea's situation , as she is brilliant in portraying althea in every respect . it's extremely sad to watch althea literally wither away . edward norton plays flynt's lawyer , alan isaacman . again , this is a solid performance . the audience finds it easy to sympathise with isaacman who somehow puts up with flynt's courtroom antics . flynt is not only childish in the courtroom , but downright rude to the judges , and lands himself in a lot of trouble ( and even in a mental institution ) because of it . isaacman is very easy to like , and great at proving ( in quite clever ways ) his points to the court . milos forman has done a great job in directing the people vs . larry flynt . it is not really an exciting or thrilling film , but instead a highly interesting portrayal of a true story . due to larry's character it is also , at times , a very funny film . however , it is much more than that . it is about the fight for freedom of speech , anti-censorship , and the right to be able choose for oneself what to see and buy . an excellent look at flynt , his life , and his story . keep a look out for the real larry flynt who makes a cameo as judge morrissey .
0	a film that means well , but is too pushy in promoting its belabored point and too sentimental to be compelling as a drama . it's jeroen krabb ? 's melodrama about a community of jews in antwerp in 1972 who can't forget their bitter past . the heroine is an attractive , carefree , nonreligious 20-year-old , chaja ( fraser ) , who wants to forget her jewish roots by getting involved in student demonstrations , screwing a student rebel leader , and living with her gentile friends away from her nagging mother ( s ? gebrecht ) and her self-absorbed , eccentric father ( schell ) . her parents are survivors of the holocaust concentration camps , and her home life is filled with angst . her mother is in denial about the past always busying herself by cooking soup and baking cakes and complaining about everything , while her father is more openly loving but has recently been absorbed in searching for two suitcases filled with mementos , a family album , silverware , and his old violin . he buried them in a garden during the war while fleeing the nazis , but can't locate them now due to all the changes in the city . out of frustration after quitting her job as a dishwasher and facing eviction from her apartment , she reluctantly accepts a job as a nanny with an hasidic couple that an old man in her parents' apartment building , mr . apfelschnitt ( topol ) , tells her about . the hasidics are ultra-orthodox : they don't go to the cinema or watch tv , adhere to strict dress codes , and strictly observe their religious laws . chaja is at first put off by the way they expect her to follow their rules , but soon finds the wife , mrs . kalman ( rossellini ) , to be kind and she becomes attached to one of her 5 children , a 4-year-old named simcha ( monty ) who doesn't talk . the stern mr . kalman ( krabb ? ) is not friendly to her and considers her to be a whore because of the way she dresses . to hammer home the point of how anti-semitism hasn't gone away there's a barrage of overdone and uninvolving scenes with a sneering concierge ( bradley ) , who keeps making nasty remarks about jews and tries to make things inconvenient for them by preventing the jewish family from using the elevator . the film is done in by its ham-fisted script as the story , adapted from carl friedman's book " the shovel and the loom , " goes from one false note to another until it gets lost in all the goo of its sentimentality . it starts off telling chaja's story of how she's a lost jewess trying to find her identity , then to her nanny role as she loves a mute child stuck in an insulated environment , and then it makes it a story about the lingering effects of the bitter past that can't be forgotten . the effort seemed heavy-handed , as the film kept delivering too many obvious messages that it ponderously kept delivering through the stock characters . the supporting cast consists of all wooden characters who give their roles a cartoonish flavoring : chaja's parents are given no human shades , while the janitor villain was a particularly annoying role that was one-dimensional and falsely acted . the only ones who fought through the script and showed some feelings were fraser , whose effervescent face was expressive of both the trying times she was going through and the joys she felt -- but most admirably showing how she could be so mistaken as to think that she could forget her roots ; while rossellini gave a warm performance of a woman suffering in silence , but is strong in accepting her faith . topol's reassuring performance as the wise man who says all the right things to fraser , acts as the true voice of the filmmaker in explaining all the sufferings with common sense . the film brazenly uses little simcha to get across its agenda of pointing out how the patriarchal world can be cruel when it can't love : it starts out by showing how under chaja's loving care he's taken to the duck pond and soon starts jabbering away , beginning by saying 'quack , quack' and then going on to ask the four questions during a passover seder . but by showing how the boy is so terrified of his strict father that he wets his pants in his presence , refuses to speak because of his stern dad , and eventually becomes the victim of a tragic accident , the film thereby exploits the boy's sufferings and his story just becomes tiresome and not sincerely done . i felt i didn't just see a movie , but i attended a lecture for the whole 100 minutes of this serious but unappetizing story . it was the kind of movie that you hoped would somehow end soon , as it seemed to be in the habit of rehashing its same viewpoint unnecessarily--the message it keeps sending was already received . in the last shot where father and daughter are hopelessly digging for the lost luggage , one has the impression that no one in the film learned anything about themselves or the past . that seems strange , since i thought that was what this film was supposed to be about . unless i was mistaken and the film's real aim was to make us cry over simcha .
0	warning : spoilers are included in this review . . . but it doesn't really make much of a difference . deep impact begins the official summer movie season , and it also brings back memories of 1997 . remember when dante's peak came out in february ? a few months later , volcano was released . the first film was smart , exhilirating , and one of the best disaster films i had ever seen . the latter film was an incohesive mess that defied logic and wasted talent . well , it's deja vu all over again as two disaster films go head to head in competition . this time , unfortunately , the first comet flick is so bad that people may shy away from armageddon , the upcoming comet-disaster to be released the beginning of july . of course , the general reaction of the audience was oppposed to mine , and so i am in the minority , as i was when i stood on the side of dante's peak . but while watching deep impact , i began to wonder how anyone in their right mind could actually like this film . apparently many did , and it utterly baffles me . to be completely honest , i haven't had this little fun watching a disaster film in my entire life . volcano had implausibilities up the wazoo , but it was still rather fun to watch . deep impact doesn't just have implausibilities , it also contains cheap human drama , incredibly horrible special effects , and a poorly constructed plot . the only thing that gives it a half star above my bottom ranking is a slightly entertaining final fifteen minutes and some good actors making the most of their characters . deep impact begins in an unnamed year ( the year varies ; advanced technology sets it in the future , but fire in the sky is showing on a local movie theater , pushing it back to 1993 ) . a line of students is outside at night , peering through telescopes at the dark sky above . among these are leo biederman ( elijah wood ) and sarah hotchner ( leelee sobieski ) . leo unknowingly discovers a comet , and his teacher sends a photo of the unknown object to an astronomer , who then is able to determine the correct path of this distant comet in about a few seconds . he races off to mail the information , but is killed in a reckless car accident . a year passes , and nothing is heard about it again . we are then introduced to jenny lerner ( t ? a leoni ) , a reporter for msnbc . she gets handed a job to investigate a possible cover-up in the government involving senator alan rittenhouse ( james cromwell ) . she talks to a woman who mentions that rittenhouse was having an affair with a girl named ellie . after talking with rittenhouse , and unsatisfied with the information she gets , she decides to use the internet for help . luckily , she knows exactly how to spell the certain " ellie " that she is looking for ( they spell it ele in the film . . . that girl is pretty darn smart for guessing how it was spelled ) . before she can use the information , the government decides to push her car off the road . they take her in to meet the president of the united states , president beck ( morgan freeman ) . beck recommends that jenny keep the information secret for 48 hours so they can confirm it and then hold a press conference . naturally , she wants to be compensated , and they offer her a front row seat and the chance for the first question . and so , yada yada yada , they reveal the comet to the public and their plans : send a massive spacecraft out to destroy it before it can arrive . they announce a plan called " ark , " which is their only hope for survival . a computer will select 800 , 000 people at random . these people are the ones who will go into a large cave underground so that the impact of the comet won't kill off the entire human race . after two years , the dust will settle ( actually , it would take much , much longer--approximately ninety years , from what i understand ) and the humans could come back to the surface and start over . the rest of the plot is your standard disaster film procedures , but there is one subplot worth mentioning . jenny and her father , jason ( maximilian schell ) , have a very touching relationship that forms out of the impending doom . the final moment involving the two characters is heartfelt and emotional . it's a shame that nothing else is heartfelt . now , of course , we all know that the comet does impact the surface . the title alone suggests it , and the previews actually show it ! by doing this , absoltuely no tension can be drawn from any attempt to stop the comet because we all know that it won't work . director mimi leder came from her successful tries at direction with episodes of the hit television show " er . " her major film debut was the peacemaker , a pathetic and heartless action film . well , this time leder outdid herself , creating a film worse than that one . suggestion to ms . leder : please , stay away from the big screen , or at least the action genre . much of the blame can be placed on leder directly , because the pace is disastrously off . throughout the film we are given subtitles that tell us how much time has passed ( it goes from months to weeks to hours ) . it literally feels like this lapsed time is taking place in real-time--it's that boring . of course , leder isn't all to blame for it . screenwriters michael tolkin and bruce joel rubin have crafted a simplistic story that only gets worse with time . what starts out promising soon turns deadly ( for the audience anyway ) . chock full of cheesy one liners ( " you know , you are going to have more sex than anyone else in school ! " ) and stupid characters , you might think we were back in the 70s again . only one of the subplots is remotely interesting , while the rest are forgettable and boring . and the main plot is so outrageous that you can't figure out if this film is supposed to be an action , drama , or sci-fi . to put it simply : the special effects of this film are a hit and miss situation . that's right , 80% miss , and 20% hit . scenes above the earth are well done , and the orbiting ship is majestic . but the comet is a huge mistake , making it more laughable than frightening . the concept of even trying to land on a comet is preposterous enough , but that's forgiveable . what isn't forgiveable is actually having humans walk on the surface . give me a break , will ya ? and of course , the much hyped collision of comet and earth . well , it is far from spectacular , and it makes independence day look brilliant . the water rushing towards the land is effective , but once it hits the continent , the effects turn ridiculous . cgi water is used , and it looks so bad that i heard more laughs from the audience than shrieks . in fact , i may even recommend the film for those who want to see how bad effects can actually get these days . just when we think visual effects can't be improved , along comes a film to show that they really can and should be . one thing has struck a wrong note with me concerning mimi leder's direction , which also influences the actors . leder loves to show the actors' faces before and during moments of terror . this reminded me of another action director , renny harlin ( die hard 2 , cliffhanger ) . but harlin succeeds because he shows the faces of the victims in realistic situations . leder likes to flaunt people's fears via their faces , but instead of coming off as sympathetic , leder seems more of a sadist . one moment has an astronaut flying off into space . this should be enough to warrant a response from the audience , but leder wants to go farther and shows us the person's face while drifting into space . this is one of the cheapest ways to ellicit an emotional response from an audience , and i , for one , am not going to be fooled . on another note , leder's film only picks up its pace during the last fifteen minutes when the comet actually impacts . the pace does pick up , and some very emotional moments are shown . then again , when you watch people cry for their loved ones , it's obvious it will be emotional . it's mostly just a big trick to rope viewers into " feeling " for the characters , but it didn't work for me . but anyway , the actors do as much as they can with what they are given . t ? a leoni ( bad boys , tv's " the naked truth " ) is the best of the film , and she is given the meatiest role . her character is made stronger by leoni's presence , and we grow to care for her . robert duvall is energetic and fun to watch , but his character is turned into shreds by the plot . elijah wood also comes off rather successfully , but he still hasn't had many good roles ( wood , stick to drama ! you are too talented for this stuff ) . vanessa redgrave is barely acknowledgeable , and her performance is only enhanced by her strong presence on screen . maximilian schell is distracting , but he does provide some nice humor . morgan freeman has been infinitely better than this , and gives one of his most shallow performances to date ( which is quite remarkable for him ) . leelee sobieski could have been better , but i think she just suffered from a poorly written character . a special note should go to ron eldard and denise crosby . eldard is good in his role , but is limited by the plot . crosby is special to me personally because she was tasha yar from tv's " star trek : the next generation . " seeing her was one of the highlights of the film . overall , a very talented cast virtually wasted . deep impact is rated pg-13 for disaster related elements and brief language . this is one of the worst films of the year , and if it is any omen of things to come , this summer could be one of the worst ever . luckily , the x-files movie is coming up , and hopefully armageddon will be more successful . it's a shame that this film will do so successfully because it just isn't worth much . costing nearly $75 million , with special effects done by the illustrious ilm ( which is a huge shocker ) , and with a score composed by oscar-winner james horner ( titanic ) , one might have expected this to be more fun to witness and experience . well , it's not . when the comet does hit the earth , you almost wish it could just take this film along with it .
0	jessica lange is one of the most inconsistent actresses working today . from time-to-time , she blows away audiences with powerful , intense performances . on the other hand , this is the same woman who made her jaw-droppingly awful feature debut in dino delaurentiis' king kong . and , much as lange would probably prefer movie-goers to develop amnesia regarding that particular entry on her resume , every once in a while she does work that is reminiscent of it , if only in quality . hush is one such example . lange is so bad here that she might have been fun to watch if the rest of the film wasn't such a prime example of motion picture tedium . the film opens , as many so-called " psychological thrillers " do , by posing as a light drama . we are introduced to jackson ( johnathon schaech , last encounter in tom hanks' that thing you do ! ) and helen ( gwyneth paltrow ) , a picture perfect young couple who are very much in love . jackson is taking helen home for the holidays so she can meet his mother , martha ( lange ) . the moment i first saw martha , i started looking for fangs . soon , the wicked witch of the east is plotting a way for her son to get helen pregnant ( this involves poking a hole in a diaphragm ) . once that goal is accomplished , she manipulates events so that the expecting couple moves out of new york city to the horse farm where she lives . as long as she gets her way , martha is a perfectly amicable person , but when helen defies her , it's a declaration of war . hush has three very simple problems : it's incredibly dumb , it's incredibly boring , and it's incredibly predictable ( at least up to the stupefying ending ) . this film has absolutely nothing to recommend it , with the exception of a couple of nice shots of snow-covered fields and a quick glimpse of gwyneth paltrow's bare buttocks . frankly , it's embarrassing to watch a respected actress of lange's stature give a performance like this -- it's like a bad blanche dubois ( the role she played in a 1995 tv version of a streetcar named desire ) . meanwhile , paltrow does her best to get through her dialogue without gaping at the stupidity of some of her lines , and schaech attempts a passable imitation of an inanimate object . as in all psychological thrillers , the battle lines are clearly drawn . here , it's mom and against wife , with jackson caught in the middle . of course , since schaech's character is poorly-developed and badly acted , it's impossible to say how he feels about being in that situation . maybe someone should ask him if he's familiar with oedipus . martha is , of course , the evil one . how do we know she's evil ? she smokes cigarettes and drinks hard liquor -- two sure signs that the devil is at work . on the other hand , helen is a good girl . the evidence for this is that she's nice to old ladies and treasures a locket with a picture of her dead parents . that's about it for character development . beyond that point , hush is just a series of increasingly hard-to-swallow coincidences , contrivances , and moronic plot twists . however , the first 85 minutes are just a warm-up for the ending , which is as anticlimactic as it is profoundly dissatisfying . i can't imagine anyone , no matter what they thought of the movie as a whole , liking this conclusion . either there was some serious last-minute editing or someone left out a few pages of the script . before the climax , i disliked hush ; by the time the end credits started , i hated it . viewers invest something in every movie they watch , no matter how good or bad it is . cheating them like this is offensive and unpardonable . most entries into this worn-out , worm-eaten genre aren't especially good . films like consenting adults , the hand that rocks the cradle , and single white female rely on stock plots and predictable twists to propel the narrative along . in general , however , they're directed with a degree of competence that assures a level of sustained tension . that's not the case with really bad thrillers like this , which fail to generate even a momentary heart palpitation -- the characters are too bland and the plot is too uninvolving for anyone in the audience to care . indeed , the title of this movie probably refers to what the producers hope viewers will do in lieu of telling their friends what they really think of this sorry piece of celluloid .
1	" very bad things , " is the most delightfully morbid film of the year , a movie that goes so far over the deep end with its outrageousness and violence that i couldn't help but be won over by the material . the film starts off with five friends leaving their homes in los angeles for a bachelor party in las vegas . the groom-to-be is kyle fisher ( jon favreau ) , who is about to be married to the controlling , wedding-obsessed laura ( cameron diaz ) . the other friends are real estate agent robert boyd ( christian slater ) , quiet charles ( leland orser ) , and brothers , michael ( jeremy piven ) and family man adam ( daniel stern ) . after a wild night of gambling , boozing , and drugs , a stripper ( carla scott ) who was paid for by robert comes into their hotel room , but after a freak accident , to everyone's terror , she is killed . as robert puts it : " there are two options : go to the police and go to prison , or bury her out in the desert where no one will ever find her . " after a security guard enters into the hotel room unexpectantly and sees the body , robert is forced to kill him as well . " okay , there is only one option now . you can forget about calling the police , " he says . by the time the five friends return home and as the wedding draws nearer , most of them are overcome with guilt , which sets off an even more elaborate series of event , that includes much , much more murder , double-crosses , and the inevitable wedding from hell . " very bad things , " which is actor peter berg's feature film directing debut , is the shockingly perverse and wicked comedy that , " there's something about mary , " wanted to be . it pulls out all the stops to create something fresh , original , and hilarious , even if that requires surprisingly graphic violence , gore , and a slew of truly hateful characters that all get what they deserve by the end . the screenplay , also written by berg , is , to put it mildly , very funny and courageous . during the second act of the film , some of the fun was beginning to slightly dwindle due to so much death , which was beginning to undermine the humor , but it eventually recouped itself with a climax that has to be seen to be believed . the dialogue is edgy and inventive , and this film proves that a movie doesn't necessarily require likable character to be extremely enjoyable . there's more fun , i think , in showing ignorable people getting their just desserts . cameron diaz gives her best performance to date here , and has a lot of fun in playing the hateful laura , who eventually turns out to be more crazy than any of the five male friends . diaz puts so much overblown energy to her character that i really do think she deserves a supporting actress oscar nomination come next january . by the time she is beating someone to death with a coat hanger , and reciting lines like , " stuff him in the crapper and get your ass upstairs , " i couldn't help but crack up at how " balls-to-the-wall " this film had become . jeanne tripplehorn creates another character original , as daniel stern's wife , who late in the picture , we discover , is a tough kick-boxer that should not be messed around with . it is at this level that , " very bad things , " was so entertaining and surprising . just when you thought you could predict what was going to happen , there would be a little twist involving the characters that would be absolutely wacky . the last sequence was perfect and managed to go even further over-the-top . although i enjoyed the film immensely , let me make this clear : " very bad things , " is not a movie for everyone . it is more tasteless than anything i have ever seen , it is more violent and bloody than a r-rated film usually is , and it is offensive . luckily , these are elements that i would prefer in a comedy , since it clearly shows the filmmakers were set on making a no-holds-barred , politically incorrect comedy . the fact that this film slipped through the cracks of the usually mainstream and " safe " wide-releases coming out lately , still gives me hope for the hollywood film industry .
0	when robert forster found himself famous again after appearing in " jackie brown " , he immediately signed up for a little film called " american perfekt " . this was almost two years ago . i waited patiently for the film to be released , but it never was . finally , i forgot about it . the other day , though , while i was perusing the selection of the local video store , i stumbled upon , you guessed it , " american perfekt " . i immediately rented it and with a certain amount of glee , rushed home to view it . having now seen the film , i understand why it never saw theatrical release . " american perfekt " is a jumbled mess . the storyline is non-existent . it took me half the movie just to figure out what was going on . and at that point , the only thing i really knew for sure was that the movie was * never * going to introduce a plot of some sort . it wants to get by on quirkyness and so-called charm alone , and it just doesn't work . robert forster plays a psychiatrist who picks up amanda plummer , and they head off on the road together . along the way to no discernable destination , they run into all sorts of kooky and wacky characters . i suppose this free-wheeling , no plot style is supposed to give the film an element of danger and excitment , but all it did was make me sleepy . i'm all for trying new things within the realm of film , but not at the expense of coherence . nothing in this movie makes sense . the actions of the characters go unexplained , even when they're truly bizarre . i'll give you an example , without giving too much away . david thewlis has a part as a drifting con-man . at one point , mid-way through the movie , he runs forster and plummer off the road with his car . as he passes them , we see that his face is covered in blood . do you think we would get an explanation as to what happened to him ? you would think so , wouldn't you . " american perfekt " is a waste of time . nothing is gained from watching this movie , except maybe a migraine . and if you do rent it , don't bother trying to figure out what's going on in the hopes that everything will be resolved by the end . this doesn't happen . and no explanation is given for the misspelling of " perfect " , either .
1	this is a film about secrets , some that are innocent like those of a cute little farm girl , frances boyd ( ashley ) . others that are between a married couple that is impacting their relationship , like the problems of infertility affecting this upwardly mobile couple , geoffrey gaines ( stephen ramsey ) , the medical researcher working for a big corporation called fex and striving to get a patent for his experiment and become recognized in his field , and his artist wife , lillian ( miriam healy-louie ) , who reluctantly stands behind her husband suppressing her natural artistic tendencies in order to make the marriage work . and , still other secrets that have a greater implication for the world and are deadly in a political sense , of science carried out by the big corporations like it was a business run for the bottom line . receiving a summer grant to study " chemo-electric therapy , " geoffrey and his wife are hoping that a summer spent away from the intensity of the big city will bring back the romance that is dwindling from their marriage and that the casualness of the country atmosphere will give them more time together , as their three-year marriage has become shaky because he is more interested in his work than he is in her . he has slyly managed to keep his work as secretive as possible by locking himself in the lab , which is off limits to her , as he secretly goes about conducting experiments on rats and mice , convincing her that what he is doing is to benefit humanity with possible new treatments and cures to illnesses . his main argument is , that this is what the public wants , they don't want to hear about how some animals had to die because of these experiments , they just want the benefits of science . that he is depicted as a monster creating another monster , much like frankenstein was created , is the argument skewed by the director against his bad science ( science as a business ) as opposed to the good science ( science that cares about the small farmer ) , which is represented by the handsome and almost perfect gentleman , alex vine ( david ) , a young ecologist who chooses to work in the field , trying to get the farmers to go back to organic farming . he is hired by the university to monitor the dangers of pesticides and all the chemicals the farmer is almost forced to use to survive financially , as it is doing irreparable harm to him and the consumer because of all the health risks attached to this new way of farming , methods that have just come about in the last thirty- years and are being pushed by the big companies to enhance their profit margins . the third view in all this is the artist's , represented by lillian , who points out that the artist's work is shown in public and scrutinized constantly , " why shouldn't the same be true of the scientist ? " she argues that the artist is the watchdog for the public , questioning what is good or evil in society , something that bad science has completely ignored . geoffrey , impatient to get ahead with his research , feels bogged down by the bureaucrats in his firm who fail to provide him with the three chimps he needs to experiment on , as he contacts one of the company's higher ups to argue his case , but decides he can't wait any longer for their help , so he sets an animal trap in the countryside and catches chester , the gorgeous pet dog of frances , a dog that means so much to her and her family because he saved her life . while out in the field with the bloodied trapped dog already in the back seat of his car , he is spotted by alex and one of his co-workers , and nervously invites them to dinner with his wife , afraid that alex will spot what he is doing , as he rushes away from the area . in the dinner scene that was , unfortunately , flatly done , but was nevertheless the heart of the film , as all the main characters get a chance to speak out from the point of view they represent as they eat meat , a means of getting protein that the radical scientists have eschewed since they became so politically correct about everything . the scientists engage in a rational argument , highlighting their different points of view , while lillian reacts in an emotional way , siding mostly with david's view but coming at it from a much different angle . it was as if the actors were puppets on strings that the director controlled and they just spewed out their generalized philosophies . that the director's point of view is absolutely right , is beside the point . the point is that the characters lost their humanity and became one-dimensional characters . geoffrey was likened to a hideous monster , alex vine was likened to his last name , the one who holds fast to the ground ensuring that the plant has stability , while lillian was likened to the muse of poetry and art , the inspiration for goodness and beauty . alex has been spending a lot of time together with lillian , as these two seem to share the same views and are physically attracted to each other , but when the time is ripe for an affair to take place between them , lillian changes her mind and decides not to go up to alex's apartment . geoffrey is already suspicious of alex and considers him an enemy , and the marriage seems to be coming apart and all his cunning tricks to possess her are no longer working , as it is now impossible to see any good in him and there becomes no reason why she would remain with him . the relationship has disintegrated way beyond the point of her just feeling lonely . the dog is discovered by alex and her in a deplorable state after geoffrey is seen by them electrically shocking it , and mercifully the dog dies . the only thing left for her to do is walk out of the marriage , but she also fails to respond to david's loving gesture for her to stay with him , instead opting to head back to the city . the farmer whose dog was tortured to death comes into the scientist's lab and knocks him cold while he was in the middle of a phone conversation with one of the higher-ups who told him all the animals he needs are on the way . what is progress ? what can one expect out of life ? is the small farmer about to become extinct ? the answers to these questions can best be answered by either good science or art , which are both closely related to the american natives vision of a world entrusted to mankind so that he can respect it and take care of it and enrich it with his creations to benefit mankind in a peaceful way . that this work fails to be subtle and polarizes opinions , leaving no room for deeper arguments , is the shame of this decent and smart film , that tried so hard to say what it felt it had to say but said it so loudly without trusting its audience to catch on to its message by not making everything seem so black and white . no telling said a lot about the harmful trends it sees science going in ; it probably said too much and would have been better off if its vision was more poetical and less didactic . there is something about listening to a lecture that turns off the rebel in me , as i don't like being hit in the head with the truth but prefer to have it presented in the form that leads to inspiration or told metaphorically . that is not to say that i found the film without considerable merit , that inspite of its shortcomings , it was worth seeing because of its visual statements , though they were also not too subtle , they were at least effective in setting up the intense mood that the film needed to show that there is a mental war going on currently , of those who believe one way is right and others who differ with them , and that anyone who is neutral must be considered an enemy because of their indifference . the stakes in this ecological struggle are that high . perhaps the most powerful visual statement in the film , was the dead cow from pesticides shown in the opening scene . it was the image that lillian spent her time painting all summer and had the same affect for her as did the animal faces in picasso's guernica had for him . both artists envisioned the horrors that man could do against the world , and represented this unspoken pain on the faces of the animals so that anyone who cares to really see what is going on , will not mistake which side of the fence he or she should be on . the pain that lillian feels , as she forgets about her desires to raise a family , and she stares at her painting of the cow and the song , " make the world go away " blares out from the background , after she has learned that frances' beautiful and loving dog has been brutalized by her monster of a husband , all in the name of science , had a raw power to it that personalizes the dangers of bad science . perhaps , the most pertinent question the film asks , requires an answer that must be resolved by the farmers and the consumers who are most caught in the changing world and its new way of doing business , as the question becomes , can science be happily married with art ?
1	capsule : the verma family is having a wedding and all the relatives will come for the multi-day festivities . mira nair's film is pleasant enough with a little human drama , a few family secrets , some sadness and some happiness . you have seen it all before , but perhaps not from india . the photography is colorful and the music is very agreeable . , low +2 ( -4 to +4 ) mira nair previously directed salaam bombay and mississippi masala . her newest film , written by sabrina dhawan , is very similar to previous films like betsy's wedding but it is set in new delhi . a wealthy family is having a wedding . an indian wedding is a multi-day affair as much a family reunion as a nuptial . even more than in the us , it is an excuse for a lavish and extravagant family get-together . the film shows us what the family does together and at the same time follows several family members' individual story lines . aditi verma is marrying hemant , an indian engineer working in the us . she had previously had a relationship with vikram , her supervisor . latit , her father ( played by naseeruddin shah ) , is juggling many problems , not the least of which is worrying about the caterer has hired pk dubey . dubey is a rather eccentric man with a taste for eating the marigolds he uses for decoration . even dubey will soon be romantically entangled when he becomes interested in alice , one of the family servants . several family members arrive giving rise to several plotlines involving sex , family secrets , or both . there are heartbreaks and there are people falling in love . some of the subjects covered are probably near taboo for indian films . western audiences will appreciate a look at unfamiliar indian customs like women painting their hands with henna . on the other hand it was not clear ( to me at least ) if scenes like the family singing together are typical of indian culture or if they are a convention of indian musical films . this seems a particularly westernized family with the father wearing american designer sweaters and the family speaking mostly english . the latter will , however , help with an international release . sabrina dhawan's screenplay is vibrant with witty dialog . we have seen films with plotting very much like this , but the indian setting makes a great deal of difference . director mira nair calls the film an affirmation of life . i rate it a 7 on the 0 to 10 scale and a low +2 on the -4 to +4 scale .
1	if you've ever perused my college comedy diary " another year in the life of a nerd " ( i never run out of cheap plugs ) , you know i didn't get along with my first-semester roommate too well . in fact , during the three-week period between thanksgiving and christmas break , i said a total of four sentences to him . so when i saw in the residence hall cable listings a movie called roommates , i envisioned 90 minutes of conflict between a couple of bickering young adults trapped in a 10 x 13 foot dorm room . then i saw that the star of roommates is peter falk . scratch that idea . but i still say someone should film the story of two college roommates whose relationship is less than ideal . of course , in my case it would be a silent picture . even without the college element , i still decided to watch roommates because i had absolutely nothing to do , unless you count studying for final exams ( and who does ? ) . i'm glad i did . peter falk's performance was actually what made the movie . and this is a guy i never considered a real actor , more like someone who went around in a trenchcoat solving prescripted mysteries . falk pleasantly surprised me here , permanently earning my respect , so all you " columbo " fans who think i live to insult the guy can just falk off . falk plays rocky , a 107-year-old polish baker who raises his grandson after both the kid's parents die . the movie begins with the mom's death and the son moving in with his grandparents . after a couple stops along the son's journey to manhood , roommates progresses to the present day , with the grandson a surgeon and rocky in a condemned house he refuses to leave . the surgeon reluctantly offers the only possible solution -- rocky will have to move into his place , the basement of a building rented by a group of chinese students ( " communists ! " ) . the movie spans nine more years of rocky's relationship with his grandson , and the trials posed when the grandson meets and falls in love with--gasp--a woman , and starts spending all his time with her . so , in his grandson's absence , rocky turns his pursuits to professional boxing , achieveing the world heavyweight title in a climactic fight with apollo creed . . . or am i confusing movie plots again ? roommates has an almost epic feel to it , covering several generations of a family with one fiesty immigrant who refuses to die . death , though , knocks at the door of almost every other major character in the the movie . roommates has about as many casualties as the first halloween . the number can't be counted on one hand , unless of course you're the victim of some hideous genetic mutation . and you can probably guess who says farewell to planet earth at the end of the movie ( no , not duran duran ) . i won't come out and say it . instead , i'll just sit here and hum " eye of the tiger " until each and every one of you figures it out . roommates plays on all the major emotions . it knows when to make you laugh and when to make you cry . movies that can perfectly mix comedy and drama are always hits with the audience , even though this one bombed at the theaters . my point ? there are no absolutes . or , another possible point , peter falk just isn't such a great box office draw . either way , this is still a good movie and you should give it a chance like i did , whether you hate your roommate or not .
0	some movies' pre-release buzz is so insistent on their high oscar potential that when they're finally released , everyone just goes along with it . thus sometimes , films unworthy of any award sans the razzie become oscar hopefuls and some even score nominations . last year it was the thin red line . this year's " winner " is the hurricane , pure unadulterated tripe that is all of a sudden being received with critical plaudits and votes in the office oscar pool . acclaimed director norman jewison's biopic retreads all the conventions of courtroom movies without any of the fun . and that's supposed to be ok because , see , it's a true story . it's about rubin " hurricane " carter ( denzel washington ) , a legendary african american prizefighted who is unjustly convicted of triple homicide with the help of a ghastly ( racist ! ) detective ( dan hedaya ) who's had it in for the " big-shot " hurricane ever since he arrested him for stabbing a white man with a knife ( in self-defense but who cares , right ? ) when rubin was only ten . he is to serve three life sentences with no possibility of parole . most of the film takes place when he is in his 15th year in prison . to the rescue -- lesra martin ( vicellous reon shannon ) and his team of wanna-be detectives . lesra is an african american teenager taken in by three well-off canadian white people ( hanna , unger , schreiber ) to get an education . lesra and his buddies go to a book sale where lesra picks out his very first book -- " the sixteenth round , " rubin's autobiography . immediately thereafter , schreiber's character tells lesra " sometimes we don't pick the books we read , they pick us . " hmmm . after a few visits to the prison , they become convinced of rubin's innocence and launch their own full-scale investigation even though two juries have convicted him . they meticulously go through all the files and revisit all the old witnesses ( i wonder if any of them might be cranky old women who slam the door in their faces ? ) and in the course of their relentlessy tedious sleuthing uncover obvious evidence confirming the hurricane's innocence that was either ignored or never seeked out during the first two proceedings . of course , we're already told that he's innocent . a movie like this is especially frustrating because we're not being shown everything significant that happened to carter during this period in his life . all too obviously , we're getting the hollywood watered- down version . that would be ok except that the parts we are getting is milked for every single drop of melodrama that the filmmakers could possibly squeeze out of it . it's almost cruel . the melodrama isn't of the entertaining kind either ; it's the hokey , rammed-down-your-throat variety where every emotion is exaggerated to the point of absurdity . witness the villain ferociously grinding his teeth at the final trial or the constant pseudo-saintliness of our four protagonists . the hurricane is your basic courtroom movie except it's a no-frills courtroom movie . it's formula stripped to the bare necessities . you have your wrongly accused black man . you have your melodramatic final courtroom scene . but there's nothing else . you'd expect some sort of involving investigation . but that's not necessary since we're implicitly informed of his innocence . thus the whole middle portion of the movie is reduced to the protagonist brooding . brooding to himself . brooding to other inmates . brooding to lesra . brooding to lesra's canadian friends . brooding in letters . i don't think i'll ever look at brooding the same way again . it wasn't long before i got tired of hearing the hurricane's exceedingly deep meditations on his condition . i wanted something to happen . as for washington's performance in the title role -- i figured i'd have to address it sooner or later considering the amount of attention it's received -- he is top notch , though still boring . how is that possible ? well , he does what jewison wanted him to do perfectly . unfortunately what jewison asked him to do is a load of crap . what a waste of a great performer . speaking of wastes , why the hell did john hannah agree to do this ? he's an extremely talented actor and i love him dearly , but what is he doing here ? to call his character ( along with schreiber's and unger's ) a stick figure would be a gross understatement . all three of them come off as veritable mother theresas , as benevolent as do-gooders come . if they're to play a major part in this movie , why not make them real people , with real feelings and emotions ? look : if you're going to make a formula movie , don't undermine the formula . courtroom dramas can be fun , but this is ridiculous . not only is it trite , it's boring .
1	" crazy/beautiful " suffers from the damned-if-you-do , damned-if-you-don't syndrome . after a spate of flighty , cookie-cutter teen films , the romantic drama addresses alcoholism and parental loss along with its love story . but rather than applaud the production , early reviews have dismissed it as an overblown " afterschool special . " even worse , in the wake of federal trade commission hearings that blasted the industry for marketing violent and sexual movies to young people , the studio got a case of the heebie-jeebies and forced director john stockwell to re-shoot scenes and cut footage to " tone things down . " needless to say , the filmmaker was frustrated . " we were trying to make a cautionary tale , " he told newsweek , " and we couldn't show the behavior we were trying to caution people away from . " regardless , the film works , thanks to exceptional performances from its lead players and a script determined to transcend stereotypes . " crazy/beautiful " is quality fare , good enough that i half-expected the summer movie crap police to walk into the press screening and confiscate the print for " failure to incorporate explosions and poop jokes . " set in pacific palisades , calif . , the story follows the burgeoning relationship between two teens . every morning and evening , carlos nunez ( jay hernandez ) takes a two-hour bus ride in order to attend pacific high school . an honor student and star athlete , carlos is responsible , modest and focused as he works on securing a place in the naval academy . all is well until he meets nicole oakley ( kirsten dunst ) , the daughter of a rich congressman ( bruce davison ) . nicole is a drunk apparently hell-bent on self-destruction . carlos is smart enough to recognize the danger in getting involved with her , but he is only human and she has the greatest smile . plus , as her father notes , she has a real knack for drawing others into her downward spiral . as with " save the last dance , " " crazy/beautiful " ( god , how i hate lower-case titles ) takes situations that look stale on paper and makes them seem fresh . while noting the racial and social differences between the kids , the screenplay dances around most of the clich ? s ( there are still several mtv moments , though ) . the filmmakers make a point to give characters that crucial extra bit of shading that turns them into individuals instead of stereotypes and the actors take it from there . cute-as-a-button dunst forces the viewer to share the pain beneath nicole's behavior . she is credible enough that when dad urges carlos to get away from her before she drags him down , i hoped the boy would listen . as carlos , hernandez is a revelation . hunky without looking like the product of a hollywood design team , the young man can really act ; we will see a lot of this guy in the future . aside from its title , the biggest problem with " crazy/beautiful " is its ending , which wraps everything up too fast and too tidy . after carefully presenting credible characters and situations , the conclusion feels rushed and lazy . still , this is the kind of film that deserves accolades from critics instead of cheap shots . " afterschool special " my ass ? " crazy/beautiful " is the real deal .
0	synopsis : in " sooner than you think " america , the future of law enforcement resides in blade squad , a ragtag group of culturally diverse rollerblading cops with jetpacks strapped on their backs . a dangerous criminal , however , attempts to destroy blade squad after his brother dies while being chased by them . comments : so , what do an ex-gangbanger turned insubordinate traffic cop , a former prostitute with a substance abuse problem , and a junkie turned dennis rodman wannabe turned cop who crashed four police cruisers all have in common ? why , they're all members of blade squad , an elite new crimefighting unit wearing black uniforms , rollerblades , and jetpacks ! they also carry video cameras so they can communicate with one another a la the marines in james cameron's aliens . yes , it's blade squad , the fox network's wednesday night movie of the week . this " movie , " marking its dubious world premiere today , curiously has a number of guest stars . " how can a movie have guest stars ? " you may ask . well , blade squad is not really a movie so to speak but a 2 hour pilot for a possible tv series packaged as a movie . blade squad is dumb . blade squad is loud . blade squad is obnoxious . blade squad will probably be a ratings hit and spawn a long-lived tv series . why not ? after all , television has given its audience crimefighters with talking cars ( " knight rider " ) , fast helicopters ( " airwolf " ) , and super fast motorcycles ( " street hawk " ) , and viewers have eaten it up in the past . so , why not crimefighters with jet-powered roller blades ? to be honest , as a made-for-tv presentation , blade squad is at least watchable . the film has a relatively large cast of characters , a surprisingly intelligible albeit predictable script , and enough action sequences to keep one half-interested . i'd imagine adolescent males , probably the target audience of this turkey , would get a kick out of it . i tried to keep that in mind when i watched blade squad . i can remember liking " airwolf " and " street hawk " when i was 10 or 11 . and , although this isn't saying much , blade squad is leaps and bounds better than the last fox network movie i had the displeasure of wasting time on : the insipidly awful generation x ( a huge disappointment considering the comic book's terrific two-year beginning ) . but , i digress . despite its limited appeal , blade squad has a lot of kinks to work out if the movie is to become a tv series . one , it suffers from mtv syndrome : a lot of quick shots and weird angles continuously jar the viewer's senses while a near nonstop generic rock soundtrack blares incessantly in the background . oh yeah , dylan's " knockin' on heaven's door " and bowie's " i'm afraid of americans " are used here , in rather poor taste . two , blade squad needs a new crew for the sound . the substandard sound editing irritated me to no end . characters' dialogue , at times , sounded choppy and unintelligible . during one important scene , a song played loudly in the background . when a character spoke , the song's volume dropped but did not disappear . as soon as that character finished speaking , the song's volume immediately returned to its original level until the next character spoke . this sounds trivial , i'm sure , but it distracted me immensely . finally , this is commercial television . foul language is not allowed , typically , on commercial television . thus , don't use foul language in a made-for-tv production because that foul language has to be censored in some manner . in an early scene of the film , for example , the lead good guy and bad guy have a minor confrontation in the streets . when the good guy spouts out a bad word , a driver conveniently honks his car's horn off-screen to muffle the word out . in a " seinfeld " episode , this technique proved funny ; here , it seemed goofy and cut the dramatic tension considerably . perhaps future writers , if a show is spun out of the movie , could take a cue from marvel comics' 2099 series of comics . make up a bunch of new bad words for the future . this way , you don't need a bunch of honking horns or other silly devices to cover up foul language . compared to the usual crap broadcast tv networks have to offer in terms of movies , blade squad is a suitable exercise in camp . when compared to , say , a movie studio film , blade squad has a lot in common with a term which shares its initials : bs . ( review written august 12 , 1998 )
0	apparently , when crap calls , jim carrey answers . here he is , mugging it up in countless unfunny ways for the fifth time , his second go-around in the role of pet detective ace ventura . that means more talking ass-cracks , penis jokes and cries of " al-l-l-l-l-l-l-l-l-l-lrighty then . " it all adds up to a sequel that makes the original resemble schindler's list in terms of dramatic merit , or lack of . granted , there are a few laughs amid the constant barrage of pre-school humor , but anyone who appreciates good comedy will bang their head against the wall ten times for every minor chuckle . it's a painful experience for anyone with a brain . ace is distraught after accidentally dropping a racoon into a canyon ( in a parody of the opening scene of sylvester stallone's cliffhanger , jim carrey being the only person who can make stallone look like a college professor in terms of intellect , or lack of ) and decides to retire to the mountains of tibet to gain a higher level of consciousness ( or , in his case , a level of consciousness ) . but he is pulled out of retirement to the tune of $20 , 000 to retrieve a sacred white bat for an african tribe . why africa ? so carrey can disguise himself nude inside a fake rhino and later climb out the rear end as a tourist family watches ( " look , the rhino's about to give birth ! " ) . if that seems like hee-haw humor to you , by all means , see the movie . if not , claim your place in human civilization with the rest of us . obviously , there are quite a few nonmembers of civilization who made this movie , like the first ace ventura film ( i use the word " film " only because it was filmed , not because there's any level of artistic merit . ) , a huge success . in fact , carrey only has a career because of the decline of intelligence in our culture . you may say to me , " but andrew , look at jerry lewis . he was born with a negative i . q . and look how popular he was thirty years ago . " maybe , but i still say jerry lewis is a notch or two up on the comedic ladder because he never actually did an impression in a movie of a rabid bulldog biting off a man's testicles . . . lewis at least had the dignity to save that performance for when company came over .
0	reindeer games is easily the worst of the three recent films penned by ehren kruger ( scream 3 and arlington rd are the others , each derivative in their own special way ) . the guy can't seem to write believable dialogue ( sample from reindeer games : " rule #1 : never put a car thief behind the wheel " ) , create multi-faceted characters , or even engineer coherent plots but he sure knows how to pile on numerous nonsensical twists and turns ( no matter if each one deems the actual story increasingly unlikely ) . his screenplay for reindeer games turns the tables on the audience so many times that watching the film becomes something of a punishment with no reward anywhere in sight . i can just envision kruger laughing behind his keyboard , " oh you thought my movie was gonna go here , f * ck you jack ass , take that twist , decipher this mother f * cker ! " it's almost as if the writer were angry at us for shelling out money to see his stupid movie . and why the hell would anyone want to invest time in a movie when the screenwriter keeps changing his own rules for no reason other than to congratulate himself on how damn clever he is ? auteur theory be damned ; it's kruger's " style " , not the director's that winds up on screen . kruger has obviously never paid much mind to the old chestnut " sometimes less is more " . and his numerous twists can't even claim to be originals ; arlington rd's ending is a direct steal from the much better alan j . pakula thriller the parallax view , and in reindeer games we get this ol' gem ; character incriminates themself by saying something they shouldn't know ( pronouns used to protect the gender of the " character " . . . grammar be damned ) . " how did you know that ? " the stunned protagonist asks , suddenly realizing that the character was in on the whole thing all along . . . since twist endings are currently so in vogue , and seeing as how kruger's screenplays usually come equipped with about three twists per ending , i guess it's no wonder why he works so frequently . he's quickly becoming miramax's mickey mouse ; the company has already signed him to work on several of their upcoming projects . this is appropriate considering that miramax ( which used to place their label on some of the most artistically daring films ) has quickly become a grindhouse for coddling foreign imports ( life is beautiful ) and freddie prinze jr . vehicles . their company's current logo could be " we ride the trends " . reindeer games stars ben affleck as rudy , a supposedly hardened criminal spending his days and nights behind bars with fantasies of pecan pies dancing atop his head . although affleck is given some barbed wire tattoos to insinuate bad assness , he plays the role like steve guttenberg preciously mugging through a police academy flick . affleck is such a puppy dog that it's impossible to believe he could survive in a harsh prison environment without becoming nearly everyone's bitch . the role itself is so badly written ( the character only grows balls when the plot calls for it ) , the twists so outrageous , and the directing so self consciously gritty that this is about as close to self parody as i can recall a recent " serious " movie getting . it may have been wiser had the film makers simply went all the way in that direction , casting jerry seinfeld as the hardened criminal and howard stern as the sniveling bad guy ( who's played here by gary sinise in yet another over the top villain performance ) james frain is nick , rudy's cellmate , a manslaughterer who's found a pen pal in the gorgeous ashley mason ( charlize theron ) . ashley is a prison groupie who sends nick many cheesecake photos of her though she's never seen one picture of him . which works out fine since the character is killed in a near-riot , and rudy ( who was to be paroled on the same day as nick ) takes his place , which leads to a sudden and very frenzied sex scene between ashley and rudy ( so frenzied it kinda looks like rape ) and a surprise visit from ashley's brother , gabriel ( gary sinise ) , who waltzes into their shabby hotel room flanked by his thuggish co-horts . he plans to rob an indian casino on christmas eve with the assistance of rudy who he thinks is nick who , according to what he wrote in the letters to ashley , used to work as a guard in the indian casino . though by the end , the film pulls the rug out from under us so frequently that everything i've described might as well be irrelevant . this is what you can expect should you chose to take this reindeer on ; several scenes in which , after catching his prey , the bad guy proceeds to stall interminably until the good guy has a chance to kill his captor and crack a stupid one-liner . included : two ( 2 ) scenes of two ( 2 ) different bad guys explaining their motives to the hero when they should be killing him ( one following the other no less ) . though it's an action film , the ending is more a talkfest where we get the whole movie explained to us by one flustered character actor after another while affleck looks on , incredulous as the audience . the flick was directed by john frankenheimer , a straightforward action director who lucked into the manchurian candidate early in his career , fell off the a-list following a string of flops and now , in his old age , is slowly climbing his way back up . it would be a success story if he were choosing better scripts but his last major film was ronin ( one of those almost but not quite movies ) which followed the island of dr . morneau ( you remember , the one with marlon brando in mime make-up and a not so flattering moo-moo ) , and now this . he films action sequences with a minimum of quick cutting which i like considering that nowadays action scenes are commonly comprised of millisecond flash cuts strung together and laid out for a brain-zapped mtv audience to pick apart . problem is these action scenes ( nearly all failed escapes ) serve no purpose in the story other than to further pad out the running time and to remind the audience that their watching an action movie rather than a filmed radio play . character problems abound ; rudy is made to shift between sweet boy next door earnestness and hard edged wiseacre , the latter of which is not ( at least at this point ) something ben affleck is capable of pulling off . the former he can do with ease and often the actor coasts on his lackadaisical charm while those around him growl and swear . but then suddenly affleck starts growling and swearing alongside them like the class clown imitating a tarantino gangster . charlize theron , an extraordinary talent , is , like affleck , playing whatever part the script requires her to play , whether it be vulnerability at one moment , anger at the next . she never has a chance to evince any charm or make much of an impression beyond her obvious physical attributes ( frankenheimer has her needlessly pop her top to further italicize this . gary sinise has played this role frequently , and here , as in snake eyes , he does the snarling bad guy thing with such over the top vitriol ( the guy must be so incredibly bored of stomping through the same paces that going out of control is the only thing that keeps him interested any more ) , that it becomes more of an annoyance ( oh there he goes again ? ? ? ) than a threat . these are talented people who made the mistake of jumping on to a script with little but stock characters and a bag of tricks that it dully springs on its audience .
1	do you want to know the truth about cats and dogs ? do you ? well , as this movie shows us , they make good companions but pale in comparison to the joy and fulfillment romantic relationships can bring . unfortunately , there's a giant roadblock set up in our culture that only certain people can get through while the rest of us mill around outside , feeling sorry for ourselves . a checkpoint beautiful kind of thing , and janeane garafolo's character abby relates to it well . like a certain oversized teenage movie critic , she is intelligent and has a great sense of humor but strikes out with the opposite sex because she sees herself as physically unattractive , and the men seem to be backing her up on that . meanwhile , her gorgeous neighbor nora ( uma thurman . . . uma being the only woman's name worse than nora ) attracts men like flies . as abby tells her , " you burp and they think it's cute . you barf and they line up to hold your hair back . " but nora's down on herself for being too shallow and superficial . we all have our prwhen a man calls in to veterinarian abby's talk radio show wanting to know how to get the roller skates off his basset hound . ( oh come on , any idiot knows how to handle that problem ! ) he likes her personality and professional demeanor and asks to meet her in person . abby , though , knows her body doesn't match her personality and that she probably won't have a chance with him once he sees her . so she gives him nora's body description and stands him up . nora happens to be in the studio the next day when the dog man comes by and abby asks her for a big favor . she goes along with the masquerade and the three of them head out for a night of fun , abby assuming the role of a goat cheese farmer named donna . the dog man finds out even though this girl is beautiful , she's not quite as intellectual or confident about herself in person , but he doesn't suspect anything , realizing he's not living in a " three's company " episode . the charade continues , with abby furthering the relationship over the phone ( including a decidedly unnecessary phone sex/masturbation sequence ) and nora furthering it in person , while eventually finding herself attracted to the dog man . like sleepless in seattle , this comedy/romance is predictable all the way through , but we care enough about the characters that we root them on and will the romance to blossom . the truth about cats and dogs isn't quite as entertaining as i was expecting it to be , but it handles well a theme i could identify with . the thing is , i find janeane garafolo rather attractive . she's no uma but i'm sure in real life she'd have no problems attracting men . i , on the other hand , couldn't attract a man to save my life . . . and am rather proud of that fact .
1	eyes wide shut isn't the masterpiece many were hoping to see in stanley kubrick's final film , but it is an impressive achievement ; a mesmerizing , haunting , adult psychodrama about marriage , fidelity and sex . it's a stanley kubrick film from beginning to end , consistently exhibiting the auteur's trademark penchant for long , continuous takes , his unparalleled deftness behind the camera and his uncanny ability to extract gorgeous performances from his exhausted cast ( indeed , eyes wide shut attained infamy even before its release for its notoriously laborious shoot : kubrick , a renowned perfectionist , reportedly held his cast " hostage " on the set for nearly a year ) . in an uncharacteristic maneuver , kubrick cast two big-name stars in the lead roles , namely real-life husband and wife tom cruise and nicole kidman . they play bill and alice harford , a volatile couple who , during the course of a couple nights , ponder the validity of the idea that a husband and a wife must be faithful to each other . he is an m . d . , she's unemployed and we are introduced to them as they are getting ready to go to a fancy party . at the affair , they are both propositioned and both nearly succumb to the temptation to play around with someone else . when they return to their lavish new york apartment kidman ( after smoking a dash of weed ) inquires whether her husband had sex with two models who approached him during the night . he ( truthfully ) says that he did not and asks what happened with that hungarian guy she was dancing with . they proceed to argue until alice tells her spouse a lustful story : evidently some time ago , she had a thing for a young naval officer . she admits that she was ready to give up her whole future with bill and their young daughter if this guy wanted her even for one night . bill is jolted by alice's story and we anticipate his reaction , but at that moment he gets a phone call and has to go " show his face " at the house of a just-deceased patient . this turns out to be the beginning of a long and eventful night on the town . the daughter of the dead patient hits on him but he wisely turns her down . he almost does the dirty deed with a kindly hooker who approaches him on the street . then , through a series of coincidences , he winds up at a gothic mansion where a ritualistic ( and frankly , creepy ) orgy takes place , with costumed people performing various public sex acts on each other . erotic dread mounts as cruise ( who's not supposed to be there ) wonders the spacious halls watching the " action " until he is discovered to be an outsider . much hoopla has been raised over the fact that warner bros . digitally edited the orgy scene . with the help of a computer , they put in cloaked figures to block some of the actual sex acts ( they can still be seen , just not in all their glory ) in order to avoid the dreaded nc-17 rating . european viewers will see the film as kubrick envisioned it . roger ebert calls the american version the " austin powers version , " and many others have bashed the alterations . i am of the potentially controversial opinion that the figures only supplement the scene's mystical atmosphere . the first thing one notices about eyes wide shut is how it looks . this is an artful , distinctively gorgeous production , shot in dark , moody hues and featuring some elaborate , beautiful scenery . from the giant mansion used in the film's centerpiece to the decor at the christmas party to the harford's apartment , this film is always a pleasure to look at . to boot , a great soundtrack makes it more atmospheric still . at the core , behind the graphic , controversial content and unappealing mood , this is a good-natured movie that emphasizes the importance of fidelity . it looks at sex as almost perfunctory by portraying it as unnerving rather than erotic . it's something superficial and yet something necessary to achieve a deeper relationship . at the end , it seems , bill's eyes are wide open to the special kind of love he and his wife have for each other , more meaningful than anything he could ever hope to find on the streets of new york . kubrick elicits wonderful performances from both cruise and kidman . tom is completely convincing as dr . harford , a man who seems guided solely by destiny , with no control of the course his life will take . nicole projects a quiet intensity as the jittery yet aggressive wife and her performance is stunningly effective : she's headed for an oscar nod . the movie has some help from a similarly strong supporting cast , at the head of which is director-cum-thespian sidney pollock , enigmatic and articulate as harford's mysterious friend . eyes wide shut is not perfect : the last hour could have used a slightly more scissor-happy editor and both cruise and kidman are too good- looking for me to believe that either would have a very strong temptation to philander . still , this is an important work from a great director , and while it may not be on par with some of stanley kubrick's best it is a worthy final film , a complex exploration of jealousy and faithfulness . ? 1999 eugene novikov&#137 ;
1	in these days of overlong movies ( meet joe black , the thin red line , the mask of zorro ) it is a shame that films like waking ned devine can't be longer than a paltry 90 minutes . this is just a cute movie , even through its mildly risque subject matter . old friends jackie ( bannen ) and michael ( kelley ) try to find the lottery winner ( they deduce must live in their dinky town of about 60 ) so that they might kiss up to him and share the winnings . through process of elimination , they find that it must be lovable old ned devine , who they find sitting in front of his tv , clutching the winning lottery ticket in his cold dead hand . what results is thuroughly amusing , as jackie tries to convince his wife that not claiming it would be wrong , and that they could really benefit . after all , old ned won't miss it . rather than divulge the later twists and turns , i'll stop here merely pointing out that jackie and michael get into all sorts of trouble in their little sleepy irish villiage . bannen and kelly are a perfect pair . one slightly stout , the other as thin as a rail . both getting on in years , they make such a cute pair of old codgers . waking ned devine may even be seen as a " full monty " for the geriatric set , especially since kelly gets buff-o for one amusing scene . waking ned devine is by no means perfect , but it is so sincere and touching that it looks so much better than most films . the performances by everyone in the town are great , particularly the two leads . there is one twist at the end which i find unnecessary , but it hardly ruins the picture . writer/director kirk jones should be held up as an example to all those hollywood screenwriters . scripts as creative and endearing as this should be the norm , not the exception . perhaps it makes us appreciate this wonderful film even more . had i held off on my year's best/worst list for another day , waking ned devine ( officially released in late november of 98 ) surely would have graced the short group of the year's finest films . it is light , but thought provoking and sweet . i can't think of anyone who shouldn't see ( or wouldn't enjoy ) this film .
0	let me just start this review off by saying i am a huge fan of professional wrestling and have been for fifteen years . i am not too fond of ted turner's world championship wrestling , however , and i am even less fond of it now after seeing this ridiculous excuse for a wrestling movie tonight . the plot concerns two losers named gordie boggs ( david arquette , aptly cast as a neandrathal ) and sean dawkins ( scott caan ) who are so obsessed with professional wrestling that they believe everything they see on wcw monday nitro is something more than a flashy show . when they finally get to see their hero , wcw world champion jimmy king ( played by oliver platt . i personally would have gotten a wrestler to play king ) , he ends up getting screwed over by evil promoter titus sinclair ( a wasted palitaliano , in a role originally meant for real-life wcw president eric bischoff before he was fired and rehired six months later , and if anyone reads this who knows bischoff , they will agree with me that the role of sinclair had his name written all over it ) , they embark on a quest to find him and help him get his title back . when they find him , they discover in horror that jimmy king's real life is nothing like it is on wcw tv . king is a drunken atlanta native rather than an english king . after convincing king that they don't care that his persona isn't real , gordie and sean sneak him back onto wcw monday nitro , after which sinclair agrees to book him in a main event steel cage match for the wcw title and his job back in las vegas at wcw's pay-per-view . gee , whiz , there are so many things wrong with this movie , i don't know where to begin . yes , i do . . . 1 . the characters of gordie and sean show you what eric bischoff , wcw president who thought up this project , thinks of wrestling fans . he thinks of us as idiots who take everything wrestlers do seriously . he actually thinks wrestling fans are dumb enough to believe this is meant to be taken seriously . i got news for you , eric : nobody above the age of four is dumb enough for that , this is 2000 , you know , not 1985 ! i know he'll probably cover arguments up by saying it isn't meant to be taken seriously but it is , because that's how big an ego bischoff has . 2 . there was a documentary made in 1998 , wrestling with shadows , that documented the owner of the world wrestling federation , vince mcmahon's screwing bret " the hitman " hart out of the title . this movie's storyline is basically a comic rip-off of that plot with the poor man's wayne and garth thrown in . eric bischoff is trying to make vince mcmahon look bad with the character of titus sinclair , but any wrestling fan knows titus is more like bischoff than mcmahon , and that vince did what he had to do to bret hart . 3 . the movie's main wrestler , jimmy king , has an english king gimmick and the audience cheered big for him . no wrestling fan actually enjoys characters like that in this day and age , we want bad asses today ! 4 . why make this a comedy , instead of an emotional , rocky-style drama ? i know wrestling isn't a sport , but you can still get behind a guy who struggles as a wrestler and finally makes it in the end . 5 . in the movie , gordie starts up an ill-fated romance with nitro girl sasha ( the lovely rose mcgowan . what she sees in that freak marilyn manson i'll never understand ) , only to find that she has hospitalized king's trainer for sinclair . wouldn't it have been easier to just have them fall in love instead of doing the typical spy-girl-for-the-bad-guy cliche ? i hate that . 6 . last , but certainly not least , there was not one single moment in this movie that i could not predict would happen , nor did i laugh once either . the world wrestling federation should have been the wrestling company to make the movie , for these reasons : 1 . they're the better promotion . 2 . they have better and younger talent , performers and wrestlers . 3 . they give their fans what they want and don't treat them like idiots . 4 . they're winning the ratings and they're the promotion everybody cares about . 5 . simply put , they could make a movie a hundred times better , and they could do a wrestling movie the right way . the only good thing about this movie was they played outtakes at the end . and if i spoiled it for you , good , i saved you from wasting seven dollars .
1	this film is based on the campy tv show from the 1960's under the same appellation . mind you , most people ( including yours truly ) who will see this movie will not have seen any episodes from the original series . the movie is really a stand alone in that regard . the family robinson . . . lost in space . plot : set in the year 2058 , the family robinson is chosen to sail out into space in search of other planets that might contain the natural resources earth needs in order to survive its future . a colonization process , if you will . they are joined by able pilot west ( leblanc ) , and evil uninvited stowaway ( oldman ) , who does not want to see the trip conclude on a successful tip . eventually , their trek goes awry , and all are " lost in space " . " how do get back to earth ? " is the question that infests the rest of this sci-fi epic . critique : this film reminded me a lot of the fifth element ( 6 . 5/10 ) from the summer of 1997 . it's a film with a lot of flash , but very little actual substance . admittedly , there isn't an annoying character like chris tucker from the other film , but this film does run a little too long , and did lose me in regards to its complex time-travel / multi-dimensional story line . having said that , the special effects in this movie were amazing , and the overall look and feel were also way above average . you really felt like you were in the future , and riding through space with these poor souls . unfortunately for this chosen family , their 10-year old son is the smartest one in the group , and the father is too wrapped up in his work to notice the rest of his family ( ever heard that one before ? yawn ! ) . the acting is ok , and i was especially surprised at the solid performance by tv friend's matt leblanc who shows us all that he's definitely more than just a pretty face . on the down side , the family riff-raff that cuts through most of the picture is lame and time-consuming ( even though we gotta give them credit for " trying " to develop characters in a sci-fi pic ) , the story line is hard to follow , the evil character in the movie actually tells people that he's " evil " , and the movie goes on for about 20 minutes too long . on the slick side , many of the special effects are really cool ( the sequence in which the family is " paralyzed " during the hyper-drive is awesome , and the animated monkey that joins the family halfway through the flic is mucho cool ) , the credit presentation at the end of the film is slamming , and the adventures that they fall into are somewhat thrilling ( i will also admit that " somehow " they got me to semi-tear up near the conclusion of this picture . . . . very odd . . . . . ) . overall , if you're a big sci-fi fan , check this movie out for the special effects and challenging narrative , and if you're not , i would still suggest seeing this movie , but then you could probably wait until it comes out on video so that you forward past some of the boring parts . little known facts : this film will always be remembered as the movie that knocked titanic ( 7/10 ) out of the top spot at the box-office after 15 straight weeks at number one . garry oldman is british , and was once married to uma thurman for about six months . mimi rogers was tom cruise's first wife .
0	any movie that kills emilio estevez off in the first fifteen minutes has something going for it . unfortunately , this and the familiar theme music are the only worthwhile things about mission impossible , directed by brian depalma . the first problem is that this film has absolutely no connection with the tv show whatsoever , aside from the music . the tv show was about an impossible mission force whose deft teamwork , orchestrated by jim phelps , allowed them to counfound evil dictators of mythic banana republics from inflicting their sordid schemes upon the world . teamwork was the key . this film is set up as a cross between james bond and depalma's " blow out , " where the john travolta character was the victim of real and imagined conspiracies from all directions . it was travolta's vulnerability that made that film so exciting and claustrophobic . in this film , tom cruise is basically omniscient ( believe that ? ) and so there's no fun going on here whatsoever . the story is about as contrived as contrived gets , and is full of holes . there are basically two memorable sequences : one involves breaking into a kubrickesque computer room -- a task that could have been made much easier had the characters a whit of common sense ( suffice it to say that the alarm system is disengaged when the computer operator is in the room ) ; the second involves a high-speed train , a helicopter , and the chunnel and does not have to be seen to be disbelieved . the actors are all miscast , especially emannuelle beart as jim phelps wife , who cannot act , and ving rhames as a computer hacker ( ! ) , who looks lost and embarrased to be in this movie . tom cruise is no james bond , and jon voight looks more like bobby " the brain " heenan than jim phelps . brian depalma's career has been bafflingly erratic . at his best , he beats hitchcock at his own game ( " blow out , " " carrie , " " body double " ) but this is not his best . the screenplay was partly written by robert towne , who wrote the best scenario of the seventies in " chinatown , " but this script is perfunctory at best , and terrrible at worst . the cinematography has a comic book red/blue emphasis , which is nice to look at , but the suspense sequences are all telegraphed and this movie even features the old " killer who talks too much before shooting thus giving the victim time to think of an escape " trick . please don't spend your money on this ; it'll only encourage hollywood to make more .
0	jean-claude van damme movies tend to be , if nothing else , a lot of mindless fun . his latest film , " knock off , " skips on the fun part leaving a wildly incoherent exercise that is , well , simply mindless . you can't really blame van damme . no one , i suspect , has ever expected " the muscles from brussels " to contribute a heartfelt performance brimming with introspection and delicate shades of gray . and even his sidekick co-star , " saturday night live " alumnus rob " makin' copies " schneider , does what's expected of him , although neither appear to want the role of straight man . no , the problem with the film is its direction . the first five minutes of the film are incomprehensible . . . and it goes downhill from there ! five hundred characters , it seems , are introduced within the first fifteen minutes . van damme doesn't land his first kick until after thirty--too late for most action fans--and by the time the hour mark has rolled around , your jaw will be on your cup holder and you'll be wondering why you elected to spend seven dollars on this mess . director hark tsui , whose previous film was the van damme/dennis rodman teamed " double team , " films at such a frenetic pace that it's hard to know what's going on , who's on whose side , and what the point of all this is . faster than you can yell " fruit stand ! " we're watching a crazed rickshaw race with schneider being bounced along by an energetic van damme . when schneider starts whacking van damme in the behind with a four-foot eel while enthusing " move your beautiful big ass , " the movie takes an unprecedented turn to the bizarre . every now and again " knock off " will deliver some truly ingenious directorial flourishes--inventive camera shots and angles , wild rides down gun silencers and from the tops of buildings to the sprawling street below , revealing cut-ins within the frame--but they all happen too quickly , and within such a furious frame of reference , that they're wasted . if only hark could have slowed things down just for a minute . if you're interested in the plot , you're better off reading a capsule review than trying to extract any meaning from the on-screen shenanigans : " jean-claude van damme plays a shady bluejeans manufacturer who uncovers a russian mafia plot to terrorize the world with " nanobombs " hidden in cabbage patch knock-offs . maybe . with paul sorvino . " a more accurate summary would be " jean-claude van damme bums around hong kong failing to avoid large , blatant coca-cola product placements . " the fact that the film is staged during hong kong's last days under british rule gets some lip service but doesn't figure in at all . perhaps " knock off " 's most intriguing credit is that ron and russell mael composed the frenzied music score . some of you might remember the mael brothers as the '80s synth pop duo sparks ; their contributions here are as confused as the accompanying action-- " kimono my house " indeed ! like the cheap jeans and " pumma " sneakers manufactured in hong kong , van damme's latest is a real phony .
1	it's no secret in the motion picture industry that the relationship between a script and the actors involved often makes or breaks a movie at the box office . a poorly-written script can be bested by a superb acting corps , and a well-written piece can be mangled by a group of amateurs . in directing his latest action-comedy , director brett ratner ( money talks ) takes a relatively mediocre piece of standup comedy and turns it into a funny as all get-out buddy cop movie . in addition , rush hour serves as a first-class example of directing a movie with conservative attitude - a feature that is sure to draw in crowds of all types . the two lead names share equal screen time here , mostly because they spend it together . jackie chan , in his first completely american production , makes an impressive debut by mixing dialogue with martial arts . the other martial arts flick from a few weeks ago , knock off , stands no chance against the content of this one . chan manages to make every fight scene exude grace and poise , and there's no doubt that a large percentage of video sales for this movie will come from viewers who couldn't believe their eyes the first time . chris tucker , on the opposite side , relates a hilarious comedic approach which smoothes out the rough edges to chan's performance . he works perfectly with the script , and it's quite likely he lent scribe jim kouf a hand with some of his lines . almost essential to the action genre , the plot is nonexistent . we're quickly introduced to detective james carter ( tucker ) is a maverick officer for the lapd . cut forward to another scene where the daughter ( julia hsu ) of the american chinese consul ( tzi ma ) is kidnapped by a gang of swarthy characters . the fbi is quick to the rescue , but the consul insists that one of his men , detective inspector lee ( chan ) , be brought on the case to help . the fbi resists , but then requests that lapd send a man over to babysit the chinese detective . it's here that carter and lee hook up , and the two unwittingly solve the case while the fbi rushes in to back them up . rattner does a fine job of going the extra mile to get his movie to move a step up , but it doesn't quite reach the top tier of action-comedies like last year's grosse pointe blank . there are moments where the plot strays too far off the straight line it sticks almost exclusively to , and if not for the comedic interactions between tucker and chan , this might be a major drawback . also , some supporting characters are almost entirely along for the ride , and others are there simply to look menacing . however , none gives a standoffish performance and they mostly mesh into the background . almost every member of the cast displays some reservation at one point or another - whether it's tucker's toned-down routine or chan's tight rein on his action sequences - and that contributes greatly to this being a watchable movie for all types . a recommendable visit to the theater , indeed .
0	" soldier " , by director paul anderson , is a film in which any presence of originality is fleeting . the best moments of the film are in the opning scenes where kurt russel's character todd is shown growing up under strict military supervision . brutality through the eyes of the innocent and stripped of it every single day growing up is something that has a lot of emotional potential power behind it , and the opening scenes tap into it a little . then it goes nowhere with that idea . there is perhaps one rather fleeting scene afterwards that deals with the potential trauma of this dehumanization , and the rest of the film is just some of the biggest action movie cliches i've ever seen . the whole idea of the inhuman , soldier-type character gaining some degree of humanity by defending a potential female love interest and family from his evil counterpart out to kill her is done , and it's been done much better . i was able to predict the plot of the _whole_ story , which wouldn't be so bad if other aspect of the film somewhat interesting . between the action sequences , it tries to deal with the aforementioned issues of humanity through the performance of mr . russel in the film and the tiny little window to his soul that is his eyes , since his dialog is extremely limited . his performance in that way isn't all that bad , but certainly is not enough to carry this film . other performances in this film are really not worth much mention at all , and they generally are about as weak as their characters . but enough of this stuff about plot and character , right ? isn't the most important part of an action film , well , the action ? even in this aspect the film is a disappointment . in mortal kombat ( 1995 ) , director paul anderson proved that truly engaging use and choreography of action in a film can override problems with plot and produce something entertaining . however , he fails to repeat that in this film . the combat scenes , particularly the big one at the end , is incredibly unimaginatve . fighting and combat scenes are supposed to bring about thrills in this type of movie , a point which even an otherwise unimpressive film like starship troopers seemed to realize . but instead of reaching for something truly interesting to end the film with , it goes for the old , shoot-em up , one guy vs . an army type of cinema that i thought died with the military action films of the 80s . if the film went with some of the ideas it opened up with the introduction more seriously , it could have been a rather engaging science fiction film . however , it utterly failed to go in any new directions after that , making the film a big disappointment .
1	at first glance , it appears that the home alone movies are brainless slapstick intended for those with minds of 8-year olds . that's true of home alone 2 and i'd bet money that it's true of home alone 3 ( opening soon ) . but home alone actually has a lot going for it , and the cartoon slapstick doesn't get in the way . the mcalisters , all 15 of them , are going to france for the holidays . four adults and eleven kids are spending the night together before heading to the airport en masse . the littlest kid , kevin , is the victim of the older kids' cruelty . kevin's patience runs out when he learns that his plain-cheese pizza has already been eaten , and he's going to have to starve . he attacks his big bully brother buzz , who had been teasing him . the fight disrupts the already-chaotic dinner , spilling milk and soft drinks all over the table , a few cousins , and an uncle . the knee-jerk reaction is for everyone to blame kevin . nobody came to his rescue when he was being teased , but they all point their fingers when he fights back . the ultimate punishment comes from mom ( catherine o'hara ) who sends him up to the spare bedroom in the attic for the night . on his way up the stairs , he tells her that " families suck " and that he hopes never to see any of his family again . that night the power goes out , knocking out the alarm clocks , so the mcalisters wake up in a big hurry to get to the airport . in a surprisingly plausible setup , kevin is mistakenly accounted for , and the family heads off without him . it's interesting that , in a subtle way , his parents never noticed him missing because of their deliberate desire to separate themselves from their children . first they delegate the headcount to an older sibling , and second , they put all the kids in coach while they fly first class . they're two-thirds of the way across the atlantic before they realize they are missing a child . meanwhile , kevin believes that somehow his wish has come true . he's finally rid of his family ! life is a dream come true . he can jump on the beds , watch r-rated movies , eat gobs of ice cream and potato chips , and dig through his big brother's secret box . slowly , the novelty wears off and he settles into the mundane . he grooms himself , he does the laundry , he goes shopping ( " i bought some milk , eggs , and fabric softener " ) . he also starts to miss his family , not just for their company , but for the security they bring . the furnace in the basement is a scary monster , the old man next door is a snow-shovel murderer , and two crooks are trying to break into his house . macaulay culkin is cute but he isn't much of an actor . still , we can see that kevin's character grows , thanks to some good direction and editing . for example , acting has little to do with the emotional impact of the scene where kevin searches out a seasonal santa at night , just as " santa " is getting in his car . kevin asks the man to pass on his request - he wants his family back - to the real santa . he learned how to deal with the furnace . you turn on the lights and it's not so scary anymore . he goes to a church one evening and there he sees the snow-shovel murderer , who actually turns out to be a nice man . they talk about their fears and kevin learns that age alone does not make you less afraid . finally , in the last 20 minutes , kevin confronts his last fear - the bandits , head on ( literally ) . this last act is full of violent comedic slapstick , and after the movie's genuine dramatic setup , it is dessert . it's a lot of fun , and it doesn't overwhelm the rest of the movie . on the whole , home alone is a great holiday movie . john williams' original score has the sound and feel of holiday music without the disadvantage of being overplayed at the malls , and the christmas setting can put you in the mood for those family gatherings . but it does have its flaws . the smallest problem is that culkin doesn't act very well . as i said before , he is cute , but repeated viewings reveal more about how columbus covered himself than about culkin's insight into his character . the biggest problem is that during the cartoony coda , the villains threaten kevin's life about five times . instead of " i'm gonna get that kid " they say " i'm gonna kill that kid . " some might argue that the tone is the same , but i strongly disagree . mixing comedy with specific and viable threats of murder is a sociopathic faux-pas . i'll probably never see home alone 3 , and i wish i had skipped home alone 2 , but i do enjoy home alone almost every year . don't let your impressions of the others detract from the original , which has much more to offer than cartoon slapstick .
0	renee zellweger stars as sonia , a young jewish wife and mother frustrated by the constraints of her hasidic community in brooklyn . her husband ( glenn fitzgerald ) is a religious scholar whose all-in-a-day's-work attitude on sex fails to tame the " fire " she feels within , as so she confesses to the rebbe ( after hearing her fiery confession , the rebbe suddenly gets frisky with his pleasantly surprised wife--and dies the next morning ) . sensing her frustration , her husband's brother ( christopher eccleston ) gives her a job in his jewelry brokering business in exchange for raw , passionless sex that just fans sonia's still-burning flame . on the job , sonia befriends ramon ( allen payne ) , a cool blast of hunky puerto rican water who does his own jewelry designs when not working as a grunt in an upscale jewelry store . can fire-taming be far be that far behind for the ever-smoldering sonia ? just about everything in writer-director boaz yakin's rings false , starting with the improbably cast zellweger , who does an adequate enough acting job but simply looks too waspy for the role . a better fit would have been julianna margulies , who outshines zellweger as sonia's take-no-crap sister-in-law . some of sonia's baby steps toward liberation , such as indulging in a non-kosher egg roll in chinatown , come off as silly . yakin attempts to spice up the proceedings with a touch of magical realism--in the form of the recurring presence of sonia's long-dead brother's ghost--make the story feel even more trite than it already is . " i didn't know what to expect . it's like something you chase for so long , but then you don't know how to react when you get it . i still don't know how to react . " --michael jordan , on winning his first nba championship in 1991 . . . or , my thoughts after meeting him on november 21 , 1997
1	steven spielberg is now considered as one of the hollywood deities , because of the rare capability to deliver both huge commercial hits , like jurassic park , and " oscar " -awarded critical triumphs like schindler's list . however , in the 1970s spielberg built his reputation by creating works of art that could slip in both categories . one of them is close encounters of the third kind , extremely popular and influential science-fiction spectacle . unfortunately , it had a bad luck to be released in the same year as star wars . although both films have a lot in common ( ground-breaking special effects , brilliant score by john williams ) their future was different ; one became an unstoppable cult phenomenon , and another almost forgotten and stuck forever in its shadow . when spielberg began work on that project , he was already established as a bright new hollywood star due to his previous commercial hit , jaws . together with other young directors of his " new hollywood " generation , like kauffman , carpenter , hill and millius , he exploited the great creative freedom of 1970s , when even the mainstream producers dared to experiment . ironically , it was spielberg himself whose later commercial success would established new unwritten rules of " blockubuster " philosophy . but in the mid 1970s , many things were different ; spielberg was young and eager to use hollywood resources for his very personal and artistic movie . although very personal , spielberg's screenplay was partly based on the book " ufo experience " by dr . j . allen hynek and in many ways inspired by the popular urban mythology of extraterrestrial visitors to earth that began to grow in the world after ww2 . spielberg was not only inspired by the mythology , but his movie also gave the mythology itself a huge boost , unmatched until the contemporary era of x-files and the roswell anniversary . that was partly because he made the movie very realistic using the authentic ufo-related incidents as the element of the plot . the story begins with one of such incidents - team of international scientists come to the sonorra desert in mexico to find the u . s . navy planes of who went missing decades ago during the famous flight 19 . such events coincide with the ufo incident witnessed by roy neary ( richard dreyfuss ) , power company worker from muncie , indiana , who later becomes obsessed with his experience . because of his obsession he loses his job , family and sanity , but his loss is nothing compared to the experience of jillian guiler ( melinda dillon ) , single mother whose son becomes the victim of alien abduction . in the meantime , the scientists decipher the strange signals from outer space and u . s . government , in co-operation with the french , led by lacombe ( francois truffaut ) begin with the preparation for ultra-secret project . when the news of the poison gas leak in the middle of wyoming reach neary , he finally sees some sense in all his visions and begins the perilous journey toward the centre of endangered area . there he is joined by jillian who shared the similar visions . two of them must break through military pickets and reach their destination to find whatever is there . spielberg here shows great mastery by using the very same techniques of jaws to make completely different effects . the slow , gradual yet very disciplined series of dramatic incidents - " close encounters " - is set in order to bring the viewer to the great revelation in the finale . but , instead of the fear and horror we had to endure during the jaws , we are now overwhelmed by the sense of boyish wonder . throughout the movie the viewer knows that something big , magnificent and wonderful is about to happen , and great magician spielberg delivers his promise in the end . the last sequence , with its , even in this age , impressive special effects by the great virtuoso douglas trumbull , would leave many mouths open . one of the great virtues of this film is its optimism . aliens , who almost always get portrayed as the monsters in science-fiction cinema , are here benevolent and harmless creatures and the first contact between them and humanity is a beginning of something wonderful . it is very ironic , when we consider that the two classic sf movies that visually inspired spielberg actually told quite different story - howard hawks' thing and byron haskin's war of the worlds presented extraterrestrials as the threat to the mankind . spielberg's humane approach and faith in the future also lies in great contrast to the pessimistic mood of its era ; the only hint of the contemporary gloom is post-watergate portrayal of government as conspiratorial towards the public . but , even such government is much more harmless compared to the murderous and chain-smoking men in black that became the stereotype thanks to x-files and its more cynical and disturbing visions . there lies the main , and probably the only flaw of this great picture - lack of conflict , and consequently , lack of drama . the movie has few excitements or even action scenes ( especially the last that may be an interesting homage to hitchcock's north by northwest ) but generally , almost everyone - neary , jillian , government , aliens - are the good guys . despite such shortcomings , the actors were good and manage to bring multidimensionality to their simple roles . richard dreyfuss is very convincing as a ordinary , yet nice guy , who sinks into insanity only to rediscover himself in a grand finale . melinda dillon was , on the other hand , nominated for " oscar " as a struggling mother , yet she was overshadowed by teri garr as neary's long-suffering wife ronnie . apart from visual wonders of this film , spielberg's semi-official composer john williams again excels by his beautiful music , this time using the simple melody both as the element of a plot , and as the basis for his score . the aliens , who are the main subject of this film , were visually very convincing . too convincing , one of my acquaintances in the ufo-researching circles said . according to him , the depiction of extraterrestrials as grey-skinned little people with big eyes was so accurate , that it managed to freak out powerful government figures interested in suppressing the truth about ufos . so , they later approached spielberg and ordered him to make another movie with alien , this time designed to be anything but the real life . the result was e . t . , for many years the biggest commercial hit of all times , yet less inspirational for ufo enthusiasts . anyway , whether the viewer believes in existence of extraterrestrials or ufos , close encounters of the third kind remains the great movie , and one of the rare uplifting experiences in modern cinema .
1	i know it already opened in december , but i finally got around to seeing rushmore last weekend , and it was one of those rare oppritunites that i got to leave the theatre feeling proud about paying the expensive ticket price . as the final scene closed out in happy slow-mo fashion , i felt happy to have been priveleged enough to watch such a good display of filmmaking . jason schwartzman , his face oddly intriguing behind those large braces and glasses , steals the show as max fischer , the most well known rushmore academy student who gets terrible grades , but compensates for it by organizing most of the school's clubs and organizations ( i . e . the fencing team and writing and producing school plays ) and often pulling outrageous stunts , one that eventually earns him an expulsion . this stunt , building an aquarium on the school's baseball diamond , is a plot to steal the heart of widowed elementary teacher rosemary cross ( olivia williams ) . he funds this aquarium with the help of millionare herman blume ( a very oscarworthy bill murray ) , who eventually finds himself falling in love with miss cross . rosemary and herman begin dating-and the fun begins ; herman and max go at it head to head in a battle for miss cross . herman manages to destroy max's bike , while max cuts herman's brakes , and it goes on like this . but eventually max realizes he is too young for miss cross , and he can't stand in the way of two people in love . the academy of arts & sciences really messed up this year ; they completely overlooked rushmore ( and , if you ask me , it wasn't an accident ) . it maybe wasn't best picture material , but it certainly deserved a screenplay nod ( instead of elizabeth ) , and bill murray's absense from the ballot is a complete snub . the entire mood of the film is one reason it is so good ; at one point it's fun , and the next scene can turn serious and dramatic . the cinematography gives the movie an important feeling , as well . i hope rushmore can overcome its' oscar snubs , and be enjoyed by intelligent film goers .
1	martin scorsese's triumphant adaptation of edith wharton's the age of innocence is a stunning film for the quintessential new york filmmaker , the man who brought the streets of taxi driver and mean streets to life . it seems like an odd choice for scorsese to do a period piece in the early 1900's , but the fact that he pulls it off so brilliantly is a wonder , and a testament to the greatness of scorsese as a filmmaker . this is a gorgeous visual experience that it surely one of scorsese's finest . newland archer ( day-lewis ) is a prestigious lawyer who is engaged to may welland ( ryder ) , a somewhat empty and shallow new yorker , who belongs to a prestigious family and is quite beautiful . the marriage is one which will unite two very prestigious families , in a society where nothing is more important than the opinions of others . on the day that archer is to announce his engagement to may , countess ellen olenska ( pfeiffer ) , cousin of may , walks into archer's life . archer is immediately captivated , and finds himself in love with ellen . archer is also bound by the limits of new york society , which is an intrusive as any other in the world . archer finds himself having a secret love affair in his mind with countess olenska , attempting to keep her in his mind while trying not to lose his social status . the film's subject matter may seem alien to scorsese , but the theme is definitely not . it is a theme of forbidden romance , guilty pleasures , and the consequences causes because of those actions . there is a painstakingly flawed hero , and his choice between the life he wants , and the life he is destined for . in truth , it is a film about a society the audience doesn't know about , but wants to find out more , much like the society of goodfellas or even kundun . the performances are absolutely breathtaking . day-lewis portrays more mental anguish in his face than one man should be forced to take . pfeiffer is marvelous as countess olenska , a mix of passion and beauty that the audience would die for as well . ryder is probably the gem of the group , for it is her quiet presence that overwhelms the plot , and slowly pushes day-lewis closer and closer to his eventual ending . the supporting cast is also wonderful , with several characters so singular that they are indelible in one's memory . scorsese definitely has a passion for filmmaking . his lavish and sumptuous set design and marvelous recreation of new york is a wondrous sight . he literally transports the viewer to another world with incredible imagery . his script is also excellent , slow in buildup , with a rapid conclusion and a fantastic ending that has to be seen to be believed . it is difficult to make a period piece gripping : scorsese , however , does it beautifully . the famous cameras of the legendary director are also everywhere . he is patient , but he films everything and anything remotely important . the cameras sweep , pan , track , and do more than they've ever done , but they are so subtle , one doesn't realize he's watching all the scorsese hallmarks until a 2nd viewing . the central tracking shot is probably longer and more complex than the famous goodfellas shot , but the viewer doesn't notice it , because we want to see more of this gorgeous world . there are a few deft touches of filmmaking that are simply outstanding , and joanne woodward' narration is exquisite . not a fast film like goodfellas , this shares more in common with kundun than anything else . and like kundun , this is a slow-starting film that truly shines , when given the chance to fully breathe and bloom in the end . a beautiful film by a director continuing to challenge himself year after year .
0	out of sight director steven sorderbergh baffles the hell out of us all in the limey , a cold , uninvolving , confusing new thriller . though the plot description may at first seem like it came from the pen of elmore leonard ( author of out of sight , as well as jackie brown , get shorty and pulp fiction ) , after you watch it , you realize that it's not nearly good enough . in an aggressively non-linear fashion , the limey ( li * mey , noun : an english gentleman ) tells the story of wilson ( terrence stamp ) , a british ex-con just released from a 9 year stint in prison for armed robbery . he has come to the us to seek vengeance for the death of his daughter jenny . he doesn't know much about the circumstances of her demise , all he has is a name : terry valentine . valentine was jenny's former boyfriend , a wealthy and corrupt record executive . he's played by peter fonda , in his first major role since the terrific ulee's gold in 1997 . seeking valentine's reclusive place of residence turns out to be no easy task for wilson . he finally finds the impressive abode high in the mountains and sneaks in just as valentine is having a big party . he winds up breaking his cover eventually , setting off valentine's head of security and valentine himself , who decides to run for it . what a mess . i have no problem when films refuse to be constricted by the linearity of time -- pulp fiction , which twisted time every which way , was a masterpiece -- but i do take exception to movies that decide to play around with it for no reason other than to confuse the viewer . the limey does exactly that . the plot is permeated with flashbacks , flash-forwards and what can only be described as random time-travel , without any evident purpose . there is no method to this movie's madness . it uses a fancy way to tell a story that would be better off told more conventionally and more comprehendably . the plot isn't particularly interesting in the first place : traditional , mildly hackneyed and not very involving . this is a sort of brooding film -- our protagonist doesn't speak much and the action sequences are done with an annoyingly perfunctory attitude . i felt like the director wasn't very interested in the proceedings himself , almost like he made this film for a paycheck . ditto for the editing , which seems to be deliberately sloppy and unpleasant . sixties icon terrence stamp manages to at least be menacing as the aging criminal . he's not much in the way of stature but he has a surprisingly imposing physical presence that works to his advantage here . peter fonda is an unbelievably underrated actor : he's shy , quiet but always effective . he's adept at conveying emotions through speech rather than expression : his feelings don't always show on his face by you can always tell what they are . this is basically a conventional thriller told in a pretentiously bizarre fashion . why soderbergh couldn't just parrot down and tell a story , i don't know , but what he does do certainly doesn't work . the result is a wild cornucopia of images that amount to precisely nil -- even the action scenes don't work . 1999 may have signified the death of the traditional act one - act two - act three storyline , but obviously some movies have not yet transcended it . shall we go back to basics ?
1	the farrelly brothers' third film , after dumb and dumber ( 7 . 5/10 ) and kingpin ( 8/10 ) , brings together the real-life couple of cameron diaz and matt dillon , some nasty humour , a cute dog , and a mix of love , fate and romance . plot : high-school nerd ted gets lucky when the cutest girl in his class asks him to the prom . unfortunately for ted , he accidentally gets a part of his male anatomy ( ouch ! ) caught in his zipper , and misses the big night . thirteen years later , ted still can't get mary out of his mind , and hires a private detective ( dillon ) to find her . once found , it turns out that mary has more than one suitor , and that's when the real fun begins . critique : likeable comedy with a few extremely funny scenes , some funny looking people , and a plot that won't ever put you to sleep . having said that , i must admit that i did like the farrellys' two previous films more than this one , but that is saying a lot , since i really did love those earlier pics . this one is also quite funny , but it didn't really blow me away like the others . then again , maybe my expectations were too high . then again , maybe i should shut up , and write a little more about the film , and less about my supposed subconscious reasons for liking/disliking the film . continuing where their other pictures left off , the farrellys' create a cutesy world of people with strange and endearing qualities , and a simple plot by which to tie them all together . this one also includes plenty of toilet humour , but also some borderline fun-making of the disabled and mentally-challenged . i must admit that i really wasn't sure whether to laugh at some points or not . not a good place to be . having said that , the scenes that did tear through the audience , and yours truly , were extremely hilarious , and went on for several minutes after the punchline . the laughter practically killed out the next scene for one of the best ones in the movie ( something to do with hair gel ) . on the negative end , i did not like the musical interludes of jonathan richman that ran through the entire picture . i found them quite useless , unfunny and distracting . also , i found that a lot of the funnier scenes had already been shown in the film's trailer . and of course , i never quite buy the fact that these beautiful , intelligent , single women still can't seem to find the " right guy " ( see kiss the girls ( 7/10 ) . i did really like all of the actors in the film , especially ben stiller , who appears to be solidifying his mark as a great comical actor with this picture and one of my favourites from 1996 , flirting with disaster ( 8/10 ) . i also liked matt dillon with his big teeth , and lee evans with his superb faux-sympathy british accent . funny stuff . also , make sure that you stay for the credits , because there is an entire montage of outtakes from the film that plays under a lip-synched version of " build me up buttercup " , which is really cool . overall , a cute comedy with a decent premise , and a few particularly hilarious scenes . little known facts : the farrellys big break came when they somehow got a copy of their script " dust to dust " into the hands of eddie murphy via ? murphy's neighbour . they only found out about murphy's interest , when they saw eddie mention the script on the david letterman show one night . matt dillon is a high school dropout . in between acting gigs , dillon has branched out into the restaurant business . close to home in his native new york , he co-owns both a bar called the whiskey and a swanky uptown eatery called the falls . cameron diaz stands 5 " 9 , started working as a model at the early age of 16 , and loves cats . ben stiller's father is jerry stiller . he played george costanza's ( jason alexander ) father on tv's " seinfeld " . peter farrelly has written a novel entitled " outside providence " which is currently being filmed starring alec baldwin . rob moran , who plays the cop in this film , also played the millionaire bowler in kingpin , and the bartender in dumb and dumber . he is old friends with the farrelly brothers from college , and is currently married to entertainment tonight anchor/correspondant julie moran . harland williams , who plays the nutty hitchhiker in this film , also played a state trooper in the farrelly's earlier dumb and dumber , and was the star of the unfortunate rocket man .
0	the thirteenth floor is a bland , obligatory exercise in genre film-making . if i hadn't recently watched the matrix and open your eyes -- both of which are similar but far superior -- i might have been a little nicer to this picture . craig bierko makes an adequate hero as douglas hall , the rich co-creator of a perfect human world simulation who is suddenly blamed for the murder of his boss ( armin mueller-stahl ) . everything that was subtle and smart about the previously mentioned films is battered over our heads in this one , and characters stare at each other for maddeningly-long periods of time and refuse to communicate on any realistic level . the acting is okay , but the film suffers from every logical flaw one could think of , and features a script ( co-penned by director josef rusnak ) loaded with cliches and stock characters . there are individual scenes and ideas that work -- i like the thought of a sentient computer program -- but none of the film's strengths are recognized to any meaningful degree . producer roland emmerich , based on this and his previous directorial efforts , seems hell-bent on bringing us the ultimate standard in mediocre science-fiction .
0	an 80-year old woman jumps enthusiastically on her couch , wearing tight-fitting leather , as she cheers on her favorite tv wrestler by calling his opponent a `pump-bitch' . two men messily eat fast food as their septic truck leaks raw sewage directly behind them . and roughly 17 people are booted in the crotch . welcome to `ready to rumble' . judging from the fact that potty-mouth adam sandler is the reigning box-office comedy champion , you realize -- albeit while shaking your head -- that yes , there is an audience for this sort of thing . ladies and gentlemen , i weep for society . mind you , when executed with style and comic ingenuity , jokes like an alarming bodily fluid mistaken for hair gel ( `there's something about mary' ) and a laxative-induced attack of explosive diarrhea ( `dumb and dumber' ) can be extremely funny . unfortunately , `ready to rumble' is not being helmed by the farrelly brothers , nor is it bolstered by a script that accommodates the viewer with anything even remotely clever or inspired . `ready to rumble' is built around the dedicated fan-base of professional wrestling . . . . which , in fact , sounded like a fine concept for a goofball comedy . but director brian robbins and screenwriter steven brill handcuff themselves , and limited to a stampede of asinine , humdrum bathroom humor , basically the only thing they manage is to evoke memories of pauly shore and `bio dome' . gordie boggs ( david arquette ) and sean dawkins ( scott caan ) take pride in being hardcore wcw wrestling fanatics . by day , they transport raw sewage . by night ( particularly on ? nitro' monday ) , they pay homage to their personal hero and savior - jimmy king ( oliver platt ) , the undisputed leader of the professional wrestling community . with two tickets to an upcoming nitro performance , gordie and sean are psyched about witnessing the king defend his title first-hand . but unscrupulous boxing kingpin titus sinclair ( joe pantoliano , sporting long hair and cowboy boots ) has other plans . sinclair is plotting to have diamond dallas page ( playing himself ) pummel the king into the tarp , thereby dethroning the dignified wrestler and embarrassing him in front of a bewildered auditorium full of fans . gordie and sean are shocked , rioting madly while arguing `this isn't even a pay-per view event ! ! ' they take it upon themselves to track the king down and supply the encouragement essential for their fallen idol to make a come-back attempt . along the way , you can expect a lot of sh-- jokes as well . you may find something to like in `ready to rumble' if a ) you are a rasslin' aficionado yourself , or b ) you are a dedicated fan of the lowest of low-brow comedies . i welcome low-brow humor with open arms - that is , if its fresh and resourceful . `rumble' is nothing but a sloppy , frightfully unfunny swamp land of misbegotten retardation . the first half-hour is the ultimate test of patience . luckily , the simple-minded events pick up steam , particularly with the well-choreographed wrestling action . director robbins showed a knack for capturing the brutality and excitement of football in `varsity blues' , and when in the ring , he does professional work . but the violence is too excessive . having the fake soap opera of wcw wrestling turn into a bloody skirmish brings back unfortunate memories of owen hart's tragic accident just last year , especially with one character's dive during a cage match . this is not something you want a comedy to be reminiscent of . outside the wrestling action , the lewd jokes and puerile sight gags bring new meaning to the term ? scattershot' , while the dialogue fluctuates in on the vulgarity scale of 1 to 10 , with brill's extensive vocabulary ranging from `diddly' to `boob' and so on . the final tally : i chuckled a few times , groaned a lot , and indulged in one spirited belly laugh involving martin landau as a geriatric wrestling coach who fights pretty impressively for 105 . casting-wise , `ready to rumble' is an odd duck . oliver platt as a champion wrestling figure ? he's perhaps a bit chunky , but fellow wrestlers acknowledge this in the ring by calling him `fatty' , which dampens the blow i suppose . rose mcgowan is fully disposable as a sultry wcw cheerleader ( `the nirto-est of the nitro girls , ' proclaims gordie ) , but extra pep is added with appearances by wrestlers goldberg , `macho man' randy savage and sting ( among others ) . wcw fans are sure to appreciate these . others . . . well , won't . i found merit in david arquette's bountiful energy as gordie , which brings me to my finishing . . . . ahhh . . . . `praise' for the film : in `ready to rumble' , i have discovered something even more annoying than arquette's `at&t' television commercials . now there's a low blow for you .
1	marie ( charlotte rampling , " aberdeen " ) and jean ( bruno cremet , " sorcerer " ) are a comfortable , sixty-ish married couple looking forward to a peaceful vacation at their second home in lit et mix . on their first , full day , marie sunbathes as jean goes for a swim . hours later , marie's initiated a full scale search when jean hasn't returned , but no trace of him is found . marie returns to paris and resumes her life , including chats with jean at the end of each day in francois ozon's " under the sand . " marie's ex-pat british friend amanda ( alexandra stewart , " frantic " ) and her french husband gerard ( pierre vernier ) try to snap marie out of her denial with a dinner party , where they introduce her to the handsome vincent ( jacques nolot , " nenette et boni " ) , yet marie suggests that gerard accompany her and jean to their gym the next morning . eventually marie does begin dating vincent , but she discusses him with jean and even smiles at jean , hidden behind a bedroom curtain , when she makes love to vincent . slowly , though , reality continues to chip away at marie's fantasy life . her bank advises her that without access to jean's account , she needs to reduce her spending . one of her university students ( she's reading virginia woolf's " the waves " ) turns out to be one of the young men who participated in the beach search . then police arrive asking her to identify the clothing of a body they've found washed up from the ocean . that night , jean's not at home when she returns to their apartment . her mother-in-law ( andree tainsy ) cruelly insists that jean simply abandoned her out of boredom . finally , marie goes to the police , insisting on viewing the body . horrified ( she's been warned it was in an advanced state of putrefaction ) , she laughs when handed a bagged watch , insisting that this is not her husband . " under the sand " is a character study and melancholy portrait of aging ( 'i've lost my youth , ' marie declares ) and loss . charlotte rampling , given the chance to portray an older , yet still sexual , woman runs with it , bringing us into the mind of the character . her chemistry with bruno cremet is startlingly natural . as marie returns from her first date with vincent , she sits on the couch with jean . 'did he kiss you ? ' he asks . the mood the two create is incredibly intimate and sad . ozon ( " water drops on burning rocks , " " see the sea " ) , who cowrote the script with emmanuelle bernheim , marcia romano , and marina de van , has turned in a more mature work than his previous , creepy " see the sea . " while he cleverly never lets us see jean enter the water that fateful day , leaving a number of possibilities - accident ? , suicide ? , escape ? - open , he definitely tips his hand towards a certain outcome . cinematography by antoine hiberli and jeanne lapoirie ( " water drops on burning rocks " ) glides around marie ( their 180 shot as she initially searches the ocean's horizon for a sign of jean conveys her panic ) or captures rampling's exotic face in mood divining closeup . in an inventive fantasy scene , marie imagines jean's hands massaging her feet while in a state of auto-arousal . his two hands become four , then more combined with her own , becoming almost a one person orgy and recalling roman polanski's " repulsion . " original music by philippe rombi quietly adds to the overall melancholy . " under the sand " is a unique portrait of loss . it would make an fascinating double bill with liv ullmann's " faithless " from earlier this year , another character study of a woman facing loss for different reasons .
0	senseless is a prime example of what can happen when you try to push a one-joke concept a bit too far . director penelope spheeris is no stranger to this , having subjected audiences before to such tortures as the beverly hillbillies . marlon wayans stars as darryl witherspoon , a college senior vying for a lucrative job at a prominent brokerage . however , he lacks the advantages of his chief opposition , scott thorpe ( david spade , in the smarmy sort of role he can deliver in his sleep ) : an athletic record , sponsorship by a fraternity , and , most of all , a wealthy family to back him up . in fact , darryl has to work at four jobs simply to make ends meet . but there may be a light at the end of that tunnel . he signs up as a human guinea pig in a neurological experiment run by the university's dr . wheedon ( brad dourif ) . as a result , his senses are magnified tenfold . using his newfound abilities , he sets himself in complete pursuit of the job ( unaware that there may be some disadvantageous side-effects to having super senses ) . naturally , marlon wayans plays this comedy at full throttle , giving jim carrey-ish amounts of physical humor . the problem is , aside from a few genuinely inspired bits , there's not much that's funny here . the film has it's one central gag , and pads out the rest of its length with rather obvious lowbrow humor . there obviously wasn't much thought put into the plot . the entire job selection process is completely ridiculous . i mean , why the emphasis on extra-curricular activities if the entire job is going to come down to a single-elimination quiz anyhow ? and is this the only job being offered to economics majors this semester ? to give it credit , senseless does try to create a secondary joke with darryl's roommate , tim laflour ( matthew lillard ) . apparently , he is supposed to be faddish , but the film never does anything with him , leaving him in a piercing phase throughout the movie . his " intervention " scenes with darryl , however , do provide a rare , and welcome , laugh . and then there's the love interest which is always pathetically tacked onto comedies like this one . in this case , the object of darryl's amor is janice ( tamara taylor ) , a fellow student who won't have anything to do with darryl until he gains his super-senses . needless to say , the romance is completely extraneous , and adds little to the film . this is a film that desperately needed something else . be that a good plot , more jokes ( or simply funnier ones ) , or a strong character or two , anything would have helped senseless get off the ground . as it is , all the manic exuberant mugging in the world can't help marlon wayans get this one off the ground .
0	i don't expect much from eddie murphy these days . for the past four years , the gods of cinema--or the expansive payrolls of studio conglomerates--have allowed him to make one bad movie after another . such films as metro , doctor dolittle , holy man , life , and bowfinger have reduced a once great comedic persona to a living and breathing washed-up hack performing as a studio puppet for 20th century fox and universal pictures . the biggest shame to fall on his shoulders is his newest film , nutty professor ii : the klumps . the klumps once again revisits the life of sherman klump , an overweight university science professor looking for love in all the wrong places . sherman has just invented a new " youth drink " that enables man or beast to become younger for a short period of time . janet jackson is the love interest who chooses the lovable sherman for a soul mate rather than excel at her career as a university professor ( and for the most ridiculous reasons ) . with love on his mind , sherman is determined to rid himself of his alter ego , buddy love from the first professor , who still resides with vigor inside his psyche and causes sherman to act like a bad imitation of vince vaughn from swingers . with some convoluted mumbo-jumbo about dna extraction , sherman extracts the " buddy love " link in his dna and smartly deposits buddy into a handy-dandy lab beaker . but one night , the beaker is knocked over and buddy love is regenerated . . . because every movie like this needs an unnecessary villain to thwart the good guy . then the klump family , all played by eddie murphy , step in for some comedic relief involving old people having sex , flabby breasts , a slew of fart and dick jokes , and enough fat people jokes that i lost count after the first thirty minutes . and did i mention the part where larry miller gets anally raped by an overgrown hamster ? the movie finally dissolves into a really bad hallmark family special about realizing who you are and what you can be in this world -- with enough soft lighting and people on the verge of tears in every scene . pure and simple , the klumps is a failure . its script was handled by not one but five screenwriters , and it really shows during the awkward transitions between scenes . any sense of story and plot were lost in the rewrite process . it's more discerning to learn that chris weitz and paul weitz , the team behind one of the funniest films of the last decade , american pie , have their names stamped to this trash . hey guys - quick note - keep this movie off of your resumes . the characterization of sherman's family , the klumps , is one of the most ignorant stereotypes of a black family i have ever seen in cinema . everyone member of the family is a large person who wipes the bins clean at a local buffet restaurant like pigs at a trough . the grandma is an oversexed fiend who constantly talks of ways to pleasure her man and her sagging breasts . the father is gruff , is fired from a blue-collar job , is sexually inadequate , and cannot communicate with his family about his feelings . the mother is ignorant of all the negativity around her and seems to hold no opinion about anything or anyone . the brother is silent and brooding and resembles the ice cube gangster character from boyz in the hood . sherman himself is terribly insecure and never conveys anything for the audience to become attached to . but the main problem with the film is its inability to create any type of convincing conversational or situational comedy . the family scenes from the first nutty professor worked so well because their conversations were short and direct . and you got the feeling that these crass people couldn't act like this all the time . the sequel does the reverse and drives the negatives of the klumps right in to the hilt , making the first five minutes of their interaction enjoyable and the last 55 or so unbearable and pathetic . after a while , their conversations just become a barrage of frustrated anger tinged with indecency and overworked premises that end up drawing energy away from any type of empathy one might feel for the central themes of the story . its also a damn shame that the makeup magic of rick baker -- who worked on the original nutty professor and won an academy award for his work on an american werewolf in london -- and amazing digital special effects that enabled murphy to interact with himself in such beautiful motions are built around such a lame story line . even the best effects can't seem to save the most pathetic of movies these days . now that i think about it , the worst thing about this film has to be all the money that it will make . people will be lined up around the block for it . the studios will concoct the a sequel for release in the summer of 2002 . eddie murphy will be signed up to take not just one role or five roles , but he'll play every character in the movie . i just can't wait to see eddie murphy in a love scene with himself .
1	one fun activity for parents during the holidays is to suggest an old film and see if they can interest their kids . although black-and-white films are frequently viewed as suspect , ones in color are greeted with more of an open mind . and if you can find a colorful action film , even if it is from six decades ago , then there is a real possibility of a take home hit . so it was in our family when we wandered over to the classic section of our local video store the other day and picked up a copy of the adventures of robin hood , a high spirited version of the walter scott story . nominated for the 1938 academy award for best picture and winner of three oscars for erich wolfgang korngold's melodramatic music , ralph dawson's fast paced editing and carl jules weyl's lush sets , the film is probably best remembered for errol flynn's charismatic acting as sir robin of locksley , a . k . a . robin hood . flynn , with his handsome figure and toothy smile , charms the audience while clearly having a high old time himself . let me cut to the chase and say that the tape was indeed popular in the rhodes household . the littlest rhodes , jeffrey , age 8 , liked it so much that he viewed it at least three times and maybe more . i'll let him discuss his fascination with the picture in his usual section at the end of the review . simply stated , the film derives its success from being one of the best of its genre , the swashbuckler . robin , with a smile from ear-to-ear , fights off a hundred men without a scratch . although the picture can be considered as little more than a 1930's james bond , the production values and the acting raise it above that level . robin hood is a classic story of rich and poor . robin steals from the rich and gives to the poor as every schoolchild knows . in this movie , however , he seems much less interested in income redistribution than in fighting for his king and country . robin , with his courage and athletic skills , serves as a role model for kids . and with the lovely olivia de havilland playing the dreamy-eyed lady marian fitzswalter , the story has heavy romantic overtones . filmed in the typical , richly oversaturated colors produced by early technicolor , the flesh tones are overly pink and there few color subtleties , which match perfectly the wonderfully exaggerated acting of the players . in scene after scene the picture charms the audience . who wouldn't fall for robin as he shows up incognito to win the archery contest , even if the outcome is so clearly preordained . and , of course , he doesn't just win , he does so by splitting the other man's arrow . watching the picture today does provide some jarring moments . sherlock holmes as the villain , sir guy of gisbourne , for example , just doesn't seem right , even if basil rathbone did have a real-life identity outside of his most famous role . and then there are those wigs from the makeup department -- so bad , they look like rejects from a mel brooks comedy . as was popular in the cinema of that era , people die with the most gentle prick of the sword and without any nasty , bloody holes to spoil the wardrobe or the looks . bad guys are banished rather than killed , and lovers go off hand-in-hand , doing nothing more explicitly sexual than kissing . the result is a wonderful fairy tale of a movie with delightful , cartoonish figures . hollywood rarely makes such high quality family films like this anymore , so try to savor the old ones when you can . the adventures of robin hood runs 1 : 42 . it is not rated , but containing absolutely nothing offensive , it would get a g rating and is fine for all ages . jeffrey thinks the film is " great " and gives it * * * * . he recommends the movie particularly for people who do not likely bloody pictures -- he hates the sight of blood in movies . his favorite parts are the battles and the ending , and his favorite characters are robin and king richard ( ian hunter ) .
0	robin williams is a comedic genus . that is , he is one when he's in a film that allows him space to move . " flubber " straps him in a straitjacket , covers him with duct tape , stuffs him in a coat closet and piles furniture against the door to make sure that he doesn't get out . in a re-make of its own 1961 " absent minded professor " , disney offers us proof that more is definitely less . recycling old films ( " that darned cat " , " 101 dalmatians " ) dressed up as new is the newest money machine from the home of the mouse that roared . professor phillip brainard ( williams ) is a terminally forgetful scientist teaching at a small college . his fiancee , sara jean reynolds ( marcia gay harden ) , president of the college is none too happy with him because he's left her waiting at the altar due to his lack of short-term -- and long-term -- memory . she's giving him one more chance . he blows that chance when he invents " flubber " ( flying rubber ) and is so excited by his discovery that sara jean is once again awaiting him in her white dress . his tardiness is helped along by his jealous flying robotic assistant who wants him all to herself . it's not all bad news . flubber is a green jello that can magnify and reflect energy that is applied to it . brainard realizes the commercial potential within the goo can save the school from bankruptcy and being taken over by the town's evil industrialist charles hoenicker ( raymond barry ) . while he's busy with his new breakthrough , the slighted sweetheart is being wooed by his sleazy rival wilson croft ( christopher mcdonald ) . there's a flying car , flubber-enhanced basketball game and an assortment of broken lab equipment : none of which are the least bit interesting or funny . at one point , my son looked around the audience and asked " why are these people laughing ? " although williams turns in one of his least inspired roles , he is easily the most lively of the actors . everyone else comes across as half-asleep . the re-make is successful in that respect . it feels like a bad disney movie from the sixties . i remember the original as being charming , but my guess is that the memory from almost four decades ago has been artificially enhanced by the years . there have been some updates . fred macmurray's flying model t has been replaced by a t-bird . his faithful dog charlie is now " weebo " , the hovering robot . the biggest change is that , with sophisticated computer animation , we now can have films show off special effects without being at all entertaining . flubber is anthropomorphized into a being supposedly with personality . the gloop has little arms and legs and splits into tiny little gloopettes for a big dance number . this has nothing to do with the story . the only possible reason is to create merchandising opportunities so that kids can badger their parents into taking them to mcdonalds for the toys . not that contributing little to the plot is a big problem . there are very few aspects of the film that move the story and those that do don't make sense . the discovery of flubber is going to save the college because brainard can sell his flying car to ford . anyone with half a brain would be able to see that his intelligent flying automaton is worth billions . it's unbelievable that his lover ( well , probably not a lover -- after all this is disney ) starts dating croft after the aborted wedding . there's not one appealing component of this man . after the professor discovers that smearing a golf ball with the gunk causes it to bounce uncontrollably around his lab wreaking havoc , i cringed as he picked up a bowling ball . this guy is beyond forgetful , venturing into the certifiable . co-writer john hughes used to direct light-weight but thoughtful teen films . the care behind " pretty in pink " and " the breakfast club " all went out the window after his " home alone " franchise heated up the box offices . looking much like " home alone 3 1/2 " , " flubber " even features a couple of vapid goons who get banged around and a cute little boy who screams a lot . in some ways , it's difficult to judge this film . i have a suspicion that i'm not it's target audience . after all , i measure my age in two digits .
0	according to hitchcock and various other filmmakers , isolated motels , diners , gas stations and similar establishments in american southwest can be rather dangerous place for weary travellers . at the beginning of eye of the storm , 1991 german- american thriller directed by yuri zeltser , one of such places becomes deadly for their owners who get murdered during the stick up . ten years later their son steven ( played by bradley gregg ) , who was blinded during the incident , still runs motel together with his older brother ray ( played by craig sheffer ) . hardly anything happens there until alcoholic and abusive william gladstone ( played by dennis hopper ) gets stranded there with his attractive wife sandra ( played by lara flynn boyle ) . their unexpected presence creates the chain of the events that would end in bloodshed . yuri zeltser , author of this film , was obviously inspired by hitchcock's psycho , but he chose to add some new and potentially interesting elements to the original plot . instead of norman bates we have two brothers - one of them traumatised physically , another mentally . sexual tension between beautiful female patron and shy motel clerk is heightened with the presence of alcoholic husband . eye of the storm is impressive in visual sense , with photography by karl walter lindenlaub providing a lot of claustrophobic atmosphere . the acting is fine - hopper , gregg and boyle are comfortable with their roles , but sheffer at times overacts his psycho routine . unfortunately , eye of the storm , which was supposed to be intense psychological drama , deteriorates into cheap and predictable slasher flick during melodramatic finale . in the end , this film reminds us that original approach can't prevent filmmakers from wasting too many opportunities . ( special note to the profiler fans : ally walker appears in the beginning of the film in the small role of killer's girlfriend . )
1	note : some may consider portions of the following text to be spoilers . be forewarned . milos forman's first film since the ill-fated valmont , columbia's the people vs . larry flynt , is a vastly entertaining ( if not particularly enlightening ) biopic of hustler publisher and self-made millionaire larry flynt , who became an unlikely champion of freedom of speech rights in the united states in the late 1970s and early 1980s . the film unweaves its tale in a chronological order : we open with young and dirt-poor larry flynt and his brother jimmy , peddling jars of water in true entrepreneurial spirit out in the rural outback of kentucky . cut to forward in time , where the two flynt brothers , now young men , are running the struggling hustler go-go clubs in cincinnati . the strip clubs are in a dire financial state , and in a last-ditch effort to salvage the operations , flynt decides to go to a print shop and churn out a promotional newsletter . this evolved into the adult periodical _hustler_ magazine , creating larry flynt a vast financial empire , and the rest is history . what sets flynt apart from other publishers is his struggles against those who would have him cease publication of his adult material , and who railed and preached against him - flynt spent time in incarceration and was paralyzed by an assassination attempt - and his driven , single-minded insistence to buck the system and fight for his freedom of expression , regardless of personal cost . the people vs . larry flynt also weaves in the bittersweet story of flynt's true love , althea leasure , whom he meets as a dancer in his club and later marries , and who devotedly stands alongside him throughout his trials and tribulations . considering the serious nature of the film's theme - the importance of the united states' first amendment - the people vs . larry flynt is surprisingly and wonderfully light-hearted and humourous . much of the comedy is elicited from larry flynt's outlandish stunts at his courtroom appearances - some of his chosen apparel is hilarious - and for the most part these elements of the film work far better than some of the more dramatic points , such as an uninspiring flynt monologue set at a free speech rally in front of an enormous american flag dealing with the subjectivity of obscenity . the film's focus is on the flynt's many battles over first amendment rights and freedom of speech , but the heart of the people vs . larry flynt is the touching love story between flynt and althea . larry flynt is shown as being occassionally gruff , harsh , and overtly aggressive with his friends and colleagues , but with althea , we see his loving , affectionate side . there's a scene where flynt tenderly takes his ill wife on a ride on his wheelchair that is heartbreaking . ultimately , the emotional power that the film hits at its conclusion comes not from his achievements from his battles against censors , but from the strength of flynt and althea's love for each other . woody harrelson is entirely engaging in what must be certainly a career-topping performance as the irrepressible larry flynt . harrelson plays flynt with the right mixture of outrageousness and confident stubborness to make him endearing and entirely sympathetic to the audience , and a very compelling protagonist for the film . courtney love plays althea leasure in a startling turn , completely raw and impulsive . it's a very solid performance , brash and naturalistic , and love is extremely compelling ; it's difficult to take your eyes off her onscreen , and her chemistry with harrelson is dead-on . edward norton , as flynt's straight , level-headed lawyer is often upstaged by his flashier co-stars in the people vs . larry flynt , much as his counterpart lawyer alan isaacman was upstaged by flynt during many of the courtroom scenes , but norton shines in his big scene where he addresses the supreme court in the climactic scene of the film . one can sense the frustration that norton's character feels when harrelson's free-talking flynt sabotages trial after trial on him by openly speaking his mind , and this results in a heightened emotional punch when norton's isaacman has the opportunity to sway the supreme court judges . milos forman keeps the film moving - although it runs over two hours , it never drags - and his direction of the film is very effective , eliciting a great deal of empathy for a subject which could be construed by some as extremely sordid and unsympathetic . there's also a great visual technique which forman uses to indicate the passing of time in one shot , which is both clever and extremely entertaining . two minor quibbles with the film - it certainly seems like the people vs . larry flynt is in a rush to get to its main theme , with flynt battling against authorities and the system for his freedom of speech . consequently , the first thirty minutes of the film , introducing and setting up the characters , seem unduly rushed ; perhaps it is merely due to the fact that these characters are so interesting , but i felt it would have worked better if this route was taken in a more leisurely fashion . it also felt like there was a distinctive lack of insight into the inner workings of these characters - the film clearly shows what flynt , althea , isaacman , and rev . jerry faldwell did , and on a superficial level some of their motivations , but it never seemed like one could really understand the characters on a deeper level . for example , why larry flynt was compelled by ruth carter stapleton ( president carter's sister ) to be born-again is a mystery to me . then again , perhaps it was to him as well . these two points don't detract greatly from the film . the people vs . larry flynt is certainly among the very best studio-released films of 1996 , and works both as a ringing political statement about the importance of freedom of speech and the depths to which larry flynt would go to advance the cause of free expression , and as a touching love story .
0	it's always a bad sign when the core audience of a film -- children -- are either walking out early or are half-asleep when the credits roll at the end of a film . that about sums up the dreadful ugliness of 102 dalmatians , a cold pea soup of cute animals , stupid home alone antics , a boring puppy love subplot between dumb humans , and glenn close reprising her best joan crawford impression . indeed , walt disney is rolling over in his grave again , cursing john hughes' name for making the original live-action 101 dalmatians , one of the worst kiddie flicks of all time , and now its sequel . the main culprit behind the hideousness of 102 dalmatians is its predecessor , 101 dalmatians . the original made more than $100 million dollars at the box office , spawned a torrid collection of " collectible " items that ended up months later in the discount bins of wal-marts across the country , and generally made every kid on the planet want a damn dalmatian pup for christmas . well , it's been about four years since then , and dalmatian fever is coming back , and this time it's digitally enhanced . here's the story . cruella de vil ( glenn close ) is released from prison due to the " cure " of her puppy homicide urges by one dr . pavlov . ( oh , how witty . ) she rejoins the world as a dog lover and is assigned to a probation officer , who oddly turns out to be her victim from the original film . cruella then becomes ella -- dog lover -- until the plot twists , like a dog with his leash caught on the back of a moving truck , and she becomes the evil vixen again . a kidnapping plot unfurls again as cruella decides she still needs her dalmatian coat , but she now needs 102 dalmatians instead of the commonly used 101 dalmatian formula . at this point , i was envying those kids filing out of the theater . how low have glenn close and gerard depardieu ( as the film's villain ) sunk in the film business ? it's almost laughable in a sadistic way to watch close walk around in costumes that seem to be pulled from the wardrobe of flash gordon . and depardieu . . . how can a french guy have a bad french accent ? and never mind the toilet brush haircut . the only minutely positive selling point i can even think to point out is the talking bird with a british accent ( courtesy of eric idle ) that thinks he's a rottweiler . now that's funny .
1	i've never been a member of the robin williams fan club . a little bit of his improvisationaly schtick goes a long way , and i sometimes feel as though i'm watching a 40-year-old class clown . in his films , williams has often tried to balance his mania with touchy-feely emotion , leading to wildly uneven performances . mrs . doubtfire seemed ready-made for the same problems , but instead it proves to be williams' best comic screen project yet . while it still contains some characteristic self-indulgence , mrs . doubtfire is nonetheless an engaging belly-laugh comedy served up with high energy . williams stars as daniel hillard , a cartoon voiceover artist with a penchant for irresponsible behavior . one such incident proves one too many for wife miranda ( sally field ) , and she files for a divorce . unemployed , living in a disastrously unkempt apartment and faced with limited time with his three beloved children , daniel decides to respond to miranda's ad for an afternoon housekeeper . he turns to his brother frank ( harvey fierstein ) , a theatrical makeup artist , and emerges as euphegenia doubtfire , a matronly 65-year-old englishwoman . daniel uses his access to the house to keep an eye on miranda's flirtation with a wealthy client ( pierce brosnan ) , to spend time with the children , and to learn something about responsible parenting , all the while trying to keep his identity hidden from the people who know him best . mrs . doubtfire has to overcome a mountain of implausibilities to work , and basically it does so . the most crucial is that no one in the family recognizes daniel , and thanks to the fantastic special makeup that's instantly believable . it may be one of the most convincing transformations ever committed to film , making dustin hoffman's dorothy michaels look like milton berle . more problematic was a series of calls daniel makes to miranda posing as nannies from hell ; it's a bit hard to swallow that she doesn't recognize any of the voices as her husband's . perhaps the biggest contrivance we're asked to swallow is that daniel could make a quick change into mrs . doubtfire in a few minutes . there's more to realistic makeup than slapping on a latex mask . fortunately , these are inconsistencies which only attract attention as the credits roll . during the film , i was generally too busy laughing . after getting off to a slow start involving too much of williams' riffing , mrs . doubtfire kicks into high gear once the wig and pads are in place . daniel's frantic attempt to fool a court officer is wonderful , as is the climactic restaurant sequence , even though i saw the resolutions coming a mile away . clearly , most of the credit for doubtfire's success goes to robin williams . it took putting him in drag , but for once he plays a comic character that isn't just robin williams with a different name . he thoroughly inhabits euphegenia doubtfire , and seems to relish the scenes in which he gets to play her as blunt and foul-mouthed . wisely , he never aims for saintly . his responses to the intrusion of new suitor stu are often petty , but the kind of thing most of us might do with the benefit of anonymity . it's one of mrs . doubtfire's charms that neither daniel nor miranda is perfect , just people trying to be better . as miranda , sally field is solid in a background role , and pierce brosnan is nicely understated as stu . the children are also good , although mara wilson is almost oppressively cute as the youngest . the supporting players merely step aside and allow williams to do his thing . it's easy to see mrs . doubtfire as little more than tootsie warmed over , and it's true that there are both broad themes and specific details in common . but mrs . doubtfire manages to carve out its own space , particularly through the surprisingly honest moments involving a judge's decision and the ultimate status of daniel and miranda's relationship . there's nothing dazzlingly new in mrs . doubtfire , but there are plenty of laughs , and good comedies are always in short supply . and it's nice to see robin williams just act for a change .
0	at first glance , i thought that the sword and the sorceror had promise . its plotline goes like this : the evil king cromwell , desiring to take over the world , resurrects an evil , ancient sorceror , xusia for power . he attacks the kingdom of eh-dan and kills young prince talon's parents . given a triple-bladed sword ( which can shoot bad guys , like a gun ) by his dying father , talon vows for revenge . eleven years later , when he's established his own army , the mercaneries , he vows to take back his kingdom . along the way , he meets up with alana , whose village is attacked by drunken guards and her brother is kidnapped by cromwell . talon vows to help , and , after a series of minor escapades , eventually ends up rescuing alana's brother ( and several other prisoners ) , only to be captured himself ( in other words , put on a cross to be crucified ! ) . fortunately he frees himself , rescues alana from marrying cromwell , defeats xusia , and then cromwell , all with his triple bladed sword ( during the final battle , the blade breaks , but talon finishes cromwell off by using a hidden dagger in the blade ) . then , everything ends happily . unfortunately , the sword and the sorcerer is not even half as good as it sounds . what would have been a great film is completely destroyed by uneven plot jumping , bad acting , and gruesomely gory , bloody scenes . never once does the story seem to connect together , it just jumps around repeatedly . this problem is extremely noticeable in the opening scene where cromwell resurrects xusia . after telling him that he needs his help , he leads the warlock out into daylight , but then stabs him and sends him careening off a cliff afterwards . wait a minute , didn't the plotline say that he needs the help of xusia in order to invade eh-dan , which he cannot do by military force ? if that is the case , why does he dispose of xusia after resurrecting him ? and why does he manage to take over eh-dan anyway ? these questions are just never - no , never - answered in the film . another example is that one moment we see talon fighting for his life , another moment we see him just about to be crucified during alana's wedding to cromwell ( ! ) , and finally at the end , instead of settling down with alana , he just tells her to " wait " , and then he just rides off ! in addition to the extremely bloody scenes , this uneven plot jumping completely destroys what would have been a great fantasy adventure . even some attempts to make it exciting , a few fire scenes , battle scenes , don't work . it just completely fails altogether miserably . the only good thing about this film is its musical score , contributed by david whittaker , who had an ( extremely ) short music composing career . the score is boomy and adventurous , powerful , and a billion times better than this film is . my suggestion : steer the hell away from this bloody mess and buy the soundtrack album instead ( if you can find it ) . ironically , though , before the film's credits roll , there is a message indicating that a sequel , tales of the ancient empire , would follow . to my relief ( and delight ) , it never got into production , because the sword and the sorcerer laid an egg at the box office , grossing only $39 million . critics were right on in slamming the sword and the sorcerer , all right . leonard maltin rightfully called it " second rate in scripting , and acting " and at-a-glance film reviews called it " a confusing , stupid , unimaginative , unengaging , bloodfilled bore " . i totally agree with these reviews , all right , and i hope that this piece of #$% ! will be forgotten about . there are far better fantasy movies than the sword and the sorcerer . i hope you get a good laugh out of this review , but i am not laughing . in fact , my insults don't even come close to the gruesome sickness that this film gave me throughout its 100 minute running time .
1	" stuart little " is one of the best family films to come out this year . it's a cute , funny and very good-natured film that has nothing for parents to squirm over except a few mild cusswords . though i read the book a long time ago and i really do not remember what it was about , i do know that this film does not disappoint . finally a movie gets released that is as good as the trailer makes it to be , with a few surprising twists , some very funny moments , and a few sentimental moments all mixed in to one great little movie . stuart little is a mouse . he has finally gotten a new home after being put up for adoption , he now lives with the littles . a nice little ( no pun intended ) family that lives in their apartment next to central park in new york city . they have a little boy george ( played by the adorable jonathan lipnicki ) and now they have a new son . at first stuart takes a while but he finally adjusts to being part of the family and even getting along with the pet cat . george doesn't take too well to having a mouse for a brother at first , but once the two play together they instantly bond . stuart however is missing something , and he wants to know who his real parents are . the littles try and find his parents and one day they show up on the doorstep wanting stuart back . hesitating the littles know what's best for stuart and so does snowball the pet cat , he and his friends try to get stuart but in the end we find out the truth about stuart's past ending up to a sentimental and very heart-warming ending . one thing i noticed about the film instantly was the fantastic special effects . just like in " star wars : episode 1--the phantom menace " stuart little and his family are all computer generated and they look fantastically real . from the detail of their fur , to the detail of the way the walk ; the special effects team put a lot of time and effort on this $90 million dollar film and it shows . another movie that this has in common with is " babe " with it's talking animals and people understanding them . it has a family friendly atmosphere and is never really scary or suspenseful enough to even scare the youngest of kids . michael j . fox does the voice of stuart himself and just like in the " homeward bound " movies does a fantastic job and brings more out of stuart than anyone else could . he to me fits the character perfectly and ends up making stuart even more lovable . another gem of the film is nathan lane as snowball . when he was timon in 1994's " the lion king " i would have sworn he was a comedian , and now in " stuart little " he brings the most out of snowball and makes him one of those characters we love to dislike . for the human actors geena davis who never gives a bad performance does not disappoint here as well . she fits nicely in her character and there is a good chemistry between her and hugh laurie who plays mr . little . both make us believe they are happily in love and married and jonathan lipnicki as their song is even more adorable than he was in 1996's " jerry maguire " . even though stuart little is completely cgi , the human characters and stuart have a nice chemistry together and even makes us believe they really do care for each other . " stuart little " is ideal family entertainment for this holiday season and will not disappoint youngsters or adults for that matter . we get entertainment , laughs , cries and more fun at the movies this season than probably any other movie . its nice to see a pg rated movie out at christmas that everyone can see . even though it has a $90 million dollar budget i'm sure it will make over that or just below it respectively . for all you parents out there trying to find a good family movie , i have yet to see bicentennial man as i write this but as far as i know " stuart little " and " toy story 2 " are by far the best family films this year . a winner . ?
1	i know what i would do with $4 . 4 million if i found it in a previously undiscovered airplane crash site , especially if i were with jacob and lou . ( huh ? ) well , in any event , that is the situation hank ( paxton ) finds himself in . he and his dim-witted brother jacob ( thorton ) and tubby friend lou ( brent briscoe ) come upon a large bag of cash inside a plane wreck . against his better judgement , hank decides to go along with the idea of keeping it rather than going to the authorities . the rest of the film is a question of who is going to die to keep this a secret , and is it worth it ? a simple wish lies along the lines of very bad things , clay pigeons and even fargo , and is kind of wrapped all into one little dark bundle . oh , and its much better than any of those . sam raimi took a departure from his normal freak-show horror-monkey films and made this stylish and intriguing picture . he really lets the audience sit back and watch the events unfold rather than force them down our throats as many directors prefer to do . i think raimi knew he had a winner on his hands and decided to direct the picture on a natural flowing course . one of the film's components can be linked to a recurring theme in terrence malick's the thin red line . in malick's three hour bore-a-thon , he makes an interesting attempt to link mother earth to his war story . it seemed nothing more than an occasional pretty cut to a field of flowing grass , a small bird , or a flowing body of water . sure , there were obvious metaphorical connections , but there was no subtlty to his efforts . raimi does a fine job of tying in a fox in a chicken coop and birds of prey to signify the future of the characters . i think most viewers may miss the comparison , but it is a very intriguing ingredient in the film . and then there's billy bob thorton , who is proof that the independent film industry is vital to the life blood of hollywood . if it can continute to produce people like thorton , hollywood will be ok . he gives a fantastic and devastatingly deep performance here . it is not as engrossing as his carl childers character in slingblade , but is is just as complex , if not more so . jacob is slow and simple , and yet we so often see him deep in thought . i wondered if he was thinking about things that he would never say ( or didn't know how to say ) or if he was just taking a long time to think about the thing he just said . here he really proves his worth as one of the best character actors in the industry . though the plot is somewhat unoriginal , it has a very appealing new twist in its characters . paxton gives one of the better performances of his career as the straight and serious leader of the group ( a far cry from chet in wierd science ) . perhaps bridget fonda is miscast as his advice-giving wife , but she certainly doesn't do anything ruin the picture . a simple plan can be included in the group of recent small hollywood films that is just dark and pretty un-redeeming . but at least this one has an important message , unlike so many of its counterparts .
0	perhaps if the impostors didn't have so much going for it , it wouldn't have been such a tremendous disappointment . written , directed , and produced by one of its two stars , stanley tucci , whose last picture was the indie smash hit , big night , the impostors almost never catches fire . sputtering like a two-day old campfire , the story plays like an ad-lib sketch that was never polished or completed . the film's other star , oliver platt , was hilarious as the senator's aide in bulworth . the bloated supporting cast is a veritable cornucopia of acting talent , including woody allen , steve buscemi , hope davis , alfred molina , campbell scott , lili taylor and tony shalhoub . all are wasted save allen , who plays a theatrical director who stares in disbelief at the bad acting before his eyes . ( the audience will easily identify with allen's sentiments . ) with the exception of a single original joke involving mirror-imaged subtitles , the movie engenders little genuine laughter . the stale humor is so embarrassingly bad that you will find yourself laughing sporadically at the picture rather than with it . the plot for the movie involves two starving actors , maurice ( oliver platt ) and arthur ( stanley tucci ) , who accidentally end up on a cruise ship . in order to escape an angry shakespearean actor ( alfred molina ) , who is chasing them , they dress up as ship's stewards . the over-the-top script has the subtlety of a sledgehammer . when the leads hide from their pursuers , arthur covers maurice's mouth as he suffers an unending sneeze . at other times , we have the typical zany comedy routine where everyone chases everyone else , while darting in and out of staterooms . with the film's chapters introduced like placards at a vaudeville stage , it is clear the movie wants to be taken as farce . the press notes describes how everyone that came on the set remarked at what a good time all of the actors were having . too bad they weren't more concerned with the audience's potential enjoyment . the jokes , frequently framed in silence , fall like stones with such intensity that one can almost hear them hitting the ground . one wonders if anyone ever viewed the film's dailies . surely , if they had , they would have realized what leaden results they were producing . it is tricky having good actors play bad ones , but , if they couldn't pull it off , they should have just given up . " the show is over for this fella , " steve buscemi's character says towards the end . the mystery is why they didn't all give up in the beginning . there must have been a better script somewhere for such a wonderful cast . the impostors runs 1 : 42 . it is rated r for a little profanity and would be fine for kids around 12 and up .
0	i'm not sure i should be writing a review of the witches of eastwick , because i'm not sure just what the hell ( pardon the expression ) was going on in it . however , i can express the most important observation i made of it , i . e . i didn't like it . if i had to summarize this film , i think i'd conclude it was an updating of one of those old new england folk tales of someone selling their souls to old scratch and how they try to get out of the deal . that's the kernel of it , anyway . tossed into this are little bits and pieces that occasionally seem to be saying something about men and women , feminism , the role of the devil , modern reformers , and friendship . unfortunately , little or no effort is ever made to follow up and elucidate on these concepts ; they're simply thrown out and then left to rot while the film goes on apace . actually , i think that most of the audience was even more confused than i was . they came in expecting some kind of supernatural comedy , on the level of ghostbusters , and were a bit confused to be getting a folk tale with philosophical overtones . they laughed , or tried to laugh , at moments that were either barely funny , or much more horrible than funny , as if that could bend the film away from it's rather frightening direction . three women ( cher , susan sarandon , and michelle pfieffer ) live in eastwick , a small midwestern town . one night , while drinking late into the evening , they begin wishing for the ideal man to drop into their lives . in seeming answer to their idle daydreams , a wealthy eccentric moves into a mansion on the hill and seduces each one by attempting to be everything they want him to be . he soon shows evidence of mystical--perhaps demonic--power , and his devotion to the women's merest fantasies or wishes has dangerous overtones . even worse , when ignored his moods become ugly , and he mistreats the women for spurning him . anyway , the problems : all three female characters are fairly uninteresting , and several are cardboard stereotypes , especially sarandon's character . we never get inside them , never feel sympathetic to them , because their dialogue and personalities seem pretty bland . as for nicholson , well , even the devil needs a direction to go in , and while darryl van horne is the most interesting character in the movie ( due to the grace of the screenwriter and , more importantly , nicholson's acting ) , he still can't be yanked in one direction and then another without making him a little vague . and then there's the special effects . not in themselves--they weren't that good--but their overuse . i was almost positive , until i saw the credits , that the witches of eastwick was either produced by alexander salkind ( who has turned out the slop named superman ii and iii and supergirl ) , because of the big name actors in dopy stunts , or stephen spielberg , after the 18th vomit scene and the nicholson-blown-down-the-street stunt . nope , it's another bunch of guys , and directed by george miller , who has shown great skill with stunts/special effects before ( the road warrior , " nightmare at 20 , 00 feet " episode of twilight zone : the movie ) but apparently doesn't know when to turn off the wind machine and let his people act . f'gawds sake , guys , this is jack nicholson ! let him loose ! let him grin demonically ! skip the splitting earth and fake lightning ! watching the scene where nicholson is tossed out of the car by the voodoo doll , all i could think of was , " what a waste " . if you're going to use slapstick like that , use it up on pee wee herman . nicholson does what he can with the role , and when he can find his bearings , can be extremely good ( the scene in the church , for instance ) , but most of the time , he seems a bit stiff , as if he's not sure what he should be doing next . and no wonder . this script goes all over the map , giving you the feeling that it'd just love to be allegory , but it's not sure about what-- maybe if you give it time it'll think of something . so what is the witches of eastwick ? a horror movie ? a folk tale ? a comedy ? a statement about women ? an examination of the religious right or comparitive morality ? i tend to think of the image that seems to dominate the movie for me . . . watching someone regurgitate half-digested bits of food and cherry pits all over rooms , people , the screen , and ultimately , the audience . in other words , a mess . ( $2 . 00 ) if you like nicholson enough to watch him here ; maybe 25% of his charm is able to make it through the logjams of others .
1	in october of 1997 , audiences were dazzled by the horror surprise hit i know what you did last summer . the film went on to gross over 70 million dollars in the u . s . , and even developed a cult following , much like the previous year's 100 million dollar grossing scream . when the trailer hit theaters in september attached to urban legend , it looked like a wonderful follow-up . did it live up to the first film ? the answer is no . jennifer love hewitt returns as julie james , a survivor of the serial killer that attempted to kill her and her friends a year before . she has been so upset since the incident . nightmares haunt her all over the place , but she has to move on . she know attends college , and is best friends with a funny , outgoing girl named karla ( brandy ) , who is trying to hook julie up with will benson , played by newcomer matthew settle . karla's boyfriend is tyrell , the funny , outgoing type , who is played by soul food's mekhi phifer . freddie prinze jr . also returns as ray , julie's boyfriend from a year ago . one morning , julie and karla are called up by a local radio station who are offering four tickets to the bahamas if they can correctly identify the capital of brazil . of course , they answer it correctly , and they are off to the bahamas . julie wants ray to come , but he declines the offer , so karla secretly invites will instead to help boost her plan of hooking him up with julie . after they arrive at their hotel , it is just them and the staff on the island . it starts off as the weekend of their dreams . something just had to come to mess up the one care-free weekend of julie's life though . ben willis ( muse watson ) is back , and he isn't letting anyone survive this time . will ray come to the rescue before he can kill them off one by one ? jennifer love hewitt and brandy turn in respectable performances . brandy in particular was impressive , considering this is her first feature film . you could see that the characters were horrified , and they would do anything possible to survive . matthew settle and freddie prinze jr . are a completely different story . let's start with settle . matthew is completely fake in this film . you could not believe a word coming out of his mouth . you could tell he was acting , and its reasons like him that this one isn't as good as the first one . he does do a good job towards the end , but that doesn't clear up the scars he already left on the film . freddie prinze jr . is almost as bad as matthew settle was . he is almost completely unbelievable , and the majority of his lines are completely meaningless and out of place . we don't see him as much as settle , otherwise he could have done just as much damage as settle did . mekhi phifer is alright as tyrell , but yet again the dialogue is out of place . the plot of i still know turns out to be a pretty good one at the end of the movie . i like where the filmmakers went with this second installment , but maybe if it occurred in the same town as the first one , it would have been a bit better . the cinematography and setting of their island are simply wonderful . there are a lot of very nice shots around their hotel . the sound is pretty good , but still not as creepy as the first film's . jennifer love hewitt's song , " how do i deal " is also played for about thirty seconds . i still know what you did last summer is nothing compared to the first film . the first film was very suspenseful , and it contained some very memorable scenes . the last fifteen minutes of i still know what you did last summer really picked up , and almost reached the same level as the first film . before this part in the film , there are many unnecessary deaths and fake scares . that is okay though , because the film is still very much fun and there are a few suspenseful scenes . i think the reason this film wasn't as scary as the original was because in the first one , the killer terrorized the people involved in the incident . he made them suffer for what they did . in the second film , ben willis just kills anyone he feels like . he doesn't stick with ray and julie , who were the ones he is actually after . he had to go after karla , will , and tyrell . if the characters he stalked were in some relation to the incident that went on when he was ran over by julie , ray , helen , and barry , it could have been much better , and it would have made a lot more sense . the bottom line- not a disappointment , but a third in the series would be out of hand .
0	in the james bond film " diamonds are forever , " tiffany case asks 007 whether he prefers brunettes to redheads . bond's response is that it doesn't really matter , as long as collars and cuffs match . well , collars and cuffs don't match in " the real blonde . " what might have sounded good on paper ends up as a largely unfunny , meandering comedy on screen . the film , supposedly a satire of the superficiality of soap operas and the modeling business , is wafer thin . it plays like an " ally mcbeal " episode dragged out to the nth degree , replete with a few unnecessary " fantasy " sequences . writer/director tom dicillo manages the material as if poking fun at daytime dramas is a fresh idea . it isn't . the only surprise here is that the talented dicillo could make familiar terrain so dreary . matthew modine plays joe , a struggling actor waiting tables in order to pay the rent . he's 35 with no agent and no credits since he's too proud to take on roles in commercials or soap operas . " that's not really acting " he tells his girlfriend of six years , mary ( catherine keener ) , with whom he bickers constantly about sex . but they need the money , so joe finally agrees to take a part in a madonna video . but it's not really madonna starring in the video but a lookalike ( played by elizabeth berkley , still trying to jump-start her career after " showgirls " ) . this points out how artificial this whole business is , one supposes . dicillo has referred to " the real blonde " as " off-kilter , but an interesting combination of all sorts of stuff . . . " the film , which wanders all over the place without getting anywhere , is remarkably * on * -kilter and , with perhaps the single exception of the always-likable modine ( who's not afraid to stand around in a very unattractive bathing suit surrounded by hunks ) , the entire cast is vague and uninteresting . catherine keener , who's appeared in dicillo's previous three films ( including the brilliant " living in oblivion " ) , is at her most annoying in " the real blonde . " look at her closely ; she really can't act at all . her reactions are all wrong , almost always out of sync with her co-stars . she reacts too soon , or too late , to lines and situations . she moves her eyes , or her mouth , far too much . she frowns , she yells , she babbles--she blows chunks . maxwell caulfield plays joe's actor/waiter buddy bob , the one obsessed with dating a " natural " blonde . bob's personality ( not to mention caulfield's acting ability ) parallels that of the character he plays on the soap opera " passion crest " --stiff and uninteresting . maybe that's the point . daryl hannah is dim and uninteresting as the real blonde of the title , a soap dish who beds bob both on- and off-camera . hannah looks about fifty in this movie ( she's only 37 ) . why is that ? almost all the women in the film wear tops that show their nipples . why is that ! ? marlo thomas plays an uninteresting fashion photographer . kathleen turner plays an uninteresting talent agent . buck henry plays an uninteresting shrink . christopher lloyd plays an uninteresting caterer . and so on . the best parts of the " the real blonde " are the beginning and the end , brief scenes of an elderly woman losing and then finding her dog . there's more depth and sincerity in a single close-up of her expressive face than in the entire film . while this contrast is supposedly meant to highlight the shallowness of the other characters' lives , the only thing that makes shallow and superficial interesting is if it's funny .
1	" the celebration " is one of an elite kind of films that is completely absorbant . you know , where you sit down to watch it , and no matter what you've heard about it before , you just can't help but be totally drawn into its story and shocked by every single turn that occurs . i prefer films like these because these are what the best kind of films are like . i don't really feel there are to be any real " rules " for cinema ; a film can do anything , as long as it makes it work . but i do ask that all films have one thing in common : they create experiences . when i watch a film , no matter what kind of film it is , i want to be able to take certain memories along with me . " the celebration " is great because it's chock full of those . it creates a world so completely realistic that everything that occurs is as memorable as the little instances of life that catch your attention and stay with you for the rest of your life . and then it makes things just a tad bit farscial , just to make sure you're paying attention , which you are because what transpires is just so goddam interesting that if you were to ever feel bored , then you're of your attention span needs a bit of a tuning-up . the story takes place at the extravagant home of an aging patriarch ( henning mortizen ) , who has just turned 60 and is having a party thrown for him . all his friends and family turn up , and for the first half hour , we get introduced to everyone , simplistically and realistically ( no aggravatingly condescending posing for the camera deals here ) . the eldest son , christian ( ulrich thomsen , looking a bit like a young malcolm mcdowell ) , is the first to be seen in the film , walking to his father's home . his brother , michael ( thomas bo larsen ) , drives by , pulls over , greets him , then kicks his family out of the car , forcing them to walk to the estate , just so christian can be comfortable . we then meet helene ( paprika steen ) , their sister , a woman who always seems to be stressed-out , who invites the driver of her car ( gbatokai dakinah ) , an american , to to come join her at the party she's going to . once they're all there and settled in , the party begins , and as custom , the eldest son has to make a speech to his dad , so christian stands up , at the head of the table , and reveals the film's punchline : his father raped all his children at a young age . but since this is a family/friends affair , his confession becomes more detested than the supposed truth , and is simply brushed off despite his efforts , and what transpires is sorta like jerry springer crossed with jean renoir , and it's all terribly interesting to watch . twists occur , and soon the film has taken on a nearly-farsical nature , but still seems realistic because the people involved really feel like they could reach such ends . the most notorious thing about this film , which has been getting the most notice , though , is that the director , thomas vinterberg has shot it in a completely awkward fashion . as a member of the danish filmmakers clan , dogme 95 , a group that has vowed to oppose " the auteur concept , make-up , illusions , and dramaturgical predictability " so that they may " purge film so that once again the inner lives of the characters justify the plot . " i have not seen " breaking the waves , " the other notable film by a member of this group ( lars von trier , to be exact ) , but " the celebration " works exquisitely in this department . it feels like reality , like you're actually watching real people and not actors , and as a major pointer , has been shot on video . as a result , it looks more like the home movies you never dare shot of your family than an actual film , but always wanted to . we see key moments in people's lives that they wouldn't dare show to the world , and it captures the farscial comedy of life so accurately and acutely that this style , as ironically-showmanship as it really is , works perfectly for the nature of the film . the key , though , to this film , and the reason it's not just a cool danish import , is because this film is not about revealing the truth as much as it is about the way people react to such an explosive truth . throughout the film , we see a completely realized debate over the truth and the effects it has on the lives of those who have learned to live with lies , a debate so three-dimensional that it could easily blow oliver stone and his the-truth-at-all-costs reasoning out of the water . of course it was not right for the father to rape his children , and of course , they couldn't have fought back then , and of course this has created scarring suppression inside them . and yes , it's thearapeutic for one to release the truth years later , when they know it could easily destroy the one who emotionally destroyed them earlier . but then again , the father , after all , is not a totally bad guy , and we can see the emotional complications that arise thanks to a performance by mortizen which is just so great and touching that while we do believe that he could have raped his children years earlier , we also see a man who has also learned to live with what he's done , and deep down , feels true guilt that is only now beginning to surface . the final scene , involving mortizen and everyone else , is utterly devastating , thanks to him and thomsen , whose performance is utterly flawless and equally emotionally complex . everyone else is flawless as well - the actors never seem to be stepping into the shoes of their characters as much as they do walking comfortably in them . the actors or writers have not made the mistake to judge these characters in the slightest : there are no whites or blacks but instead all grays , exactly like life . as such , " the celebration " may be the one truly bizarro film of the year : a work of art so eerily close to reality that it's utterly disturbing and utterly fascinating .
0	keep cool , a chinese film directed by semi-accomplished filmmaker yimou zhang , was one of the kickoff films for this year's hawaii international film festival . on the day it premiered , lines of eager moviegoers stretched around the block , some anticipants having queued up well in advance to get a good seat in the theater . they need not have wasted their time . the movie is billed as a comedy , but is surprisingly bereft of humor . there are noticeable attempts at laughs , but very few tries actually click . i wondered if there were jokes that i wasn't getting because i'm not from china , but unfortunately my conclusion was that this lack of humor couldn't be attributed to the cultural barrier either . keep cool just isn't very funny . the prelude to the film was a visit by keep cool's producer who , with the help of an interpreter , regaled us of how in order to get the print to the festival in time , an assistant hand carried it on the plane from china to hawaii . although the print made it , the assistant's luggage was lost . too bad that story wasn't in the movie , because it got a big laugh . qu ying , the film's female lead , was also on hand to give a few comments . however , whereas the producer politely made regular pauses in his dialog so the interpreter could bring us up to speed , ms . ying saw fit to say everything she had to say in one , fast-paced , incredibly long tirade . it was dizzying ; good foreshadowing for the film . you see , keep cool is filmed almost totally with a camera handheld by a man with a bad case of the shakes . at least that's the way it seems , since the camera is constantly moving . cinema verite is one thing , but panning and shaking around until your audience has a headache is another . although some might consider it a form which helps give the viewer an idea of the anarchic state into which chinese youth is slowly growing , i found it thoroughly distracting , and after a while , quite annoying . headache , as i said . the film is about a young bookseller ( wen jiang ) who is after a young woman ( qu ying ) . they used to be romantically involved , but the woman grew tired of him and left the relationship . the first half of the film is about the young man's plan to win her back . of course the thing is , she doesn't want to be won back , and has a nightclub owner friend of hers rough him up a bit . in the fight , the young man grabs a laptop computer belonging to a bystander and attempts to use it to fend off his attacker , but only ends up smashing it against a lamppost . we later find out that the laptop belongs to an older man who wishes to get his damaged computer replaced . there is a funny scene ( the only one in the film ) where the young man tries to use some twisted logic in order to get the older man to seek out the nightclub owner ( baotian li ) in order to recoup his losses . there is no sense to be made out of the young woman's behavior ; cold one minute , caring the next , so we feel no sympathy for her character . the bookseller would be better off without her . although the second half of the film causes us to lose a lot of sympathy for the young bookseller as well , who is obsessed with chopping off the nightclub owner's hand as revenge for the beating he took , it also offers us some nice interaction between the bookseller and the older man . while the bookseller is blinded by his thirst for revenge , the older man is the voice of reason and tries to rationalize each situation . his quest to end the dispute peacefully and equitably is the one we identify with , but it is frustrating to see that he seems to be talking to a brick wall half the time . a friendship develops between the two men , but it occurs too late in the film for the audience to appreciate . although only an hour and a half in length , keep cool contains extraneous material . the whole plot of how the bookseller is after the young woman could have been taken out , since we don't see her from the midpoint on . a case of mistaken identity or some other device could have served as the point of conflict between the bookseller and the nightclub owner , and would have saved us from the bookseller's boring pursuit during the first half . but of course , this would have shortened the movie to less than an hour . there are a few things that keep cool does right . as mentioned before , the interaction between the bookseller and the older man is generally pretty good . although it grows tiresome , the reasoning with the unreasonable is a nice exercise in logic , and represents the differences in thinking between generations . in one scene , for example , the bookseller quotes confucius to get his point across , but the older man claims the quote was misinterpreted , and that it means something entirely different . also effective is the way zhang sets up tension within a scene , such as when the bookseller is getting ready to cut off the hand of the unwitting nightclub owner . the nightclub owner is counting out money , slapping each bundle of currency on the table . with every shot of his hand , we can hardly stand the interminable wait before the bookseller is going to pull out his cleaver and exact his revenge . unfortunately , these crumbs are not enough to overcome the rest of the film's shortcomings , and weren't enough to prevent that headache from lingering after i left the theater .
0	ah , and 1999 was going along so well , too . " she's all that " has the dubious distinction of being the worst movie i've seen so far this year . and quite frankly , i doubt i'll see anything equally bad . ( at least , i * hope * i don't see anything equally bad ) . " she's all that " tells the story of the most popular guy in school ( played by freddie prinze jr . ) who accepts a bet to transform the geekiest girl in school ( rachel leigh cook ) into the most popular . that , right there , is problem #1 . how many times have we seen this storyline ? as cook comments near the end of the film , " it's kind of like " pretty woman " , except without the prostitution " . of course , had the filmmakers attempted to try something new with this material , the well-worn storyline would have been a device to propell the movie forward . as it is , though , " she's all that " relies * completely * on the lame and overused formula to push it ahead . there's not one original or interesting character in the film , either , and if that wasn't bad enough , there's not one good performance featured . the star of the movie , rachel leigh cook , is simply horrible . i usually don't like to get so personal , but in this case , i think it needs to be said . cook wears the same expression throughout the flick and looks to be having as miserable a time as i was . i was never convinced that she was a " nerd " , and her transformation was unconvincing and unnecessary . the movie seems to be saying it's better to be popular than to be who you are . as for freddie prinze jr . , an actor i ordinarily enjoy , he too is quite bad here . he coasts through the film on so-called charm , and never establishes a real character . kieren culkin is here , too , as the brother of cook . and for some indiscernable reason , he's got hearing aids . no explanation is given and they're never brought up . were we supposed to feel * sorry * for him just because he wore hearing aids ? i don't think so . that single element of the film was one of the most offensive things i've seen in a movie in a long time . " she's all that " sucks . that's what it boils down to . it's not entertaining , and it's not even a good time passer . the hour and a half running time goes by slower than a 5 minute hair-removal system informercial . and what's worse , it sends out a bad message to teens . it appears to be telling them , " hey , it doesn't matter if you're happy the way you are . that's unimportant . if you want to * truly * be happy , dress in the latest fashions and act like a bubble-headed moron . " ugh .
0	remember back in the mid 1990s when crime and macabre movies were all the rage ? " pulp fiction " and " fargo " both managed to get oscar nominations for the best picture , and not surprisingly , a slew of rip-offs followed in the years thereafter . that fad seems to be over but here comes christopher mcquarrie writing and directing " the way of the gun " that at first glance looks like another of those wanna-be's but upon closer inspection doesn't look like anything comprehendable . it's a crime story so wrapped up in its own little world it has a claustrophobic atmosphere - a film that won't allow the story much room to expand outside its handful of characters and somehow still manages to turn a simple premise into something so complex its ridiculous . complexity should come as no surprise to anyone who's familiar with mcquarrie , he wrote " the usual suspects , " which has become a cult favorite despite little critical acclaim . that film had a great story and was well directed but had such an elaborate , confusing screenplay it leaves many viewers scratching their heads after repeated viewings . you have to wonder if mcquarrie really had everything mapped out or if he was going for the hollywood idea that " if it's really confusing and about criminals and cops that makes it fascinating . " with " the way of the gun " mcquarrie seems to be capitalizing on the same idea , but this time the story is far less commercial - a shame because maybe that would have helped . the film tells the story of two drifters with no ambition and barely a reason to live but aren't hell-bent on death either ( played by ryan phillipie and benecio del toro ) . they get lucky when they hear about a scheme between a big-shot exec guy and his trophy wife who are going to have a baby through in vitro fertilization . they figure they can kidnap the surrogate mother ( played by juliette lewis ) and get a nice ransom . along the way we continually learn of the shady dealings between the exec , his wife , their hired goons and the " bag man " ( played by james caan - the only actor in the film who looks like he knows what he's doing ) . the exec is some kind of money launderer so he obviously can't call the authorities for help . his goons and the bag man are on the kidnappers' trail and each make different offers to get the mother back . the exec's son is a doctor who also gets pulled into the fray and wants to make sure his patient is all right . meanwhile each of these characters has something hidden up their collective sleeves and the double-crosses , secret love affairs and torrid pasts come as no surprise even though little of it has any relevance at all . mcquarrie doesn't know the meaning of the word simple . he seems to be more interested in showing us how clever he is than making a good movie . everything has to be complicated and confusing , so much so that it's to the point of surrealism . nothing is what it seems in this reality , it's one of those movies where you get dropped right into the middle of the criminal world and are expected to know most of the industry's rules and regulations . every scene with caan's character exemplifies this perfectly - the kidnappers already know who he is and even chat with him , getting into conversations about " the business " and how it works and we're hardly given a clue as to what they're talking about . these characters are probably supposed to be great criminal sketches but they're more like ideas ripped-off from sketches found in david mamet's trash . no one here really acts like a real person , and the story is even further removed from reality . it's like a dream without any appeal . take the opening scene for example ; the phillipe and del toro characters are in a parking lot across the street from a bar or a club counting their money and stuff . they sit on a brand-new mercedes and the car alarm goes off , the owner is waiting in line and yells at them to get away from his car but they don't move . the guy and his loud-mouth , potty-mouth girlfriend and about 20 other people cross the street and gang up on them . you'd think phillipe ? and del toro are ? going to pull out guns and scare them away but they don't , instead phillipe throws one punch and the two get beat down by a mob . there's a lot of things i didn't understand about this scene : first of all the owner of the mercedes isn't some yuppie or old rich snob , he's like a hippie straight out of the 60s . secondly , the two main characters seem to believe that they can actually take on the mob unarmed . lastly , it serves no purpose in the long run because later in the film the two are packing more artillery than a small country's army . if they were suicidal they wouldn't have gone on the kidnapping job in the first place ( and where they get all those guns is never explained either ) . there's a lot more i could pick apart about this film but that would be an exercise in futility . what it all comes down to is that nothing here is what it seems - which would be great if this movie were about pretty much any other story than what it is . absolutely none of the characters are likable or believable . and it's all coated with a thin layer of black comedy which is good for a chuckle here and there but this film is definitely not a flat-out black comedy and its use of such seems like a desperate attempt to kill screen time . with any film you see , whether you like it or not , you can at least understand what the appeal was to it , why someone would want to make it and why someone would want to see it . i can't say either for " the way of the gun , " because it has very little going for it and i can't imagine anyone intelligently defending it .
1	while watching wes anderson's rushmore , it may be surprising to think that the role of max fischer , the film's anti-hero , was not written with jason schwartzman in mind . the young actor , making his film debut as a 15 year old student at the exclusive rushmore academy is so perfect in the role that it comes as a shock that anderson auditioned some two thousand other prospective stars before discovering schwarztman . schwartzman plays max , a student who is more interested in his extra-curricular activities ( such as writing edgy plays like " serpico " and being president of the rushmore beekeepers ) but sees his grades suffer as a result . on the brink of being thrown out , he lands himself in even more hot water when he falls for first grade teacher rosemary cross ( olivia williams ) and enlists the help of millionaire acquaintance herman blume ( the great bill murray ) to build an aquarium ( on rushmore's baseball field ) in her honour . unfortunately for everyone involved , blume finds that he has feelings for miss cross as well , which gets in the way of max's plans to woo her . max is one of the best-written characters we've yet seen in the 90s , and schwartzman plays him to perfection in one of the finest comedy performances ever given by someone of his age . as everyone else has probably already pointed out , he is reminiscent of a young dustin hoffman ( although i was reminded more of paul from " the wonder years " , from a visual standpoint , at least ) . hopefully , if he avoids typecasting as weird , quirky loner-types he should earn himself a good career . bill murray is his equal as blume , displaying a depth we haven't yet seen from him . while this isn't his best performance ( that honour goes to groundhog day ) he is still terrific here . williams isn't given much to do except react to schwartzman and murray , but still does fine work . rushmore seems to go just a little too long but , while it isn't a perfect film , it is a definate must-see for anyone who wants to see that rarity , an american coming-of-age film that actually works well without an excessive amount of sentimentality . anderson has created a modern classic with a star who should , with any luck , rise to even greater success .
0	" shagadellic ! " , " groovy , baby ! " " smashing ! " adorn the 1/4 page ad for this movie tabbed as " the #1 comedy in america " as of may 8th . did we attend the same movie ? ! at 87 minutes it seemed overlong , like a snl skit on steroids , and at any length it seemed unfunny . yes , the sets and costumes were an interesting exaggeration of 60s pop frills , and yes , the concept , dealing with a 60s secret agent/pop icon ( played by myers ) awakened from his cryogenic slumber to battle his arch enemy ( dr . evil , also played by myers ) in the present day , had a great deal of potential . fun costumes and scenery and potential do not a movie make so lets throw in a hefty dose of bathroom humor . don't get me wrong , i like a good " bubbles in the bathtub joke " as much as the next person , but to have this type of humor be the funniest thing about your movie is a waste of yuor talent and my money . but , the way things work these days in the movie business , all a film has to do is call itself the funniest and people will believe it . i do give this film stars because of the sets , costumes , and sadly , unmet potential .
1	i must say from the outset that i have never been much of a kurt russell fan . i've seen some of his films ( silkwood , backdraft , unlawful entry ) and while he gave adequate performances , i have never been impressed with his work . breakdown , then , is something of a surprise . russell gives a fine performance , as do most of the cast , one that is not upstaged by the action orchestrated in the second half of the film . to say that he holds the film together would not be completely true , but he does it no harm . russell plays jeff , one half of a married couple travelling with his wife amy ( kathleen quinlan ) cross country to san diego to start a new job and a new life . while journeying through the desert their car breaks down and , left helpless and stranded , jeff waves down a passing truck driver ( j . t . walsh ) who offers to take them to a nearby diner to call for a tow truck . because of a nasty incident earlier with a couple of ruffians , jeff decides to stay with the car while amy gets help . that , it seems , is the last time jeff ( or anyone else ) sees her . breakdown has been compared to several movies : george sluizer's the vanishing ( the original , hopefully , not his appalling hollywood remake ) , steven spielberg's duel and any number of hitchcock films . as with these , breakdown does not , for the most part , stray down the conventional path of the american action-thriller . jeff does not become a gun-toting vigilante on the hunt for his wife , but instead becomes a scared , confused everyman who has no idea what the hell is going on . when we do find out what has happened to amy , it does come as a slight disappointment , if only because it's too early in the film ; i for one could have done with an extra twenty minutes or so of mystery and bewilderment , but this affects the film little . russell , as mentioned earlier , is very good in his role , and kathleen quinlan is nowhere near as annoying as she was in apollo 13 . j . t . walsh , as the possibly evil truck driver , is terrific ; he is one of the best of the fine batch of character actors hollywood doesn't seem to know what to do with , but director jonathan mostow is on the right track here . the reason he makes such a great villain is that he actually looks like a real person , one anyone would be able to trust , which makes the plot that much more believable . breakdown is what hollywood doesn't make enough of , a great thriller with believable characters and scenes that do , indeed , have viewers on the edge of their seats . one of the most genuinely exciting films i've seen in a long time .
0	when it comes to the average teenage romantic comedy , i expect negative reviews from critics left and right . predictable , unoriginal , and forgettable will most likely be the three adjectives to haunt the down to you's and the drive me crazy's released by the dozens these last couple of years . what i really look for in this kind of movie is the entertainment value while i'm sitting in the theater . am i enjoying myself ? is this a comfortable break from my week of finals ? this is why i have given films like final destination or road trip high marks ; i had a party of a time wasting my money on something i won't remember next week . so last week i opened up the new york times - and , no surprise , boys and girls got a negative review . daily news ? negative . reelviews ? negative . epinions . com ? negative . this was nothing new . american pie , final destination , road trip didn't get such hot reviews and i loved those guilty pleasures . same goes for she's all that , a formulaic but enjoyable pygmalion adaptation that got unjustly pounded . since boys and girls reunites she's all that director robert iscove and actor freddie prinze jr . , i predicted d ? j ? vu al over again . but , still curious , i asked around my school and from the one or two people who had seen it , the reactions were far from positive . i had made up my mind ; i'll catch it on video or cable in a couple of years . but , soon after , following a series of unexpected events ( we couldn't get into shaft because it is rated r ) , i found myself watching boys and girls . whoops . boys and girls is about a " nerdy , smart " boy named ryan ( prinze jr . ) and a " popular , flirt " girl named jennifer ( claire forlani ) . briefly meeting as pre-teens and now attending the same college , the two bump into each other so many times that eventually they become best friends . but in the movies , a male and a female cannot be friends without having that nagging feeling of attraction for each other . with advice from their roommates ( amanda detmer , jason biggs ) , ryan and jennifer attempt to discover the true meaning of their relationship . the film definitely lives up to the dreaded three adjectives - and mindless entertainment is nowhere to be found . i could hardly sit through the 93 minute running time for several reasons . the dialogue is probably the worst i have ever seen in any movie , mainly because the whole movie depends on the boring script and the ridiculous words these characters use is what hollywood thinks kids can relate to . it is almost offensive . an example of an insightful conversation : " you're dumb . dumb , dumb , dumb , dumb . " " no . " ( followed by a mandy moore-esque tune background ) ( well it's not as bad as wing commander i guess ) the supporting cast is also painfully useless . detmer and biggs stand in the way for anything interesting to happen with their own boring , pointless subplots . and although this is supposed to be from both perspectives of the human sex , prinze jr's ryan dominates the screen while forlani's jennifer simply acts as a dilemma for him to work with . we never learn anything about jennifer which is a shame too because forlani is the only actor to bring any life into her character . teenager or not : you'll hate this movie , i guarantee it . maybe i should rent she's all that again . is it really as good as i think it is ?
1	what do you get when you slap together a movie based on a story by the legendary george lucas , directed by virtuoso director steven spielberg , and starring one of the biggest box-office stars in the world , harrison ford ? you get one hot-fudge-rockin' good time , that's what you get ! ! ! plot : professor/archeologist indiana jones sets out to find the long-lost mystical ark of the covenant before the nazis get their grubby fingers hands on it . adventures , snakes , romance and mucho action ensues . critique : astounding movie packed with non-stop action , stunts galore , an interesting story line , great one-liners , a solid cast , a catchy musical score , and all the fun and adventure that you could squeeze into a two-hour thrill ride . if you don't enjoy this film , then you just don't like action movies , period ! if you're young , you'll enjoy its humor , its cool action sequences and its gross-out factor at times . if you're a little older , you'll appreciate the interesting plot line , the romance , and yes , the mountains of adventure . watching this movie made me feel like a kid again , dreaming and fantasizing about fighting the bad guys , travelling to different countries , making the impossible , possible ! harrison ford is perfect as the every-man with the brains of a scientist and the brawn of an outdoors adventurer , and spielberg manages to achieve the ideal balance of action , fun , adventure and humor . now if you really want to have a good time , check into this movie on the same night as its two sequels , rent a jug of iced coke , truckloads of nachos and salsa , an adventure hat and whip , and prepare to gag yourself into a world of action-movie heaven ! little known facts about this film and its stars : this picture was nominated for eight 1981 oscar nominations , including best picture . it lost that award to chariots of fire , but did manage to win for best art direction , best special effects , best film editing and best sound . actor tom selleck was originally cast as indiana jones , but was committed to his hit tv show , " magnum p . i . " . in filming the well of souls sequence , the producers scoured every pet shop in london and the south of england for every snake they could lay their hands on . hence there are snakes that are identifiable from many different geographical areas . however , once all the snakes were on set , it became clear that there were not nearly enough of them , so spielberg had several hoses cut into lengths , and these were used as well . looking closely , you can tell which are the real snakes and which are not . an early draft of the script had indy travelling to shanghai to recover a piece of the staff of ra . during his escape from the museum where it was housed , he sheltered from machine gun fire behind a giant rolling gong . also in the same script , indy and marion flee the chaos caused by the opening of the ark in a wild mine-cart chase sequence . both of these scenes were cut from the script , but ended up in 1984's indiana jones and the temple of doom . this film begins with a shot of a peak in the jungle which is reminiscent of the paramount pictures logo . the same type of opening is present in its sequels . jock's airplane at the beginning of the film has the registration number " ob-cpo " . this is a reference to obi-wan and c-3po from george lucas' star wars ( 9 . 5/10 ) . also , the hieroglyphics in the well of souls include engravings of r2-d2 and c-3po . they can be seen on a post to the right of indy and sallah as they remove the ark . the script originally included a long fight between a swordsman and indiana with his whip . as legend has it , actor harrison ford was suffering diarrhea at the time , and asked if the scene could be shortened . spielberg said the only way he could shorten it was if indy pulled out his gun and just shot the guy . the entire crew laughed and that's how it was filmed . when indy first falls in the well of souls and is face to face with the cobra , you can see the snake's reflection on the glass dividing it and harrison ford , also some fingerprints and stuff like that . when indy is dragging along the ground , hanging onto the nazi soldier's truck with the ark inside , you can see the pad that he's being dragged on .
1	all great things come to an end , and the dot-com era embodies that perfectly . beneath a mound of bankruptcy paperwork lies the remains of a former dot-com darling , the company kozmo . com , an online convenience store stocked with ice cream , porn videos , and other basic necessities of a urban dweller , all hand-delivered by couriers within an hour . designed in 1997 by two college roommates -- joseph parks , a 27 year old goldman sachs banker , and yong kang - kozmo flamed out in three short years , raising more than $280 million in venture capital funding and from partnerships with such bigwigs as starbucks and amazon . com . by december 1999 , the company boasted 4 , 000 employees in 11 cities , its barking ceo park attracting all kinds of media attention . the company was set for an ipo in may 2000 . . . until april 14 , 2000 , the day the stock market took its first big dive , ending the internet era . by april 13 , 2001 , kozmo was out of money and ceased operations . unlike the earlier , similar documentary startup . com , which chronicled the rise and fall of another dot-com , govworks , e-dreams focuses both on its original founders , especially park , and on the common folks that ran the day-to-day operations . the contrast is amazing , showing how a cult persona can convince anyone that any idea is the next big thing . the film's director , wonsuk chin ( too tired to die ) , expertly juxtaposes upper management company meetings with on-the-spot interviews with the bike messengers , general managers , and floor staff that kept kozmo humming . the film's images give a backbone to the company and provide an emotional edge to its ultimate demise . the most satisfying part of the film comes in understanding , to a degree , the expectations of numerous ceos commanding these titanic-type businesses . in the film's final interviews with park , we learn what happens when the money dries up and backers don't return phone calls . in the end , the name of the game was profit , and if you couldn't make money , even the dreamers got the axe . screened at the 24th annual mill valley film festival .
1	towards the middle of " the sweet hereafter , " a crowded school bus skids on an icy road surface as it rounds a bend , careens through the steel guard rail , and disappears out of sight . then , in long shot , we see the vehicle slowly sliding across what looks like a snow-covered field . it pauses for a moment before the " field " cracks under the bus' weight and the bright yellow vehicle vanishes in an effortless moment , a single smooth second of time . compare that scene , if you will , to the last eighty minutes of " titanic , " when the behemoth sinks slowly and spectacularly to its watery demise , and you'll appreciate the futility of comparing greatness in films . the scene in " the sweet hereafter " epitomizes all that's right with independent canadian director atom egoyan's film . it's not sensational . we don't see the inside of the bus with its payload of screaming , terrified children being bloodied and battered about . the bus doesn't explode or break into a thousand tiny pieces . it simply leaves the road and silently slips beneath the surface of a frozen lake . it's a horrifying sequence made all the more so by calm and distance . using a non-linear approach to his narrative , egoyan shifts back and forward in time , connecting us with the inhabitants of the small british columbian town who have been severely affected by this tragedy . fourteen children died in the accident , leaving their parents and the town itself paralyzed with grief . the catalyst at the center of the film is ambulance chaser mitchell stephens ( a wonderfully moving performance by ian holm ) , who comes to sam dent to persuade the townsfolk to engage in a class action suit . stephens , who " doesn't believe in accidents , " functions as a concerned , involved observer , scribbling details in his notebook and providing the parents with an opportunity to reach some kind of closure in the harrowing aftermath . while stephens' initial drive may be financial ( one third of the total settlement if he wins ) , his involvement provides him more with an outlet to come to grips with his own loss . his self-destructive , drug-addicted daughter has been in and out of clinics , halfway houses and detox units for years . egoyan's attention to detail and ability to establish mood are so impeccable that even the sound of a kettle boiling resonates like a plaintive cry . mychael danna , who composed the shimmering music for " the ice storm , " contributes another memorable score that shivers and tingles . equally impressive is paul sarossy's cinematography , capturing the imposing canadian mountainsides and low-hanging fogs as splendidly as his shadowy interiors--in one scene a bright wall calendar serves to illuminate portions of a room . " the sweet hereafter , " while undeniably grim , urges the viewer to grab onto life with both hands and not let go . it's a film of generous subtlety and emotion .
0	i had an epiphany today . it occurred to me while i was watching " house on haunted hill . " it is as follows : if a trailer makes the film it's advertising look like a trashy , stupid movie , well guess what ? chances are , there * is * truth in advertising . too bad i didn't trust my own instincts when something-or-the-other possessed me to see this movie . i blame it on my sudden craving for a scare and my anticipation of " sleepy hollow . " that and " dogma " started too late in the afternoon for my schedule . an hour of " angel " or " buffy " is scarier than this doozy that tries to be scary and shtick but falls flat on its face . i wish i'd seen it when it was halloween . at least i would have been forgiving . hey , tis the season . the movie was scary ( albeit very confusing , dizzying , and nauseating ) at first , but soon the horror got repetitive and downright laughable because the film obviously wasn't going anywhere . now i truly appreciate films like " scream , " " halloween , " or any old hitchcock film where the scariness stems from situations that are at least somewhat realistic . that's what spooks people out , the fact that it could happen to them or someone they know . there has to be a logical precedent for the situations they want to scare us with . sure , utterly unpredictable is good , too , but that's different from utterly nonsensical . hohh ( house on haunted hill ) , on the other hand . . . well let's just say i about fell off my chair laughing when they oh-so-cleverly revealed that everyone who got invited to the party was related to the psycho doctors who died in the house a couple of decades ago . riiiiight . y'know , that just sends chills down my spine . yeah . just like i wet my pants when they told me the house is evil . ooooooo . hint : blood and guts only work a few times . sooner or later people start to tell themselves that it's just ketchup and props and you've got to come up with something better than that . there were just too many things in this movie that we've all seen before ; from the inevitable " plot developments " of strangers unwittingly trapped together ; strangers turning against each other ; the evil manifesting itself ; the dead coming back for a last scare . each was more predictable than the last . why didn't these fools just stay together in one place anyways ? sheesh . was i grossed out ? yes . did i get spooked a few times ? yes . but why ? i get really disturbed when there is no why . when there weren't random scares that were there for no other reason than for the visual effect ( which wasn't that good either , trust me ) and the scare , the film was filled with drab , laughable dialogue . the characters were incredibly flat and cliched . not to mention downright annoying . you've got a bunch of people going nowhere in their lives ; of course they're dumb enough to go to a party some stranger invited them to provided they win a million dollars if they survive the night . jeez , i thought no one fell for those " you may already be a winner " things anymore . and of course , all three gals are babes . i wonder how on earth the geoffrey rush of " shine " ended up in this movie . keep that up , geoff , and you'll qualify for the next batman venture . the only single person i enjoyed was chris kattan because , well , he just cracks me up . and famke jansen ( sp ? ) because she reminds me of the delectable brosnan . pierce brosnan ( hey , i willingly endured " dante's peak " three times for him : ) . all right , i concede . there were a couple of things i enjoyed . that perverted little amusement park at the beginning . i probably won't ride a rollercoaster for a while . and the machine they used to drive geoffrey's character mad ( see , i don't even remember their names ) . the machine , not that stupid fishtank with naked wimmin in it . i kept waiting and waiting for that inevitable twist at the end of the movie . it wouldn't have redeemed the film , but at least it would have made me feel better . but no , they opted for the beautiful sunrise ending . thank god they didn't add a kiss at the end or i would have puked . god , there is no hope .
1	garry shandling makes his long overdue starring film debut as an alien from a planet populated only by genetically created men , who are looking to take over the earth by propagating their own species there . shandling is chosen for the mission , is given the name harold anderson , and is set up as a banker in seattle . after a few disastrous " mating " attempts , he figures his best bet will be susan ( annette bening ) , a former alcoholic who eventually tells harold that she won't have sex again until she gets married . the leader of harold's planet ( ben kingsley ) tells him to marry her , and harold is soon exposed to all the " joys " of married life . despite its title and premise which seem to imply that this is some jerry lewis vehicle from the late 1960s , what planet are you from ? is a very funny movie . the plot ( which the film wisely doesn't linger on the specifics of for too long ) is of course nothing more than framework for the jokes , most of which work very well . the material may be considered crude and tasteless by many , and i might have thought so as well had shandling not been the lead . but he brings a sort of pathetic charm to the role , and it's his performance that makes the film truly funny instead of just offensive . plus if you think about it , what planet are you from ? could have very easily gone the gross-out route ( considering that shandling's character is given a detachable penis that vibrates and hums when he gets excited ) . we never see anything though , it's all implied , which gives the film a touch of class amidst its crudeness . i'm glad to see that someone in hollywood still understands the concept of " less is more " . the talented supporting cast certainly adds to one's enjoyment of this film . annette bening ( oddly playing a merged version of her real estate salesman character from american beauty and her ditzy spiritualist character from mars attacks ! ) does a fine job keeping up with shandling and makes a good catalyst for his brand of humor . she even manages to pull off a potentially disastrous scene where she has to perform a rather goofy rendition of " high hopes " for a lengthy period of time . ben kingsley , john goodman and greg kinnear all fare well in their performances as well , and linda fiorentino . . . good lord , there should be some sort of law stating that no woman can be that sexy . everything about her character in this film oozes raw sexuality . what planet are you from ? is available on dvd from columbia tristar home video . the disc gives you the choice of either watching the film full frame or in its original theatrical aspect ratio of 1 . 85 : 1 ( and enhanced for 16x9 televisions . also included on the disc as extras : a decent making-of featurette , an isolated score track , talent files for the cast and crew , and the film's original theatrical trailer ( as well as trailers for wolf , men in black , bugsy and as good as it gets ) . when i first saw that the disc featured an isolated score track , i actually laughed . how great could the music for a silly little comedy be for it to get it's own isolated track ? well as it turns out , it's a mighty fine score from carter burwell ( fargo , the hudsucker proxy ) that i enjoyed listening to again while i typed up this review . kudos to columbia tristar for adding that feature to the disc . what planet are your from ? was unjustly ignored in theaters , and i hope it finds its deserved audience on home video . this fine dvd is certainly a great way to see it . [r]
1	the 1990s produced two brilliant science fiction films . one was _gattaca_ . the other was _the thirteenth floor_ . just as _gattaca_ was overshadowed by the mighty _titanic_ , _the thirteenth floor_ was relegated to obscurity by _the matrix_ . however , _the thirteeth floor_ , though it deals with similar themes , is a much better movie than the frenetic , childish and improbable _matrix_ . a cutting edge computer scientist , hannon fuller ( played by the charming armin mueller-stahl ) , is murdered . his associate , douglas hall , ( craig bierko ) apparently framed and suspected by the police , enters into the simulated world they have created in order to unravel the mystery . along the way a beautiful blonde ( gretchen mol ) , more bodies , and a deepening mystery about simulated worlds complicate the picture . _the thirteenth floor_ unfolds slowly and telegraphs its punches , choosing to elicit the more complex emotional response of empathy and anticipation rather than the cheap one of mere surprise . the result is a movie that is a failure from two conventional points of view . first , its plot revelations can be foreseen if one has carefully followed its complex storyline . second and more seriously , it demands that its audience think and feel . no wonder it fell through the cracks . done in film noir style as a murder mystery , this is a relatively deep movie that functions on several levels . many audiences will simply be bewildered by it , rather than engaged , which is a shame , because this movie amply repays a little emotional and intellectual investment . i recommend a second viewing simply to get the flavor of the frequent ironic foreshadowing in the opening parts of the movie . despite its philosophical challenges , _the thirteenth floor_ derives its emotional force from the love story between jane fuller ( mol ) and douglas hall ( bierko ) , as well as the close friendship between douglas hall and hannon fuller . in that sense it is more akin to _gattaca_ than _the matrix_ , which , for all of its cute philosophical byplay , is an adolescent movie with no emotional depth whatsoever . the moment when jane fuller confesses her love for douglas hall is at once satisfying , wrenching and intellectually challenging . in its final moments the film even takes on itself , when david , jane's husband , who has come to enjoy killing , accuses her of being the sick one . although there is a victory for the leading characters , this resolution suggests a disturbing element of fantasy in jane , and thus a deep-seated character flaw . in fact , hannon fuller's activities in the simulated world , the behavior of jane's husband , and the effects of entering the simulation on douglas hall all hint at similar issues with those characters . this is not a film of good people beset from without by great evil . the tragedy is not in their stars , but in themselves . the major actors , all of whom are required to play two or even three roles , perform extremely well . bierko , who will be familiar as the psycho from _the long kiss goodnight_ , is outstanding . d'onofrio as whitney , who plays a pivotal role in support , also turns in a good performance . the lovely gretchen mol , whose elegance , integrity , and determination suggest bergman in _casablanca_ , does a wonderful job . her voice , however , lacks the necessary weight at times . this could be because she was given the worst lines in a movie whose major weakness is the script . some minor flaws , hairline cracks in fine porcelain , appear in places . there are one or two instances of jerky editing . the script takes the edge off the film's climaxes . the atmosphere becomes too claustrophobic at times ( yet , there is a clue there too ) . one wonders if even after two decades , _blade runner_ is still casting its long shadow over sci-fi films . one can see a group of suits in their suite , waving their hands imperiously at directors like the emperor in _amadeus_ : " make it more like_blade runner_ , you know , dark and rainy . " _the thirteen floor_ is that rare exception among hollywood movies : a , rich , emotionally satisfying , intelligent sci-fi movie . and yet , ultimately , it proves the suits right . for when good sci-fi is made , where is the sf community turning out in droves to see it ? if we don't support great sf , who will ?
0	warner brothers ; rated pg-13 ( mild violence , sexual situations ) ; 132 minutes director : luis mandoki screenplay : gerald di pego ( from the novel by nicholas sparks ) cast : kevin costner , robin wright-penn , paul newman , illeana douglas , robbie coltrane , jesse james , john savage . review by : geoff berkshire i'm not an overly cynical guy . there have been many glossy hollywood romances that have carried me away with their romanticism over the years . however , i have my limits and i also have standards . this brings us to the subject at hand : message in a bottle , the big ticket romance that warner brothers' unleashed upon the movie going public just in time for valentine's day . the story , what little of it that there is , involves boring chicago tribune reporter theresa osborne ( robin wright-penn ) dealing with her recent divorce and trying to raise her young son jason ( jesse james ) . during a brief stay somewhere in new england she finds the titular message in a bottle while on a morning run by the ocean . the letter , written to a mystery woman named catherine , instantly captivates her . upon her return , theresa shares it with her best friend lina ( illeana douglas ) , her boss charlie ( robbie coltrane ) , and the entire city of chicago ( the newspaper publishes an article about it ) . it turns out that the message was written by grieving widower garret blake ( kevin costner ) and so theresa travels to north carolina and tracks him down . he turns out to have a colorful father ( paul newman ) but is otherwise perfectly dull and overly obsessed with sailing . this is somehow attractive to theresa and the two begin their awkward courtship . of course she doesn't tell him that she found his letter , she wants to but the rules of this type of film require him to find out later ( preferably right after they first make love ) . this way garret can get very angry and the relationship can be threatened . the discovery of the message and garret's discovery that theresa discovered the message are really the only two noteworthy events that happen during the nearly two and a quarter hour running time of this film . there's a truly lame subplot about garret's relationship with his dead wife's family ( he gets into a bar fight with her brother , played by john savage ) and then the necessary tear-jerking ending . a fun way to pass the time is to take bets on exactly who will die , although it becomes pretty clear by the second reel . the actual death sequence is one of the most ridiculously forced , and unintentionally humorous , sequences filmed since . . . well , since costner's the postman ( 1997 ) . message in a bottle is one slow moving film . last year audiences were offered endurance tests such as the horse whisperer and meet joe black but both of those films resemble jerry bruckheimer productions next to this . they also had redeeming qualities in the form of quality performances and some stand out technical work . message in a bottle has a decent enough cast but they're fighting the material all the way , and losing badly . costner and , especially , wright-penn are both likable and attractive enough to cheer for but their characters are simply too boring . they also fail to generate any kind of real romantic chemistry . the supporting players are given very little to do . the reliable douglas is particularly wasted . old pro newman gives his all and occasionally threatens to kick some life into this dead horse of a film . a confrontational scene he has with costner near the end is especially well played . however , too frequently he just reminds us how unexciting our lead characters are . the film is very polished on the technical side to be sure but it only works to undercut the story . gabriel yared , who previously set the romantic moods of the english patient ( 1996 ) and city of angels ( 1998 ) with his scores , overdoes it a bit here . caleb deschanel's camera makes everything look a little too beautiful . do the offices of the chicago tribune really need to look heavenly ? the editing by steven weisberg is troubling not only considering all that could have been cut out but is also simply messy at times . the real offender here is screenwriter gerald di pego . working from a best- selling novel by nicholas sparks ( which i have not read but have been told is on the same literary level as the bridges of madison county ) , di pego creates one of the most uninspired scripts of recent times . its strict adherence to clich ? s brings to mind such disasters as i still know what you did last summer ( 1998 ) . there simply isn't an original scene in this film . the dialogue is rarely better than laughable and this is only accentuated by the excessively long pauses every character takes while speaking . this is director mandoki's first film since when a man loves a woman ( 1994 ) , the solid meg ryan/andy garcia romance . he's simply going through the motions with this . message in a bottle is easily the worst of the several romantic offerings available in theaters at the moment and vies with what dreams may come ( 1998 ) as one of the most misguided romances of the decade .
1	capsule : this is a harrowing look at a rarely dramatized chapter of wwii , life in a japanese prison camp . to end all wars is a moving film about the struggle of prisoners to retain their humanity and their dignity . the somewhat religious interpretation may not be to everyone's taste . , +3 ( -4 to +4 ) more than any other people the japanese seem capable of acting with one goal and not letting any other consideration get in their way . this may be a holdover from the code of bushido when loyalty to ones master was the only law . during world war ii , of course , the one goal was winning the war . this led them to do some very inhuman things in pursuit of that goal . when the japanese had captured prisoners , they were very much treated in whatever way would be optimum for achieving the one goal . minimum resources were to be spent in maintaining prisoners in keeping with maximal positive output . while the germans , not known for their kindness in those days , had a 6% mortality rate among captured prisoners of war , the mortality rate of japanese prisoners of war was 27% . the best thing for the war effort was working prisoners nearly to death on the thailand to burma railroad . that railroad was needed if japan was to attack india as it planned to do . the best thing for the effort was not to waste much food on the prisoners so short and amazingly wretched food was the order of the day . and just being in the jungle without proper medical aid took its toll . in the public mind japan has never been held as accountable for war atrocities as was germany . filmmakers have been reticent to tell the story , perhaps for fear of offending the japanese . there are comparatively few films about the japanese pow camps . certainly there was david lean's the bridge on the river kwai . there were some low-budget british exploitation films and that was about it . then there were tv series " a town like alice " and " tenko . " lest the experience be forgotten we have a new film to end all wars directed by david cunningham and written by brian godawa . it is based on the account of ernest gordan who survived the horror of that world war ii prison camp and went on to become for 26 years the dean of the chapel at princeton university . the film while realistic shows the conditions in the camp as being considerably more brutal and sadistic than bridge on the river kwai portrayed them . the story opens with six or so soldiers being marched into the prison camp only to be immediately placed in front of a firing squad . it turns out to be a grim joke , one of many that the sadistic japanese play to amuse themselves . beating and torture are commonplace events . men already imprisoned tell the new arrivals to enjoy the last of their health ; it will not last long with parasites and disease almost inevitable . however , unlike as in kwai , the prisoners want to avoid going to the hospital , called by the prisoners the death house . so goes a war within a war with the prisoners trying to maintain their humanity and with the japanese trying to make them interchangeable and highly expendable cogs in a rail-laying machine . this is more than just a battle of who will win the war but a battle of ideologies . the japanese believe that the individual is nothing , that conformity to group's norms is all that gives a life meaning . conformity is purpose . before the film is over there will be some surprising revelations about the character of the prisoners and the character of those running the camp . if this story showed nothing but sadism from the japanese it would be one kind of story . if the british ( with one american , by the way ) and the japanese learned to respect each other it would be another kind of story . it is neither . it is a stirring and believable account of camp life . the color has been distorted in the film to give a washed out yellow . this serves a double purpose for cunningham . it gives an effect of technicolor film that has been left in heat . it also creates a distancing effect . the only touch that seems a little out of place is the use of gaelic music . this is a powerful and philosophical view of the prison camp experience . i rate it a 9 on the 0 to 10 scale and a +3 on the -4 to +4 scale .
0	all right , all right , we get the point : despite all similarities to the best-selling story , speechless is * not * based on the romance between 1992 presidential campaign rivals james carville and mary matalin . in fact , the script was in development well before 1992 . still , the comparisons are inevitable , until one realizes a critical difference . no , it's not that the speechless twosome are speech writers , not campaign managers ; it's that carville and matalin's story is actually interesting . speechless is a limp , poorly structured would-be romantic comedy . speechless is set during a new mexico senatorial campaign , where kevin vallick ( michael keaton ) and julia mann ( geena davis ) meet and get romantic one night when neither one can sleep . what neither one realizes is that they are on opposite sides of the campaign : kevin is a sit-com writer brought in to punch up the republican candidate's speeches , while julia is the chief speech writer for the democratic candidate . at first each one believes that the other has an ulterior motive for the relationship , but eventually they let down their guard and become closer . but there are plent of obstacles in the way , including julia's stud-reporter fiance ( christopher reeve ) and a series of stunts which continue to prove that all's fair in love and politics . the standard formula for a movie like speechless would have the two principles starting out as antagonists and realizing only at the end that they're crazy about each other . screenwriter robert king completely subverts expectations by throwing kevin and julia into each other's arms in the first fifteen minutes , then developing the antagonism . it's a noble attempt to shake things up , but unfortunately it just doesn't work . part of the fun of watching sparring in a romantic comedy comes from recognizing the chemistry even before the characters do , but in speechless they already know they're attracted to each other , and we're left with waiting for the campaign to end so they'll admit that they love each other already . there is such a herky-jerky feel to the constant bickering and making up that even king's sharp dialogue can't prevent speechless from becoming repetitive after about half an hour . inconsistency is also the defining characteristic of the performances of geena davis and michael keaton , and with those performances most of their scenes together . the problems begin with their initial courtship , which does virtually nothing to establish julia's character and merely establishes that kevin is a wise-ass . davis is radiantly beautiful , and keaton is generally entertaining , but these characters are so plastic that nothing that happens to them seems to matter one bit . in a couple of scenes , like a quiet moment sitting at a fountain , they actually achieve some measure of connection . for the most part , however , they're just actors spouting lines . you keep waiting for a little spark , and it never happens . perhaps most disappointing is that king and director ron underwood completely waste their premise by removing all the punch from speechless's politics . the setting seems perfect for a high- energy battle of the sexes with partisanship thrown into the mix , but that's never the tone that underwood is going for . he wants a warm , fuzzy romance compatible with marc shaiman's flute-and-wind musical score , and the campaign which should have defined the conflict between kevin and julia fades into the background . it might as well have been a story about rival grocers , and every single character is about as uninspired as he or she could possibly be . i was about the only reviewer in the civilized world who seemed to enjoy robert king's previous screenplay , the dana carvey flop clean slate , so i had some hopes for speechless . but while there is wit in the words , this is a script which was probably much better on paper . on screen , it's still paper thin .
1	the reunion film is not an original idea in any way , shape , or form . it's been done throughout film history over and over again , and has become one of the many sub-genres , like the prep school sub-genre , the angst-filled teen sub-genre , and the slasher sub-genre . what makes " peter's friends " so remarkable is not how it doesn't follow the rules of this sub-genre , but how it follows it so well , and creates characters that i wouldn't mind hanging with . what are the rules of the reunion sub-genre ? well . . . . 1 . you need a group of friends , most of them married or at least dating , and sometimes even married or dating eachother . 2 . you need to have them brought back together over some sort of a crisis . 3 . they are not to have spoken together much since they split apart . 4 . the reunion has to come in intervals divisible by 10 . 5 . they all have to be slightly to highly neurotic . 6 . the reunion has to bring them together , seperate them with little crises , then bring them back together because , after all , they're friends . 7 . there has to be some sex or at least some making out either between the friends or with other people that are there or were invited . 8 . eightly , they're all unhappy or marginally so . 9 . there's some sort of sexual tension amongst some of them that's built up over the years . 10 . the friends are all wildly successful in the world of entertainment and the arts , sometimes internationally so . 11 . the film is filled with nostalgic radio hits from the time when they were friends , sometimes causing them to get together in dance/song . since it follows these rules so closely , it will probably be ( and has been ) coined off as just a " british 'big chill . ' " and in some ways it is . both follow the rules , as i said , and both feature lots of bitching , big confessionals , and broken relationships . but while " the big chill " was , at least to me , a tad too whiny and unsatisfying , " peter's friends " hits its mark , making this film funny , dramatic , and poignant . the friends of peter's were all in the same theatre group back in '82 , performig wildly outrageous british acts for people far too stuck up to enjoy them ( the opening scene has them all dancing in tux tops and tutus ) . after peter's ( stephen fry ) wealthy father ( richard briers , hardly on screen enough to register , but oh well ) dies , leaving a giant mansion to him , he has to decide whether or not to keep it . not sure what to do with it immeadiately , he decides to throw a giant reunion party , inviting back all his old chums . of course , all or most of his chums follow the tenth rule . andrew ( kenneth branagh , also directing here ) is an actor who's unhappily married to a tv star , carol ( co-writer rita rudner ) . maggie ( emma thompson ) is a successfuly publisher of self-help books , but looks like she needs them more than her customers , as she is lonely and unhappy . roger and mary ( hugh laurie and imelda staunton , who were also married in " sense and sensibility " ) are married , and are the most successful creators of jingles in the uk , but have suffered a tragedy as one of their newly born twins has recently died . and sarah ( alphonsia emmanuel ) is as promiscuous as ever , having a new boyfriend as of two weeks named brian ( tony slattery ) who's married and wants a divorce because of her , giving her doubts . as for peter , things seem okay . . . the film features lots of inner-friend jokes , and even some old theatre anecdotes ( which i at least find a lot of fun in , as i've done lots of theatre myself ) . and there are big confessions , brawls between the friends , and by the end , almost everyone is unhappy , even though some have resolved their problems long before the end ( which i kinda dug ) . the final twist would seem forced an anti-climactic , but for some reason , i felt the same way the rest of the friends did . maybe it's because the people in this film are so likable that i just wanted to join their clique . that's really what makes " peter's friends " so lovable : the way you just want to hang with a group of friends who can be so dysfuntional sometimes , but when someone's in crisis , can come together wonderfully for one another . it's when you have a giant crisis like this and people want to selflessly help you out instead of subtely pushing you away that makes you realize you have true friends , and these people are true friends . not to mention kenneth branagh is able to make the film seem nostalgic for the 80s ( a decade i grew up in , unfortunately ) without taking us outside of the 90s . there are some 80s classics and anti-classics like tears for fears " everybody wants to rule the world , " but unfortunately no stupid/fun 80s songs ( i think if i ever did an 80s reunion film , i'd put some crap go gos song on , or at least some good old " come on eileen " ) , but this is the british 80s we're talking about . oh well . but anyway , the direction is pretty good , although nothing amazing . branagh's forte is really making shakespeare fresh and magical , but at least he's very good with making a less ambiguous film like this . the writing is good from rita rudner and martin bregman , with lots of good one-liners , and even some really bad but good puns ( to mock the fact that andrew lives in l . a . , peter , while cutting some logs , asks him is he has wood in l . a . , and andrew says , " no , but we have hollywood " - punishment like that ) . the actors , as in most speaking movies , are better than their material , though , with some stand-out performances to the six friends , as well as the outsiders like slattery , rudner , and phyllida law as the old housekeeper of the peter's mansion . a little note should be made about hugh laurie's performance , as he looks like he took some massive doses of prozac before doing this - i mean , i've never seen him actually act this dramatically . " peter's friends " is a really enjoyable film which makes people like me pine for some sort of future reunion , although i don't know what kind i'll have ( like most people , i don't look forward to my high school reunion ) . because of the way these friends are still able to maintain the same amount of care they have for one another and after such a long period of seperation , i just look forward to the day when i can have friends like that .
1	" footloose " has only one goal in mind : to reel in an audience with cheesy sentiment and feel-good antics . and i hate to admit it ; i fell for it . the movie is about a teenager ( bacon ) who moves to a small town from the big city , and discovers that dancing has been banned by the local reverend ( lithgow ) . he ends up falling for the preacher's daughter ( singer ) and showing the whole town what the magic of dance can do . as mentioned at the beginning of this review , " footloose " is an extremely hokey and predictable teen drama . there are virtually no surprises , and the writing is second-rate . so why did i enjoy it so much ? for one thing , the cast is great . kevin bacon oozes charisma in an early role . we're rooting for him right from the start , and , unlike most films of this genre , bacon doesn't play him as the " rebel without a clue " sort . yes , he does rebel , but he's also polite when he needs to be . and he never broods . the rest of the cast is equally impressive . john lithgow , seen here playing a normal guy for a change , is playing a man who would normally be a flat out villian . but lithgow plays him as a concerned father who is trying to do what he feels is best for his daughter . by the end of the film , we feel a genuine sense of love and understanding between him and the lori singer character . another nice touch is the music . we see the parents of the kids complaining that the music they listen to is filled with " sexual innuendos " , but that's not true at all . the title track , performed by kenny loggins , is upbeat and fun . during the final sequence , i was overcome with the urge to get off the couch and start dancing . of course , i soon realized that would be a little pathetic . anyway , " footloose " is a charming little surprise . don't let the premise prevent you from watching it . it sucked me in , and it'll do the same to you .
1	it was with great trepidation that i approached +mary+ , the farrelly brothers+ latest film . i knew the film would be funny--the trailer alone had me laugh harder than the actual comedy i went to see . but i also knew the film would be an equal-opportunity offender , attacking the sensibilities of the politically correct with reckless abandon . i figured the film would be raunchy , maybe another lucky escapee from nc-17 hell . i may laugh , but would i feel better in the morning ? i needn+t have worried . +mary+ is the sweetest , warmest , all-out laugh-and-grossfest this side of _animal house_ . surprisingly , the farrelly brothers have walked that very tight line of making a touching romantic comedy on the side , and filling the details with five or six outrageous howlers . they make laughter , the toughest job for a filmmaker to do , look easy . the plot is typical . thirteen years ago , geeky ted ( ben stiller ) lucked out in having dazzling mary ( cameron diaz ) go with him to the senior prom . as luck would have it , on that very day , he was hospitalized . why , i shall not tell , but i assure you , it isn+t pretty . he hires a private investigator to find her : pat healy ( matt dillon ) . he becomes one of the great comic villains . upon finding her , he too is lovestruck , and so pursues her , lying about his occupation and getting his teeth capped . it is only a matter of time before ted finds out that he had been double-crossed , and goes to get her for himself . would the geek get the girl ? puh-lease . the ending is pure hollywood ; no surprises there . but the absolute joy in this film is how this simple premise allows for humor in zippers , hair gel , the mentally disabled , the physically handicapped , interracial marriages , homosexuals , skin conditions , serial killers , tanning , and drugged-up dogs . the dog on speed sequence alone is worth the price of admission , and belongs in the film comedy hall of fame . and yet , for all the targets that are hit , the film maintains its sweet tone . mary , playing the straight role , is as sweet and caring as she is beautiful . she is totally devoted to caring for her mentally handicapped brother , warren ( w . earl brown--miles away from the cameraman in _scream_ ) . mary+s sunniness carries the film here--it compliments the below-belt gags that come at you . cameron diaz makes her totally charming , and the audience respects her , even though women in general do not usually undress before an open window . ben stiller also fares very well , totally changing his image from his _reality bites_ and _flirting with disaster_ straight men to being a , ( how to say it ? ) , a complete loser . braces , greasy long hair , not too bright , and very very funny . dillon is exceptionally creepy , especially with his capped teeth . and rounding out the cast is ted+s friend dom ( chris elliot ) , tanning addict magda ( lin shaye ) , modern troubador/greek chorus ron lichman , and mary+s sweet mom , markie post ( where has she been ? ! ) . not everything works . chris elliot+s role , skin blemishes and all , becomes merely tasteless and boring . there+s lousy dialogue about eight-minute vs . seven minute exercise tapes . and there are long stretches without much going on . but the wait is worth it . when those extraordinary sequences hit , the entire theater erupted with howls , tears . belly-aches , that in some sequences carried over to the following scene . the farrelly brothers have finally done it . yes , there are some raunchy bits , but when it is all over , it+s not nearly as bad as it could have been . while tasteless , it didn+t cross any lines , at least not with me . while raunchy , it wasn+t nearly as bad as _porky+s_ or _boogie nights_ . and it is sweet enough to be considered a date flick . after the funny but sour _kingpin_ left a negative aftertaste in my palate , comes the funniest sex farce since _a fish called wanda_ . approach this with an open mind , and you will reap the benefits hugely .
1	no film in recent has left me with such conflicted feelings as neil jordan's harrowing , humorous , horrifying adaptation of patrick mccabe's novel about young lad francie brady's ( eamonn owens ) descent into madness in 1960s ireland . on one hand , it was difficult for me to become invested in francie's story because he is such an unsavory character , unjustifyably venting his rage at his nosy but otherwise harmless neighbor mrs . nugent ( fiona shaw ) . on another hand , i found it difficult to laugh at some of francie's darkly comic shenanigans because he obviously is such a sick , needy child , having been raised by a drunken father ( stephen rea ) and a suicidal mother ( aisling o'sullivan ) . on yet another hand , i also found it difficult to completely sympathize with francie during his more emotional scenes because some of his , for lack of a better word , " bad " deeds are so incredibly shocking in their brutality and the malicious glee in which he performs them . however , the butcher boy's power is undeniable , and the film as a whole is unforgettable--perhaps because it is so disturbing . what makes it so unsettling is the francie's overall wink-wink yet matter-of-fact attitude about everything , expressed in a cheeky voiceover narration delivered by the adult francie ( rea again ) . think heavenly creatures played largely for laughs , and you'll sort of understand . anchoring the whole film is the astonishing debut performance of owens ; love francie or hate him , you cannot take your eyes off of owens . the butcher boy truly is a twisted , unusual film that is bound to make just about anyone uncomfortable . in the lobby after the screening , i overheard one man raving about how great yet disturbing it was ; i also heard one particularly offended woman say with disgust , " that movie was so unfunny ! " " i didn't know what to expect . it's like something you chase for so long , but then you don't know how to react when you get it . i still don't know how to react . " --michael jordan , on winning his first nba championship in 1991 . . . or , my thoughts after meeting him on november 21 , 1997
1	tbwp is probably the single most profitable film ever . not surprising , considering its tiny us$100 , 000 budget , to date it has earned in excess of us$130 million . that's a shocking 100 times profit ! rumours have it that a smart internet `marketing' ploy was so successful in gaining cult-like fanatics , by word of mouth coupled with strings of excellent reviews , the film just exploded in the box-office , raking in millions on its opening weekend . shot in 16mm and video ( i suspect . ) , the film chronicles the forays of 3 students who go in search for the legendary blair witch . audiences are put in the first-person perspective in the entire mis-adventure , often wobbly and blurry at times , it takes a bit of getting used to in the beginning . this is supposed to be the material they discovered in the woods where the 3 disappeared ; edited and put onto the screen for the benefit of our audiences . tbwp is simply smart . filmed to look as if it was really a stock-shoot by a bunch of students in search of the blair witch as a school project , one may suspect ( like yours truly ) that its simply a lazy but smart approach to film-making . simply amazing in that respect , i must say . talk about impact , oh yes , tbwp does have quite a bit , in fact most audience will find it deeply disturbing . i did , especially the last bit but i'm not revealing more . you have to see it for yourself . i can't help but feel a tad cheated after knowing how commercially successful this film has become . could it be that finally , an indie-film has unwittingly found a formula for commercial appeal ? or was it all simply a ploy by the big players right from the beginning ? well , i guess the fact stays ; tbwp is highly original , clever and will most definitely leave most with something dreadful to talk and think about for weeks prior to watching this film . no gore , no special effects , i just can't get over how terribly smart this film is !
1	available for rental - october 12 , 1999 10 things i hate about you is an update of the classic play , the taming of the shrew . that said , drop any pre-conceived notions of what shakespeare's work is supposed to be like and welcome yourself to padua high school , home of a student counselor ( allison janney ) who obsesses over the male penis ; a slightly too hip and racist african-american english teacher ( daryl mitchell ) ; a new kid named cameron ( joseph gordon-levitt ) ; a model named joey ( andrew keegan ) , the subject of cameron and joey's crushes ; bianca ( larisa oleynik ) ; and bianca's sister - the shrew ( julia stiles in a marvelous performance ) - whose name is katarina , kat for short . with movies about high schools similar to these running through projectors like water down the nile , it would be quite easy to write off 10 things i hate about you as just another doltish comedic-romance . yet , you must realize that the story is timeless , and a few hundred years later it is equally as witty and comical as when elizabeth gleefully looked on , groundlings below and stuffed brassieres on stage . the first reminder of the original scribe can be found in katarina and bianca's last name : stratford . their family is run by walter stratford ( pretty woman's larry miller ) , a doctor who is all too familiar with teenage pregnancy and guards his children accordingly . in what he thinks to be a moment of ironic humor , the family " no dating " policy is amended to " bianca can date . . . when [katarina] does . " with prom just ahead , bianca's fate is grim ; unless , of course , she can tame the shrew . don't think this mission to be a simple one , as bianca kindly points out , her sister " . . . is a particularly hideous breed of loser . " getting katarina to date is complex and oftentimes confusing . when cameron , who likes bianca , learns of her father's new rule , he is quick to consult a friend for advice . the scheme they dream up is to fully exploit " someone with money . " in this case , that is joey - the other guy with a crush on bianca . cameron's friend , a loser by teenage verdict , convinces joey to pay someone who has enough guts to take the shrew out . the solution lies no farther away than the second blatant reminder of the master scribe : patrick verona ( heath ledger ) . this verona is far from fair ; rumor has it that he previously laid his scene in prison . moreover , katarina openly opined to the aforementioned english teacher that " hemingway was an alcoholic who hung around picasso , hoping to nail his leftovers . " the laws of high school cinema inexorably turn patrick and katarina into romeo and juliet . providing a constant reminder of the fact that this isn't exactly what shakespeare had in mind are the elements obligatory to a high school comedy : a party polluted with liquor , a best friend's betrayal , and prom . it is the latter that has become infamous for closing films like drive me crazy , american pie , never been kissed , carrie , she's all that , and can't hardly wait . yet surely even these practices have roots in shakespeare ; falstaff was a drunk , romeo and juliet met at a party , and caesar learned about loyalty the hard way .
0	a remake of the 1978 warren beatty vehicle " heaven can wait " ( which in turn was a remake of " here comes mr . jordan " ) , " down to earth " tells the tale of lance barton ( chris rock , " lethal weapon iv " ) , a young black standup comic trying to win over the audience at harlem's apollo theater . when he's taken to heaven prematurely by bumbling angel keyes ( eugene levy , " best in show " ) , his only recourse is to return in another body . he chooses that of charles wellington , the tenth richest man in the united states . of course , wellington is not only rich , but white and 53 years old , which makes lance's bid for closing night at the apollo , as well as his desire to woo suntee ( regina taylor , " jerry maguire " ) , a tad tricky . the original elaine may/warren beatty script has been reworked by chris rock , lance crouther , ali leroi , and louis c . k . to turn beatty's vehicle as a football player into rock's vehicle as a comic and add some racial humor . as directed by chris weitz and paul weitz ( codirectors of " american pie " and costars of " chuck & buck " ) , the whole affair comes off as amateur hour . initial scenes play like filmed line reading rehearsals . production values are shoddy . most serious of all is the use of rock when his wellington counterpart would have been more appropriate . this problem is clearly attributable to the fact that the old white guy is never lip or action synched when he is on screen . rock does get the chance to do some fun schtick , such as his turnaround on wellington's plans for a poor neighborhood hospital ( 'bullet in the head ? you got a bed ! ' ) , but he's uneven when interacting with the rest of the cast . regina taylor fares well amidst the mediocrity as the young activist who confusedly ends up falling for the man she believed to be her nemesis . also good is frankie faison ( " hannibal " ) as whitney , lance's compassionate manager - the only human who's made privy to lance's body body switch . chaz palminteri and levy are pretty much wasted as heaven's ambassadors . another " best in show " alumnus , jennifer coolidge , is poorly used as wellington's cheating wife ( and shown several days apart wearing the same outfit ? ! ) and greg germann ( tv's " ally mcbeal , " " sweet november " ) continues display his sitcom roots as her lover and husband's lawyer . mark addy ( " the full monty " ) is sorely underutilized as cisco , wellington's fake english butler . stealing the show in every scene she's in is wanda sykes ( " the chris rock show " ) as wellington's disgruntled maid . " down to earth " is for chris rock fans only . all others should go rent " heaven can wait " or truly be brought down to earth .
0	fit for a ghoul's night out , fat girl stands cast iron firm with the simplistic , fatuous , built-in excuse that its woman director is baring the harsh sexual realities of adolescent girls . being a boy , i might not understand female behavior and am unequipped to analyze this particular pseudo-feminist coming-of-age story . fair enough . i'll pretend to ignore the mannered posturing and health class 101 " this is a no-no " dialogue when older teenage boy coaxes younger teenage girl to let him fuck her up the ass , speaking variations on " it won't hurt ! " for a scene that seems to last at least ten minutes . this is done almost entirely in an unbroken master shot that suggests unimaginative camerawork more than unblinking voyeurism . they dare you to look away , without possessing the courage of allowing the children to actually sound like children ( they're mouthpieces for writer-director catherine breillat's one-note clinical politics ) . rather than show an even-handed evaluation of the rigors of hormonal change , breillat ( previously responsible for the unwatchable romance ) wants to indulge in her hour of hate . life is pain , highness . get used to it . she'd find keen bedfellows in neil labute and todd solondz , other sultans of misanthropy who lack the balls to be earnest or honest . for children , dealing with trauma and pain is complicated . to bury that in sarcasm and academic theory feels cheap . these would-be auteurs ( more like hauteurs ) haven't earned the right to display suffering because they don't layer it in emotional truth ( as mike leigh does throughout naked and david lynch in several key scenes of blue velvet ) . of course , there i go again comparing her to all these ( better ) male directors . i don't care . gender be damned , she's borderline inept . braced for a knee-jerk reaction from the art house crowd ( mortified shock or compulsory applause will suffice ) , writer-director catherine breillat may well accomplish her mission to get a rise out of people . don't be fooled . this grotesque oversimplification of awkward forays into passion may be quickly forgotten , remembered only as cold , boring , philosophically arid , and incompetently photographed . the hyperviolent climactic sequence proves so extraordinarily misguided that i honestly wondered whether breillat had thrown in an impromptu dream sequence . twelve years old , a bundle of dough with a sour pout , the superb ana ? s reboux plays the titular fat girl with a thousand yard stare and a frumpy insouciance . ( her character is also named ana ? s . ) sitting at the table morosely slurping down a banana split , her presence is grounded and heartbreaking . it's a pity breillat never finds anything for her to do other than get defensive against her evil storybook sister , 15-year old elena ( roxane mesquida ) , for bringing a transitory boyfriend home to their shared room . in this summer cottage , ana ? s has no escape from her position as stoic bedside observer to elena's depressing confusion of cheap sex with romance . the boy in question , a smug italian college kid named fernando ( libero de rienzo ) is a real piece of work , claiming that the experience is a declaration of love while begging for a blowjob . ana ? s doesn't receive any warmth from her largely absent parents , who join elena in making fun of her hefty girth . she finds pleasure in wandering the beach alone , singing songs to herself , and swimming in the pool kissing the metal railing and pretending that it's her paramour . reboux commands the screen , but there's only so much a child actress can do recounting pretentious monologues to herself . if one is inspired to rescue this young performer and place her in a better movie , at least she fares better than the other young talent asked to perform in intense love scenes that might feel justified if they weren't so dramatically misguided . this 83-minute vignette is something of a horror show , but breillat saves her nastiest poison for the very end . on the long ride home punctuated by an uncomfortable silence between family members , gigantic trucks swerve by as the hour grows late . will mommy fall asleep at the wheel ? perhaps . or maybe there's something deadlier around the corner , lying in wait to pounce upon the unsuspecting fat girl . what's more , she might even like it . with the intent of being unfair and unpredictable , placing her heroine in the most diabolical of corners in order to face up to impending adulthood , breillat's extreme flourish of sadistic tawdriness reveals her as a master purveyor of contempt . fat girl is a bitter pill indeed . aka ? ma soeur ! screened at the 2001 new york film festival ( feature coming soon ) .
1	the small-scale film , in limited release , " waking ned devine " is a pleasant excursion to a time and place which allows the audience to absorb the full texture of a small town . filled with breathtaking scenery , 'characters' , and delightful music , the movie would be interesting even without a plot . the story contains several surprises which are best left unmentioned in a review . the film starts out with a sharp opening , which gives us a taste of what is to follow : country folk with an inclination for a bit of larceny . what gets things going is the fact that a winner of the lottery is apparently one of the residents in the small town ( pop 52 ) of tullymore . who that person is , and how to share in the good fortune is the mission of two longtime friends jackie ( ian bannen ) and michael ( david kelly ) . part detectives , part scalawags , they have to stay alert to the changing circumstances they face as the story unfolds . the village consists of several amusing characters . a clueless pig farmer , temporary priest , and a witch . there's also the lotto man who must be satisfied that everything is on the up-and-up . there are no hollywood touches to this film - except for the outer space introduction [ ! ] . pacing is right . towards the end , it runs a bit out of steam , but that's okay because for most of the 90 minutes we've been interested in the goings on . a mixture of laughs and ( occasional ) sentiment - all the right emotions are engaged . in one brief dream sequence - you'll know it when you see it - a fantastic combination of color and music transports the characters to a place you really hope exists . one of the key moments in the film . the music , available on cd ( london 289 460 939-2 ) follows the same arc as the movie and is well worth considering . a fine film that's for everybody except action fans . somewhat like 'the englishman who went up a hill and came down a mountain , ' . . . but livelier .
0	it's actually not so bad that dreamworks decided to release the love letter at about the same time as star wars episode i : the phantom menace , because this way less people will have to sit through this dreadful little comedy . and no , i really don't feel guilty about wishing this movie death at the box-office . really , i don't . not at all . the plot has been done before -- a mysterious , unaddressed love letter shows up in a small town , causing confusion for everyone who reads it . the center of the ensuing disaster is bookstore owner helen ( kate capshaw , and by the way , what is it with bookstore owner main characters ? in the past year and a half we've seen them in life is beautiful , you've got mail , this movie , and the upcoming notting hill ) , who finds the letter in between couch cushions in the bookstore . she immediately starts testing other people to see who it might be from , and comes to the ( incorrect ) conclusion that the author of the note is a young employee played by tom everett scott . he , reading the letter himself , assumes that she wrote it for him . after a while , they fall in love ( well , duh ) . kate feels guilty about getting in a relationship with someone more than twenty years younger than her , and she also feels guilty because at the same time she is also involved with the town fireman ( tom selleck ) . to add to her turmoil , her mother shows up ( blythe danner , who apparently must have had her daughter when she was about 9 ) and her trusted bookstore manager ( deadpan ellen degeneres ) quits . supporting characters aren't called supporting for nothing . their purpose isn't just to move the plot along , they're also supposed to give the storyline a backbone . to do this , they must exhibit at least marginal depth and must also be interesting . rarely can a movie work if it puts an interesting protagonist in the middle and surrounds her with hackneyed , dull , cardboard secondary characters , especially when at the core of the movie is the protagonist's various interactions with them . this is the love letter's damning error . capshaw's character is as good as i have seen present in recent romantic comedies , but the people that surround her are all either underwritten or purely one-dimensional . because of that , the love letter is awkward and insincere . even worse -- it's a bore . i liked capshaw and her helen , but everyone else is painfully fake , undermining the little drama or sexual tension that has the potential to exist . there is nothing particularly hilarious about all this either -- and besides degeneres' wisecracks , there's little that is even a little amusing . this is not a completely thoughtless film and director peter ho-sun chan does a good job of portraying helen's yearnings and various subtle complexities . but it's far from profound . there isn't a common theme running through the proceedings , thus the movie seems thoughtfully pointless . really , this is a harmless little movie ; it's far from an abomination and it's not torturous to sit through . but bad , it is . awful , it also is . the love letter is a failure , and an inane failure at that . ? 1999 eugene novikov&#137 ;
0	" payback , " brian helgeland's inauspicious directing debut ( coincidentally , he previously penned the award-winning screenplay for 1997's " l . a . confidential " ) , is a wildly uneven and thoroughly unpleasant revenge thriller that takes one idea---a movie with non-stop violence , death , and villains---and runs with it , or should i say , barely manages to crawl away with it . mel gibson , in yet another disappointing picture ( " conspiracy theory " and " lethal weapon 4 , " anyone ? ) , stars as the reprehensible villain/hero , porter , a man who becomes determined to get his 50% share of $140 , 000 , which he stole in a robbery , back when his partner-in-crime ( gregg henry ) and drug-addicted wife ( deborah kara unger ) double-cross him , shoot him , and leave him for dead . porter is not dead , however---not by a long shot---as he quickly rehabilitates and , along with his loyal prositute girlfriend , rosie ( maria bello ) , sets out to make everyone involved in the scam pay . the tagline for " payback " is , " get ready to root for the bad guy , " and sure enough , this is true , as pretty much every significant character who appears is crooked in some way . i wouldn't have a problem with this offbeat detail if the painfully thin story had been of any interest , but it wasn't , and therefore , i found myself having an especially laborious time investing myself into a wide array of character that have absolutely no redeeming qualities whatsoever . no attempt is made to flesh the roles into three-dimensional characters , and there are no vacant signs that anyone has any sort of humanity in them . just because the protagonist , a " bad guy , " is played by mel gibson doesn't mean i will " root for him , " and i didn't . quite the contrary , every person in the movie deserved to die a gory death ( although some of them did , anyway , just to spice up the dull proceedings ) . since none of the respectable actors in " payback " actually have human beings to play , only one performance managed to stand out . lucy alexis liu ( of t . v . 's " ally mcbeal " ) , who plays a spicy s&m dominatrix , brightens up every scene she is in , and has a definite flair for comedy , something i would have liked to have seen more of , since most of the humor fell with a resounding splat . meanwhile , gibson , who is perfectly fine here , sleepwalks through a role that is not the least bit challenging . unger , who made an impression in 1997's " the game , " is surprisingly wasted and it is difficult to see why she took such a part since she disappears ten minutes in , and only has two purproses : ( 1 ) to get high on heroin , and ( 2 ) because she plays a key part in an early flashback . finally , kris kristofferson appears in a throwaway role during the climax , and this unnecessary plot development sticks out like a sore thumb ( tellingly , he didn't appear in the original cut of the film , but was cast when extensive reshoots took place months later ) . like most action movies , the star often takes a licking but keeps on ticking . in the course of the 102-minute running time of " payback , " porter is shot three times in the back , hit by a van , beaten up , and has his feet smashed with a sledgehammer . and guess what ? not only does he survive the whole ordeal , but he is happy-go-lucky in the penultimate sequence ( and can still walk ! ) , even though he looks like he had recently substituted for a punching bag . " payback " is not , in any way , an entertaining film , even though i am sure the makers hoped it would be with all the graphic carnage that goes on , but take away that violence and what you are basically left with is a blank screen . perhaps director helgeland would have been smart to consider this , so he could have at least added a few worthwhile elements , like a fresh storyline and characters whom you could even remotely stand to be around for a few hours .
0	i didn't hate the big hit , even though it is a stupefyingly terrible film . for the entirety of its running time , my eyes were attached to the screen , and i never once got bored . i found the film interesting because of its unique awfulness : this is such a confused disaster of a film that it's entertaining to watch it in the same way that it's entertaining to witness a thirty car pileup on a freeway spaghetti bowl . as a narrative , the big hit is pure garbage , never truly deciding its genre and constantly crossing all kinds of boundaries . it reminded me a lot of grosse pointe blank , which is a similar film that fails in a lot of the same ways . it's fine to mix genres , if the film makers know what they're doing . unfortunately , writer ben ramsey and director kirk wong don't seem to know how to handle the material , and the result is an action film that wants to be a comedy . the biggest problem with the amalgamation , in this case , is that the film is absurd and the comedy is out of place . but it sure is a fascinating failure . marky . . . er , mark wahlberg stars as melvin surley , a hitman . he's a good hitman , apparently , although his tactics seem a bit rambunctious ( he doesn't snipe or make clean kills--he just kicks the door down and shoots everything ) . he works with a few other hitmen--cisco ( lou diamond phillips ) , crunch ( bokeem woodbine ) , and vinnie ( antonio sabbato , jr . ) . they're a nice bunch of muscular guys , who stand around in the locker room after working out and compare masturbation to sex . they all work for a man named paris ( avery brooks ) , who is rich , powerful , and in constant need of four sloppy hitmen . it is very important that they never go beyond their boss and do work on their own ; this , of course , is where the plot comes in . they decide to kidnap a young japanese girl named keiko ( china chow ) , who has a rich father . when they do this , it turns out she is paris' . . . goddaughter ! it's very bad to have paris against you . the story is standard action film stuff . it's nothing new , and nothing particularly offensive ( but certainly not the slightest bit compelling ) . clearly the major selling point of the big hit is that it's a john woo-type of action film mixed in with some really hip comedy . it's true that a lot of the action sequences resemble recent films that go for the same idea ( such as face/off and the replacement killers , which are both far superior ) . there are stunts that are fun to watch : the opening sequence has melvin and two of his partners going in to kill some guy who has nothing to do with the story . they use night vision goggles and really powerful handguns . melvin is also very good at breakdancing , and uses this talent to avoid bullets and knives . like i said , it's not boring ; most disasters aren't . what makes it so bad is its genre-shifting madness . it seems to start out as a quirky-but-realistic action comedy , as melvin is seen transporting bags of human remains . then , as soon as they go to their first hit , it turns into a music video with bodies and bullets flying everywhere . then , somewhere in between , it turns back into comedy . keiko turns out to be a spunky little girl ; in one amusing scene , she is forced to read a letter out loud , indicating that she has been kidnapped , but the letter is littered with grammatical errors that skew the meaning of the words . and scenes like this work alone , but wong applies this goofy tone to scenes that should be more serious , or not be in the film at all . one of the most irritating moments has paris ordering cisco to come up to his office after he learns that keiko has been kidnapped ; when cisco gets there , paris and his men are standing around as if they knew cisco did it , but they let him out of there , telling him to find the perpetrator . the scene is played for laughs , but it isn't funny . and since it doesn't quite work as a comedy , it tries to fall back on the action , which also fails . this is a film where people fly fifteen feet backwards when shot with a handgun . cars land on tree branches and are supported by them . characters betray each other without a second thought . grenades are thrown in tight places . people jump out of tall buildings and survive . people outrun tumbling cars , and get out of the way of falling objects in small fractions of seconds . most frustrating of all , though , is the film's definition of a hit man : these guys are anything but subtle , quiet , and skilled individuals . they're more like socially depraved militia men ( melvin has an extensive collection of firearms in his garage , including missile launchers and hand-held machineguns ) . the characters each have one trait that distinguishes them from the rest ; this obviously doesn't make for deep or interesting people to watch . the acting is kind of fun , though--wahlberg is a good actor , and his innocuous presence in this film is charming in a silly sort of way . phillips certainly has fun with his psychotic character , while christina applegate , who plays melvin's fianc ? e , is convincingly air-headed . the big hit is an action film that unknowingly spoofs itself in trying to be funny . the funniest parts are supplied by the actors , and not by the numerous failed attempts at sight gags and one-liners . it's a true disaster , one that makes me believe that the goofy and unrealistic tone is completely unintentional . despite all this , though , i must reiterate the entertainment value here . you can cherish the awfulness of a film like this . if you embrace the big hit for the catastrophe that it is , you just might enjoy yourself .
0	how could a g-rated disney film based on meg cabot's novel " the princess diaries " be anything but cute , harmless fun ? easy . take all the cute , harmless fun out of it . and while you're at it make it borrr-ring . that's what director garry marshall , screenwriter gina wendkos and , not to be outdone , producer whitney houston have done with the g-rated disney film " the princess diaries . " you couldn't tell it from the audience though , a braintree , mass . of growing , glowing pre-pubescent girls ( and the odd parental , popcorn perched about their persons ) , who positively cheered when the end credits rolled ( ah the film had struck a lovely nerve with them but not with fuddy-duddy old me ) . well , i might have cheered that the utter tripe was now well and truly over , but that would have been too obvious . too obvious is the least of the problems with marshall's film ( garry made a couple of other " princess " movies-- " pretty woman " and " runaway bride " --but this one's way without julia roberts so maybe * that's * its problem ) . in addition to being predictable as molasses , " the princess diaries " has hardly got a laugh in it ( it's a comedy ) , could bore the pants off an abyssinian for long , long stretches , and is so sloppily edited the principals refer to scenes we haven't even seen yet ( and probably never will except , perhaps , in the dvd edition ) . marshall should take virtually all of the blame here , since he's been at this for some time and should know when a scene or two isn't working . . . and hardly * any * of " the princess diaries " works ( " works , " alas , implies cleverness and there's none of that here either ) . newcomer anne hathaway stars as mia thermopolis , a bright but socially invisible san franciscan teen who learns that her single mom ( a wacky artist played by the likable caroline goodall ) had a bit of a fling with some royal member of some miniscule european country nobody ever heard of ( the filmmakers go out of their way * not * to call it serbia , which is pretty much what all miniscule european countries are called in the movies mark my words ) and now she , mia , is next in line to rule " genovia " ( hence the headphones/tiara combo in the print ads ) . julie andrews , with the luminous factor cranked to 11 , plays mia's grandmother ( aka queen clarisse renaldi ) , who shows up out of the royal blue and lends mia much advice and direction in the eating , talking , and looking like a princess department ( although mia's big makeover simply transforms her from ugly duckling to ugly swan ) . does queen julie lose her dignity for the sake of a good laugh ? not really . consuming a corn dog is about the worst that it gets . also on stereotypical hand are a brainless jock , an evil cheerleader , a dorky-looking best friend ( " welcome to the dollhouse " 's heather matarazzo ) , a sensitive auto mechanic/musician , and marshall mainstay hector elizondo as joe the driver , imparting wit and wisdom from the front seat of mia's chauffeur-driven limousine at every intersection . a non-animated g-rated movie is a rarity these days but the rating here reflects the fact that all the guts , all the good stuff , has been exorcised from the finished product . lame , labored , and lamentable , " the princess diaries " is recommended for eight-and-a-half year olds of the feminine persuasion * only * ; all others would do well to avoid it ( like potholes , the plague , and " the perfect storm " ) .
0	if anything , " stigmata " should be taken as a warning against releasing similarly-themed films relatively close to one another . of the four supernatural horror flicks released this year , it is clearly the worst . i suppose i should have seen this coming . after all , " blair witch " thoroughly creeped me out , " sixth sense " was mildly spooky , and then " stir of echoes " had its moments , but wasn't anything i'd lose sleep over . clearly , the quality of the horror this summer has slowly been dropping . is it then any surprise that " stigmata " is the dullest , most horribly executed piece of mtv-influenced tripe i have seen in a long while ? no , not really . patricia arquette plays frankie page , a hairdresser from pittsburgh who receives a rosary as a gift from her globe-trotting mother . as it turns out , the rosary belonged to a recently-deceased brazilian priest . the priest's church had been under investigation by father andrew kiernan ( gabriel byrne ) because of the mysterious appearance of a bleeding statue . father kiernan is an investigator who has made a career out of disproving supposed religious signs , but this time he believes there is something to the bleeding statue . his investigation is soon called off , however , when the frankie starts exhibiting signs of the stigmata , in which a person is inflicted with wounds like that of jesus christ . father kiernan is initially skeptical of frankie' s story , considering she's an atheist , but once he witnesses the stigmata attacks himself , he dedicates himself to finding out what is going on . he eventually begins to suspect that his boss , cardinal houseman ( jonathan pryce ) , is concealing something that could bring down the catholic church . as it turns out , the dead priest had been working on the translation of a " fifth gospel " before they were excommunicated . the new rupert wainwright music video . . . i mean film " stigmata " is the sort of film that starts off ok and only gets worse . indeed , it would have been good if it were a music video , because it's only interesting for about five minutes . i'm not sure what wainwright is trying to prove with his endless parade of slow-motion , double-exposure , and extreme close-ups ( whoaaaaaa ! ! ! ! ) , other than the fact that he has the most swelled head of any director in hollywood and , yes , he has been to film school . his camera trickery is interesting for a little while , but eventually , it becomes headache-inducing . what this film needed is a second audio track to be played over the dialogue ( such as it is ) , with wainwright screaming at the audience , " see ? look at what i can do ! i'm an ex-cellent dir-ect-or . " maybe then he'd explain why he decided to start half of his scenes with slow-motion shots of water dripping in reverse , or why he included random superfluous shots as that of an egg frying ( ooh , scary ! ) . if there was some underlying meaning behind all this camera trickery , i didn't see it . just when you thought it was safe to get involved in the story , here comes a double-exposure shot of two patricia arquettes collapsing into bed for no reason whatsoever . arrrrrrrghhhh . . . then again , the superfluous camera trickery wouldn't bother me if " stigmata " had a story or characters that were remotely engaging . though wainwright's vanity certainly doesn't help , he does seem to have been given a nearly unworkable script . where are plot continuity and character development when you need them ? case in point : frankie page is the character that ( i assume ) we are supposed to identify and sympathize with , but we aren't given any back story on her character , or any reason to like her . the extent of her character development seems to be that she is a hard-working hairdresser ( who can somehow afford a cavernous apartment on the top floor of her building ) and she's kind of cute , so let's start the bleeding ! the fact that she's clearly not the brightest bulb in the drawer doesn't help , either . according to frankie page , what is the first thing to do after receiving mysterious wounds on your wrists and back ? go clubbing ! sure , that makes sense . arquette , byrne , and pryce give it the old college try , but their characters are so one-dimensional that they just appear to be sleepwalking . scenes between arquette and byrne that were probably supposed to be sexually charged fall almost embarrassingly flat , because the setup of the romantic subplot is so clumsily handled that it almost reaches the point of becoming laughable . even though frankie page's life is falling apart before her very eyes , she still finds the time to hit on a priest who wanders in to her hair salon . even more curiously , he seems to be interested in her advances . father andrew's religious doubt pops up so suddenly that it seems more silly than dramatic . as for pryce , he may as well wear a curled mustache and cackle , " i'll get you , my pretty , " for all the depth his cardinal houseman is afforded . trust me , i'm not revealing anything by telling you pryce turns out to be a villain . what's worse , after being faced with dull characters and the prospect of having annoying camera tricks and loud music jammed down our throats , we now have to contend with a story that starts off in one direction , veers off in another , then another , and ends up being totally incomprehensible . first of all , the film doesn't even bother to explain what should be very simple plot details . how does frankie get the stigmata merely by touching a rosary ? how come an atheist like her was chosen , since father andrew mentions that only very devout believers have ever received stigmata ? actually , i'm not sure what frankie was posessed by . supposedly , stigmata occurs when one is posessed by the holy spirit , but the film later has her being posessed by the dead priest , and later by some evil spirit ( i think ) . which one is it ? the answer to this question , of course , is very simple : the possessing entity in each scene is determined by whichever effects and flashy camera work mr . wainwright wants to use this time . furthermore , the ending is a ridiculously neat little wrap-up , and the filmmakers compound this problem by ultimately turning the film into a diatribe against the catholic church . if you do any research at all about the gospel of st . thomas , you'll find that it is not being suppressed by the church ( as the film seems to claim ) , but that it is readily available at your local library . there's nothing the catholics need to worry about , though . " stigmata's " religion is so off-base that it can't be confused for anything remotely resembling the real catholic church . if they wanted to portray catholic priests as mobsters , they should have gone all-out and equipped them with sharkskin suits and tommy guns , which would have been far more interesting . i'm not catholic ; in fact , i don 't care much for the catholic church , but its cartoonish misrepresentation in this film should not be considered realistic by any means . it's rare to see a film that fails on as many levels as " stigmata " does . it' s not thought-provoking , though it would like to be , and it is definitely not scary , though it pretends to be . i'm not sure why they tried to pass this off as a horror film , because there is absolutely nothing scary about the story . maybe it's an attempt to cover up the fact that none of the scenes have any dramatic weight whatsoever . the initial shock of seeing arquette covered with blood is dulled by the fact that it happens over , and over , and over . like so many films of the mtv generation , this one suffers from overkill . so much is overdone in " stigmata , " that it eventually has no effect on the audience , leaving us to pick out the film's ( many ) flaws . i'm also still trying to figure out why the quotation they take from the gospel of st . thomas is so earth-shattering . when we finally hear it , the saying sounds like something every five-year-old learns on their first day of sunday school , which means that for all its flash , the whole film is really much ado about nothing . the dog days of summer usually produce one monstrous dog , and " stigmata " is it .
1	robert redford is very good at playing characters who have incredible , god-given gifts , but are able to act like ordinary people . in " the natural " ( 1984 ) , he played the fallen angelic character of roy hobbs , the baseball player who was destined to be " the best there ever was , " but still acted like a humble farm boy . in " butch cassidy and the sundance kid " ( 1969 ) , he was the most dangerous shot in the west , yet he came off like a nothing more than a boyishly good-looking charmer . even in " indecent proposal " ( 1993 ) , where he played a man who was so good at making money that he believed he could buy love , redford was still able to exude an aura of shy decency , especially when reciting a tale of lost love . in his latest film , " the horse whisperer , " based on the best-selling novel by nicholas evans , redford again plays such a character . redford also directed the film although he swore up and down that he would never direct himself in a movie - i suppose the character of tom booker , a man who has the amazing gift of understanding and somehow communicating with horses , was just too good to pass up . despite his enormous and rare gift when it comes to training troubled horses ( a magazine article coins the phrase " horse whisperer " to describe his uncanny talent ) , booker sees himself as an everyday cattle rancher whose greatest fear is growing old and no longer having a purpose in life . booker's talents are taxed into service by annie maclean ( kristin scott thomas ) , a new york magazine editor whose daughter , grace ( scarlett johansson ) , was recently in a horrible accident . the accident , which is filmed with gut-wrenching horror , happens when grace and her best friend are out riding horses - an eighteen-wheeler kills grace's friend , severely wounds and traumatizes grace's horse , pilgrim , and causes grace to lose part of her right leg . annie believes that if pilgrim can be healed , grace will be healed as well , which leads her to booker . at first , she tries to get booker to come to new york to see the horse , but that doesn't work . instead , she packs up grace and pilgrim , leaves her husband , robert ( sam neill ) behind , and heads for the rolling hills of montana where booker runs a ranch with his brother , frank ( chris cooper ) , and his sister-in-law , diane ( dianne wiest ) . in many ways , the film is like a journey , both literally and symbolically . the move out west has always been a great american tradition of renewal , and it's hard not to see annie and grace's leaving manhattan for montana as a variation on the classic theme of city vs . country . in " the horse whisperer , " country is clearly the victor . the city is characterized by claustrophobia and unhappiness , and it is not until the characters arrive in the wide-open spaces of montana that grace's anger at being physically and emotionally crippled begins to dissipate , annie's controlling nature begins to relax , and pilgrim once again learns to trust people . redford is just as in love with the grand montana country in this film as he was when he directed " a river runs through it " six years ago . in many ways , " the horse whisperer " comes from the same poetic vein as " river , " and the movie could probably be a good fifteen minutes shorter if redford had decided to spend less camera-time on the grass and mountains . but then , that would ruin the magic . much of the film's photography is truly elegant , and it creates a palpable sense of the sheer expansiveness of the land . to further emphasize this , redford and cinematographer robert richardson ( " natural born killers , " " platoon " ) cheated a bit by shooting the beginning of the film - which takes place in new york - with mostly cold , harsh bluish filters and a more squarish 1 . 85 : 1 aspect ratio ; when the action shifts to montana , richardson switches to soft-focus and natural lighting , and the screen widens to a 2 . 35 : 1 aspect ratio . in terms of the story itself , " the horse whisperer " gives us the same romanticized view of adultery found in david lean's " a brief encounter " ( 1945 ) and clint eastwood's 1995 adaptation of robert james waller's " the bridges of madison county " ( richard lagravenese , co-screenwriter here also adapted " bridges " ) . although " the horse whisperer " has a strong romantic sensibility , i still find something oddly troubling about this kind of story . it seems to me that there should be some sympathy for the husband who's being left behind for this brief , heart-sweeping affair , but there rarely is . in " the horse whisperer , " the thankless role of being the fuddy-duddy husband falls to sam neill . he plays the character as a decent , hard-working man who is a good husband and father ; his only failure is that he loves his wife more than she loves him . he is at risk of losing annie to booker not because he did anything to drive her away , but simply because he happens to be a normal , fairly uninspiring man . there is one scene that is particularly telling of how the movie feels about each character . it shows booker and robert going into a horse pen - booker is dressed like a classic cowboy with hat and all , while robert looks somewhat frumpy and out-of-place in a baseball cap . as they enter the pen , booker assuredly swings over the fence , while robert hesitates , then opens the gate and , in a goofy moment , forgets to close it behind him . it's a small scene , but it clearly demonstrates the movie's thorough love of the booker character for his romantic roughness . after all , booker represents everything good about the city while robert represents everything banal and unnatural about it . the best scenes in " the horse whisperer " tend to involve not the building romance between booker and annie , but rather the healing process of grace and her horse . although booker's horse-training methods are mythical and unrealistic , the scenes with him and pilgrim are strangely mesmerizing . these are paralleled by the scenes between him and grace , some of which are humorous , and all of which are tender and true . at some point , i wished the movie would drop the whole romance angle and focus on grace more . nevertheless , redford is obviously a romantic at heart , and he brings a light touch to the erotic moments in the film . there are no dramatic sex scenes , but there is a moving scene when he and scott thomas are slow-dancing , always moving ever closer together , that is far more erotic than any scene of sweaty bodies grinding together . although the movie is longer than it should be and is essentially a melodramatic tearjerker with an unsatisfying conclusion that guarantees unhappiness for just about every character , there are enough moments like that which make " the horse whisperer " worth the price of admission .
1	one of the best movies i've ever seen . i'd heard extremely good things about this movie , and though the previews didn't really intrigue that much , it was a movie i'd been anticipating for a few months now . for some reason i'm not sure of - this movie was not that big a sucess over in the u . s . it was a definite hit with the critics , but didn't exactly set any box office records . after viewing this incredibly well directed , written and acted movie , i can't help but wonder - why ? the strength of this film is it's gritty realism . the main characters are all human with individual flaws , no stereo-type hollywood heroes . you may not agree with many of their actions in the movie or their approach to life , but that is what makes it so real . i had expected this movie to be more of a drama than a thriller , but i was mistaken . even the interrogation scenes moved at such a pace so that it felt just as thrilling as any car chase . and the ending . . . . . . whoa . i've never seen a movie in my life where everyone in it acts brilliantly . the three male leads - guy pearce , kevin spacey and russell crowe are all just terrific . the 'best actor' oscar talk surrounding this film should have netted one of them a statue , but there is one problem there . how could they have chosen between these three actors ? there is no way i could look at this film and say one of them was better than the other two . it's impossible . kim bassinger's performance is also a revelation . i'd never been a big fan of hers before and always thought she was , well . . . what's the word - a twinky ? that impression has changed , as she complemented crowe and pearce perfectly . the depth to the story and characters is truly astounding . no cardboard characters here . the plot is full of twists and turns and some very clever sequences . pearce's interogation of three seperate suspects is nothing short of brilliant . i really can't fault this movie at all . i was so glad to see fellow australian's pearce and crowe star in such a breathtaking movie . i had been very familiar with russell crowe beforehand from his many australian films , but had not seen much of guy pearce . i intend to change this next time i visit the video store : )
0	arnold schwarzenegger has been an icon for action enthusiasts , since the late 80's , but lately his films have been very sloppy and the one-liners are getting worse . it's hard seeing arnold as mr . freeze in batman and robin , especially when he says tons of ice jokes , but hey he got 15 million , what's it matter to him ? once again arnold has signed to do another expensive blockbuster , that can't compare with the likes of the terminator series , true lies and even eraser . in this so called dark thriller , the devil ( gabriel byrne ) has come upon earth , to impregnate a woman ( robin tunney ) which happens every 1000 years , and basically destroy the world , but apparently god has chosen one man , and that one man is jericho cane ( arnold himself ) . with the help of a trusty sidekick ( kevin pollack ) , they will stop at nothing to let the devil take over the world ! parts of this are actually so absurd , that they would fit right in with dogma . yes , the film is that weak , but it's better than the other blockbuster right now ( sleepy hollow ) , but it makes the world is not enough look like a 4 star film . anyway , this definitely doesn't seem like an arnold movie . it just wasn't the type of film you can see him doing . sure he gave us a few chuckles with his well known one-liners , but he seemed confused as to where his character and the film was going . it's understandable , especially when the ending had to be changed according to some sources . aside form that , he still walked through it , much like he has in the past few films . i'm sorry to say this arnold but maybe these are the end of your action days . speaking of action , where was it in this film ? there was hardly any explosions or fights . the devil made a few places explode , but arnold wasn't kicking some devil butt . the ending was changed to make it more spiritual , which undoubtedly ruined the film . i was at least hoping for a cool ending if nothing else occurred , but once again i was let down . i also don't know why the film took so long and cost so much . there was really no super affects at all , unless you consider an invisible devil , who was in it for 5 minutes tops , worth the overpriced budget . the budget should have gone into a better script , where at least audiences could be somewhat entertained instead of facing boredom . it's pitiful to see how scripts like these get bought and made into a movie . do they even read these things anymore ? it sure doesn't seem like it . thankfully gabriel's performance gave some light to this poor film . when he walks down the street searching for robin tunney , you can't help but feel that he looked like a devil . the guy is creepy looking anyway ! when it's all over , you're just glad it's the end of the movie . don't bother to see this , if you're expecting a solid action flick , because it's neither solid nor does it have action . it's just another movie that we are suckered in to seeing , due to a strategic marketing campaign . save your money and see the world is not enough for an entertaining experience .
1	jerry springer has got nothing on " wild things . " john mcnaughton's new thriller tackles more tawdry themes in less than two hours than springer's notoriously sleazy talk show broadcasts in two weeks -- bisexuality , threesomes , poolside catfights , slutty rich bimbos , even redneck gator-wrestling , they're all part of the movie's raucous , complex storyline . but even trash tv topicality can't drag " wild things " down -- this crazy campfest plays like something you'd find late-night on the usa network , only infinitely more palatable and with a solid ensemble cast . despite a smattering of needless scenes ( most of them sexual in nature ) , there's wicked fun to be had here . " wild things " would be a guilty pleasure , only there's no guilty feeling involved in having a good time with it . high school guidance counselor sam lombardo ( matt dillon ) is well-liked in the town of blue bay , especially by pretty , popular kelly van ryan ( denise richards ) , whose family name is among the florida yachting enclave's most financially prominent . hoping to take her crush to a physical level , kelly seductively slinks into lombardo's house after washing his jeep for a fundraiser , but , the very next day , tearfully admits to her trollop mother ( theresa russell ) that she was raped . before long , blue bay detectives ray duquette ( kevin bacon ) and gloria perez ( daphne rubin-vega ) are listening to similar allegations from kelly's rebel classmate suzie toller ( neve campbell ) . lombardo , who maintains his innocence , hires neck brace-sporting , opportunistic lawyer ken bowden ( bill murray ) to defend him in court . the previews give away the following revelations , so if you haven't seen any of the movie's spots on the television or in the theater , you might want to skip to the next paragraph . while cross-examining suzie on the witness stand , bowden gets her to break down and admit that the alleged rapes never took place -- that kelly had concocted this entire scheme because she was angry that lombardo was sleeping with her mother and not with her . to pay lombardo for the damages , kelly's mother breaks her daughter's trust fund and gives him $8 . 5 million . but lombardo , kelly and suzie are actually all working together , and plan to take the money and run as fast as they can . duquette and perez , however , begin to suspect that there's more afoot to the case than just false accusations . if there's a major drawback to " wild things , " it's that it's oversexed to a fault . the much-talked-about hotel room menage-a-trois between dillon , campbell and richards is a turn-off . it's also cut short ( sorry , guys ) , and should have been cut shorter -- the movie grinds to a halt for pure titillation once too often . what we don't see is far more effective than what we do . another example of this is kevin bacon needlessly going the full monty in a shower scene . er , no thanks . also , bacon's duquette feels simultaneously underdeveloped and overwritten . daphne rubin-vega , from broadway's " rent , " tries to compensate for a superfluous character . theresa russell is just plain wooden . and when , in the end , all is out in the open , ask yourself if certain scenes involving these three were really necessary . but what keeps the movie from being throwaway junk is an engaging chain of surprises ( some predictable , some not ) that never seems to end . " wild things " has more twists than a crate full of corkscrews , and most are so gleefully , over-the-top nasty that you can't help but be charmed by their absurd showmanship . a great deal of amusement also comes from watching bill murray in a supporting part that appears to have been written for his sly comedic talent ; murray's a stitch , especially when pulling up beside the van ryan limo after winning lombardo's case and flipping them off . and don't leave when the closing credits hit the screen , or you'll miss the film's best part -- four bonus flashbacks that smooth over plot holes while offering a few more tiny turns , plus a final scene that caps everything off with a great stunner of a bombshell . speaking of bombshells , denise richards , who plays almost every scene in a blue bikini top , does the teen tease thing with a malicious allure that she was never allowed to flaunt in " starship troopers . " matt dillon flexes his sleepy-voiced sex appeal , and pulls off personality changes with chameleonic precision . neve campbell , lovely as ever except when sporting a blond wig , gives suzie a vengeful vulnerability that makes her the most interesting member of the conspiring trio . re-edited and toned down a bit , the dynamics between these three actors could have carried the film to greater lengths . but what we're given works well enough . " wild things " is highly entertaining and , indeed , very wild .
1	to paraphrase a song title from an earlier disney movie , mulan is a whole new world . the mouse factory's latest feature is a treasure , featuring magnificent animation , a strong story and finely drawn characters . mulan is the story of a fiesty , head-strong young woman who , unlike other disney heroines , isn't seeking her prince charming , mulan's motivations are simple ; to save her father , serve her country and find a place for herself in a world in which females have no say . the story of mulan takes place in ancient china at a time when the huns have invaded the nation . the emperor has called for a conscription , one man from each family to join the army and defend the nation . mulan's crippled father is called , but mulan sneaks off , steals his armor and takes his place . mulan is a saga of courage and self-discovery . yet , despite the grim backdrop of war , it is a lively tale of self-reliance and brain-over-brawn that even the smallest child can appreciate and enjoy . the movie utilizes a strong corps of asian-american talent as the voices for the main characters , including the wonderful ming-na wen ( the joy luck club ) as mulan , b . d . wong as shang , mulan's commanding officer and later love interest , pat morita as the emperor and the veteran soon-tek oh as mulan's proud , but loving father . also adding to the proceedings is eddie murphy as mushu the dragon , sent by mulan's ancestors to watch over and help the young woman . his fast , wise-cracking , hip-talking mushu may seem out of place , but it's a crowd pleasing performance , especially for the youngsters . the movie features only a couple of songs , fewer than most previous disney animated flicks , but mulan's are winners . the music by matthew wilder and lyrics by david zippel fit nicely into the plot . the overall score by jerry goldsmith also is a plus . mulan is a treat , more powerful than hercules , with more heart than the hunchback of notre dame . at about 85 minutes , mulan moves rapidly , and will hold the attention of youngsters from beginning to the end . mulan will set a new standard by which future animated efforts by disney and other studios will have to work hard to attain . also , it is hoped that the success of mulan , and there is no doubt that it will prove to be a popular vehicle , will spur an interest for more movies with oriential or asian-american themes so as to provide more substantial roles for the talented performers who gave their voices for this production . it would be nice to see them on screen as well as hear them . committed to lifelong learning through effective communication
0	i wonder if budget is at all a criterion for whether or not a movie can be considered an exploitation flick . take the professional , for example . it boasts extremely glossy cinematography , a couple of recognizable name actors , and a couple of fairly impressive explosions . it's also basically about violence and cheap titilation , and features a central relationship between a middle-aged man and a twelve-year-old girl with a decidedly ambiguous sexual dimension . the professional is all over the map , and its pretensions of being about anything more than its most unpleasant elements simply make it all the more unpleasant . the professional of the title is a new york hit man named leon ( jean reno ) , brutally efficient but also very isolated . one day he is forced to let someone into his life when a girl from his apartment building knocks on his door . her name is matilda ( natalie portman ) , and the rest of her family has just been killed by crooked and very wired d . e . a . agent norman stansfield ( gary oldman ) after matilda's father tried to rip him off . leon reluctantly takes matilda in , then begins to teach her his profession when she says that she wants to avenge the murder of her young brother . the two become closer , which makes them all the more vulnerable when stansfield learns that they know too much , and sets out to eliminate them both . writer/director luc besson has gone this route before with his popular french import la femme nikita , a slick potboiler about a female assassin . there is no question that besson can make a great * looking * film ; with the assistance of cinematographer thierry arbogast , he has created a film chock full of moody close-ups and evocative lighting . but beneath the shiny wrapper , there isn't nearly as much going on as besson would like us to believe . the relationship between leon and matilda never clicks because neither one is given a character to develop . leon is mostly a collection of quirky traits , all intended to show us that for a hired killer , he's really not so bad a guy : he drinks lots of milk , takes meticulous care of a potted plant , and enjoys gene kelly movies . jean reno succeeds at giving leon a haunted and desperate quality , but he never makes an emotional connection to matilda . natalie portman is all wrong for a part that called for a much grittier quality , but she doesn't have too much to work with , either . besson would have been better served spending more time trying to bring his characters to life , and less on feeble attempts at humor which are often embarrassing . a silly game between leon and matilda involving celebrity impersonations is completely out of place , as is a scene where matilda shocks a hotel manager by announcing that leon is her lover ; character is thoroughly sacrificed for a cheap gag . gary oldman's entire part is something of a cheap gag , wild-eyed and way over the top , but at least he is interesting to watch . there isn't a real person to be found anywhere in the professional , which isn't always a problem in an action thriller , except that this one is trying to pass itself off as something more . a more disconcerting problem with the professional is that it plays around with the sexuality of a twelve-year-old in a really distasteful way . there were only two real choices for dealing with that component of leon and matilda's relationship : confront it head on , or ignore it entirely . but besson flirts and teases the audience with the idea that he's going to show them a forbidden love story , while choosing simply to focus his camera on portman's rear end and dress her in skimpy clothing . this is to say nothing of the questionable decision to make it look like quality paternal time when leon is teaching a child to load a 9mm pistol , or the blood which is spilled aplenty . a great deal of the time , the professional is just plain sleazy , and all the soft filters in the world can't disguise that fact .
0	one of these days , i'll make good on my promise never to rent another abel ferrara movie . king of new york and body snatchers notwithstanding ( and bad lieutenant is only fit for a single , emotive viewing ) , his exploitation flicks have fallen into a rut of hoary art-house trappings . it's a perfume-drenched , coke-addled visit to the seedy pornography shop , where beautiful models ( no , hookers -- no , courtesans ) usher you through the silk curtains . ferrara's only consistently smart move has been casting christopher walken over and over again , since walken can make a good movie great and a loathsome movie durable whenever he's onscreen . his 8-minute scene in the addiction is the saving grace of that otherwise abysmal , unwatchable , and pretentious failure . when he starts talking about his vampiric bowel movements , or questions whether lili taylor has ever read naked lunch , there's a much-needed dose of humor in an otherwise terminally unfunny affair . you know those gothic club kids who are too cool to smile and let you know they're actually having fun ? the addiction is that movie . walken , sadly , does not appear in the blackout . the central role of matty , a junkie film star whose lightning paced hollywood life among the beautiful people is inevitably leading to his destruction , is played by matthew modine ( who takes what he can get after cutthroat island ) . much like the protagonists of michelangelo antonioni's terminally bored cultural elite , matty is involved in a bitter pill " relationship " with high fashioned model annie ( at least i think she's a model . ) matty's lady is played by french actress b ? atrice dalle , arrested twice for cocaine possession during filming of the blackout -- not that you needed to know that , but it lends credence to the idea that ferrara's entire oeuvre has been filmed in a fucking blackout . no kidding . requiem for a dream has nothing on the junkie presentations seen in ferrara's movies and his controversial urban lifestyle . matty and annie struggle over her decision to have an abortion without consulting him . no doubt , he was off chasing the dragon . in his despair , matty indulges in a chemical induced weekend of debauchery , tooling around the streets of miami with video filmmaker mickey wayne ( dennis hopper , in full " dirty ol' man " mold smacking models on the ass and telling them to spread their legs . wider ! ) toward the end of the night , they pick up a teenage waitress also named annie ( sarah lassez ) , start shooting a hastily improvised sexual scene , then matty thankfully blacks out . something happened that night which haunts him throughout the rest of the movie , and it's exactly what you think it was . suffice to say , there's some confusion over whether he killed annie one or annie two , or anyone at all . the blackout is typical ferrara : no plot to speak of , plenty of raunch , and horribly vogue images of matthew modine downing a bottle of jack daniels and a beer while wrapping himself in a see-through curtain in his hotel room by the sea , by the sea , by the beautiful sea . cinematographer ken kelsch finds inconsistent glory in alternating gorgeous painterly sunsets with docu-style sleaze ( and we're back to dennis hopper leering at girls in bathing suits . " yeah ! ! ! yeah ! ! ! arrrghhh ! " says mr . hopper . dirty old sod . ) it's compulsive viewing in a tacky sort of way , leading to a ridiculous climax where modine seizes control of his destiny . how's that for cryptic ? never fear -- ferrara finds time for some female full frontal nudity to remind us what he's all about . i can picture it now . " take off yer clothes , kid -- it's essential to depict the inner maelstrom of my central protagonist , and you're his visual id . you're the soul , the heart , the bloodstream of the picture . take it off ! take it all off ! ! ! ha ha ha ! " friggin' vampire . yeah , you , ferrara . a final word about matthew modine : he's actually a fine actor when properly cast , but there's something too squeaky-clean in his demeanor . he's ideally suited for sarcastic men in tightly controlled situations , such as his private joker in full metal jacket or the time-bomb nebbish in short cuts ( who is every bit as superb as julianne moore in that famous scene , though no one seems to notice him ) . [he was in that scene ? -ed . ] here , he's asked to let it all hang out , sporting a three-day stubble and oily bangs . he throws around furniture like stanley kowalski , but it's somehow lacking . modine lacks the feral intensity of brando , entirely miscast in ferrara's flesh fair . better luck next time , matt . someday , you'll be forgiven for cutthroat island , which wasn't really your fault in the first place . maybe atom egoyan will find a place for you somewhere , and all will once again be well in your world .
0	" mission to mars " is one of those annoying movies where , in the middle of the movie , you get the sneaking suspicion that the reason the trailer looks so good is because they showcased all the best parts of the movie : all five minutes of it . " mission " * does * give you payoff ; but when it does come , it's too little , too late . " mission " has some good ideas , but they get lost in the unbearably boring delivery , dime-a-dozen dialogue , and spate of good actors wasted in cardboard-cutout roles . i'm sure the director and writers were very proud of each hallmark moment they came up with , so they stretch each dramatic moment out like silly putty until it loses all its charm . glances don't communicate any deeper emotions just because you draw them out for five hours on end . the film spends an hour on this kind of stuff , building to its climax . a lot of it is a cliched glorification of family relationships , marriage , friendship , unite we stand divided we fall kind of crap . there are some spectacular special effects sequences in this film , and i give it points for trying to stay true to the science i know ( trying is the key word here ) . the sequence with the martian demonstrating their history is oddly beautiful and touching , but as mentioned by then we're so sick of the goddamn thing we want the movie to be over . great design , good intentions , but no cigar . if you're not a die hard sci-fi , fx or jerry o'connell fan ( his character is the only one who has some semblance of character ) , don't waste your eight bucks on this . and what the hell , tim robbins died halfway through the movie , in a stupid way too . that's just unforgiveable .
1	" the fighting sullivans " contains a major plot development in the last ten minutes that every movie guide has seen fit to give away . there was no dramatic tension for me while watching the film , as i knew exactly what was going to happen . and that's the worst thing that can happen before viewing a movie . because of this , i will tread lightly so i don't ruin it for anyone reading this review , and it would be very advisable to avoid all other material regarding this film until after you have seen it . " the fighting sullivans " revolves around a family that consists of a mother , father , sister , and five brothers . the brothers are very close , despite the occasional disagreement . they are inseperable , and never stray from one another . their friendship and loyalty is the foundation of this picture . the first half of the movie follows the brothers as young children , and their various adventures . when four of them get into a fight with some local boys , the youngest sullivan , who is inside a church at the time , comes running out to assist , but not before properly exiting the chapel . if i'm being awfully vague about details , it's because what i have told you is essentially the first hour and a half . all i can say is go watch this film , because it is a fine portrait of a family that sticks together , through the good and the bad . and after you see the movie , you will understand why this review has been written the way it has .
1	a costume drama set in the 1500s , england , elizabeth is a lush , romantic , political masterpiece about the upset over the crossing of a protestant queen from a respected catholic one . when the court and country are a whole after the passing of the queens , the royal family , so to speak , are upset that a protestant should be crowened , and not another catholic , plus , the new queen , elizabeth i ( cate blanchette ) , was the bastard baby of the previous queen mary's father . the persecution over catholics and protestants isn't the only majority in elizabeth . elizabeth i must face the decision to give up personal pleasures , and her lover ( joseph fiennes of shakespeare in love ) , in order to rule , successfully , the country , which she did for 40 more years . both elizabeth and shakespeare in love are set in the elizabethian era , and both feature a queen elizabeth i ( judi dench plays her in love ) , or course . yet , i found elizabeth more stimulating and involving than love , not just because elizabeth features a great deal more of elizabeth i , but because i found blanchette a more powerful , hypnotic sense for the role . elizabeth , also featuring geoffrey rush and richard attenborough , is my pick for the best picture of 1998 award . it's a dynamic , important , breathtaking film of loyalty , power , greed , and trust . shakespeare would die for the book rights .
0	note : some may consider portions of the following text to be spoilers . be forewarned . it's rather easy to start tuning out after about twenty minutes of finn taylor's first feature film , dream with the fishes , when the plodding , tedious opening sequence finally pays off with a potentially provocative setup . any hopeful expectations , however , are soon vanquished as the film settles upon being an uninvolving mismatched-buddy movie which is rarely as funny as it aspires to be nor nearly as affecting as it eventually strives to be in the film's latter half . the film's central characters are terry ( david arquette ) , a depressed , lonely voyeur who claims to be despondent since the death of his wife in an automobile accident , and nick ( brad hunt ) , a carefree young street tough later revealed to be terminally ill . nick lives in the apartment building across from terry , who spies on the trysts between nick and girlfriend liz ( kathryn erbe ) with his trusty set of binoculars , but the two young men first formally meet at the bay bridge where a half-drunk terry precariously teeters upon the edge , unconvincingly vowing suicide . nick casually asks for terry's wristwatch , and eventually cons terry into a trade - the watch for a bottle of pills . of course , terry finds that the pills do not end up having the presumed lethal effects , and he angrily sets out to find nick in order to retrieve his watch . learning of nick's condition ( he only has a handful of weeks left ) , terry's compassion kicks in , and the two eventually come to a distinctly peculiar arrangement - terry will agree to bankroll the dying nick's lifelong fantasies , and nick will fulfill terry's death wish by killing him . this is a promising premise , and mr . taylor's film could have gone any number of ambitious ways from this point , but he instead chooses to capitalise upon the obvious inversion of the characters ( terry is a repessed , mournful character who wants to die , while nick is a free spirit with a joie de vivre who is dying but wants to live ) and takes the easy route out by turning dream with the fishes into a typical lark where the two characters engage in a series of generally dull exploits , and where the straight-laced character learns to enjoy and ppreciate life when hooked up with a quirky character . this is by-the-numbers plotting , buddy movie/road movie redux . however , dream with the fishes is most hampered not by its uninspired storyline , but by the characters which carry the story - it helps in such a film to have at least one of the protagonists be at least somewhat empathetic , if not likeable . unfortunately , that is not the case here , where both of the film's leading characters are thorougly uninteresting and annoying , giving the audience very little to sympathise with their respective plights , and even less reason to want to follow their onscreen exploits . far from a romp , this fatal flaw makes dream with fishes more like a chore to endure than a playful jaunt , and undermines the attempts at emotional resonance in the latter stages of the film as the two men begin to bond . mr . taylor's dialogue sporadically falls flat in dream with the fishes - while attempting to capture a quirky and clever tone , it too often comes across instead as hopelessly contrived ( witness such lines as " you should have asked something more interesting , like 'do you enjoy the pain ? ' - see , that's provocative , leaves room for further questions . " ) the film enjoys a few inspired moments - the urn scene , a session of nude bowling , the policeman joining in on terry and nick's acid trip - but unfortunatetely these instances are few and far between , and for the most part the humour in dream with the fishes registers more as attempts rather than actual successes . this occurs particularly often during the film's opening sequence - as terry is wrestling the bedridden nick for his watch in the hospital , i'm realising that this is * intended * to be funny , although nary a smile crept upon my lips - which is probably due to the obvious fact that it's painfully clear to the audience from the outset that terry is going to be thwarted in his initial suicide attempts , sapping any element of surprise or amusement from nick's scheme of tricking him ; this is not a film which has the wherewithal to kill off its leading star in the opening ten minutes . the entire sequence is , then , clearly an exercise for character exposition , with attempts at humour terribly diminished by utter predictability . among the cast , coming off best is david arquette , the current master in the portrayal of meek , squirming , stammering fresh-faced characters - he would have been terrific as the lead for george huang's swimming with sharks - who gets to apply his adeptness for timidity as terry . mr . taylor ambitiously employs an interesting visual technique , where the portions of the film set in an urban environment have been processed to appear extremely grainy and heavily saturated , as opposed to a bright , crisp look for the smalltown scenes . the charge of dream with the fishes's protagonists being wholly unempathetic is a bit of an odd one coming from me ; i seem to have a predilection for films with unlikeable characters , and indeed , in many cases have i been in the minority , supporting films which have been condemned as interminable due to the difficult , audience-unfriendly nature of their characters . for dream with the fishes , though , i did find myself on the flip side of coin , often hoping that the film would quickly conclude , and that the nick character would just hurry up and die .
0	the title is taken from the writings of ralph waldo emerson describing the life of a traveler as 'anywhere but here . ' there isn't one thing about this mother-daughter relationship melodrama that felt honest . it relies on a contrived minor character to tell both mother and daughter what was obvious to do in order to straighten out their dysfunctional lives , as for some reason they couldn't figure it out for themselves . if the film looks familiar , that is because " the slums of beverly hills ( 98 ) " went over the same ground but was fortunate to be more comical and perceptive due to alan arkin and natasha lyonne performances , in which they were fortunate to have a much sharper script to work with . alvin sargent's script was weak and annoyingly claustral . wayne wang's ( " the joy luck club " ) inept direction made a weak script even weaker by his inability to tell the story unfolding without the voiceover relating what the action couldn't convey . pushy mother adele august ( susan sarandon ) forces her 14-year-old daughter ann ( natalie portman ) to leave a small midwestern burg to go cross-country with her to beverly hills . the daughter resents her twice divorced , unstable but exotic , schoolteacher mother , bullying her to be an actress as a means of escaping a humdrum life . the daqughter doesn't even like the used gold mercedes mother buys to drive to lala land in and can't stand the beach boys records mom enjoys hearing on the car radio . so it becomes a question of who knows best , as the ladies fight it out between them , until the predictable sweet ending comes in this yawner . adele's dream of greener pastures in beverly hills soon doesn't look that good , as she lands a job in a slum school , has her precious car scratched by the unruly kids , and settles into a job she hates in order to financially survive . daughter pines for small town wisconsin and her friends there . during one of many arguments with her free-spirited mom , they go for ice cream and while mother is being ticketed , she runs away , only to be chased down by friendly traffic cop ( michael milhoan ) , who offers her wise counsel . with the cop's zen wisdom passed onto the daughter , she will survive living in many different addresses in beverly hills until she reaches 17 and then she plans to get way from mom by using her good grades to go to brown university instead of ucla . during their stay in beverly hills , she grows from feeling awkward in beverly hills high to immediately having many high school girlfriends and even a high school rich boy admirer-- a t . s . eliot ( corbin allred ) reader . but the transition of her life into beverly hills had no feel of reality , as everything seemed staged and unemotional . when she learns her cousin benny ( shawn hatosy ) , who happens to be her best friend dies in a traffic accident back in wisconsin , she returns for the funeral and in those reunion scenes it wasn't clearly shown why she wants to stay there , and for that matter , it was never made clear why the mother wants to leave so badly . the film is one big battle of wills between mother and daughter over their dreams . i guess what the filmmaker is trying to say , is that mom is a bad dreamer and the daughter is the observant one , able to recognize mother's faults when not in growing pains and in need of parenting herself . mother has a series of setbacks , like being dumped by her dream-boat dentist ( bochner ) she met on the beach , and witnessing her daughter mimic her whiny optimistic sayings when trying out for an acting part . but mother learns that her daughter has grown-up and is independent and that she has to stop living her life through her . she learns this when the same wise cop who told ann what to do , is about to ticket her and this time will remind the mother of the right thing to do . this of course results in the corny ending , showing that mom's heart was always in the right place , only she went about it in the wrong way . this was just one of those films where you want to be anywhere but in the theater where this film is showing .
1	this is a stagy film adapted from roger rueff's play " hospitality suite . ''its about three travelling salesmen attending an industrial convention , whose chicago company has sent them to wichita , where the company has paid all their expenses for them to rent a hospitality suite on the 16th floor of the hotel , where they aim to score a substantial account from the big kahuna , someone named dick fuller , who is the head of a big industrial corporation . he is someone they have never met before , but they want to sell him industrial lubricants and they want desperately to land this new account , it is their only reason for coming to the convention . " the big kahuna " revels in salesmen-talk among the three white christian males , two of them , larry ( spacey ) and phil ( devito ) , who are veteran salesmen , having teamed together for the last twelve years , while bob ( facinelli ) is a young man who has just recently been hired by the firm and works in the research department . these three are virtually imprisoned in their small hospitality suite waiting to meet the big kahuna , as the focus of this claustrophobic film is on their interactions in the hospitality suite . the three salesmen have different things on their mind that is troubling them and a different attitude to their job , and they are each going through internal changes that are profoundly altering their life . the outstanding cast tries to figure out in their own way what they are doing and why . what comes into question is their opinions on life and death , on god and morality , and on how they make a living . these are tough questions and the truth seems to be somewhere in their sales pitch . their dialogue is acerbic , witty , and analytical . following in the long tradition of salesmen films -- from death of a salesman , the tin men , and glengarry glen ross , as this film tries to get you to see what there is about salesmanship that gets these men high . in this case , it is landing the big kahuna . they each are trying to see why he's on top and why they are chasing after him . what makes this film different than the others , is its blatant religious message , comparing orthodox religion to what they do , as both must sell their product . and how after each one's psyche is stripped clean by the other , there is a pause and some lesson about life has sunk in that is pertinent to each . the goal in the movie is not in literally landing the big kahuna , but in finding out what bill of goods they sold themselves that made them be salesmen . larry and phil have one way of doing things and have no qualms of incorporating a sales pitch as part of their life . bob thinks he is above the fray and he pitches every chance he can get about his belief in jesus christ . his vacuous character and smug outlook on life are covered by a disarming smile and an eagerness for him to prove in his actions the words of jesus he literally believes in . bob is a baptist , who takes a very non-questioning and literal attitude about religion . to just look at another woman and lust after her is a sin , according to the way he reads the bible . when asked by larry why he married his wife , he seems puzzled and can't even say because he loves her , only that marriage is something sacred to him . the contrast in their personalities is stark . larry is all business , he simply wants to close the sale . he comes into the room pumped for the convention , using his attack mode to establish how serious he is about being a salesman . he criticizes phil for being so placid , for getting such a small suite , for having the cheap food tray of carrot sticks rather than the one of stuffed shrimp , and for being burned-out . he tells him to go on a vacation . get a woman . while phil is reflective on where all his best years have gone for him and is contemplating a career change , now that he is 52 and is painfully divorcing his wife , after having lived too lonely a life on the road for too long . he now finds himself suffering from some troubling dreams and questioning what he believes in . he has always been a charmer , shaking everyone's hand , trying to please his clients while trying to make the sale . larry is more aggressive as a salesman , he is always a heart attack away from every big sale . in contrast , bob is only in his twenties and everything seems fresh to him . this is his first time for him on the road . when dick fuller doesn't arrive at the party the salesmen throw , larry becomes confrontational and asks phil if he spoke to the man himself about the gathering . when told that he spoke to the secretary , larry throws a tantrum and is resigned to going back to their home office without the new account . but when they start talking to bob , whom they forced to act as the bartender , they are surprised to learn that fuller did indeed come but was wearing another man's name tag and that bob spent the entire evening consoling the tycoon over his recently deceased dog and then talking to him about jesus . bob then tells the boys about a private party fuller is attending afterwards , and that he invited bob to attend . larry and phil can't fathom how bob didn't make a sales pitch . but they soon take another tact and decide to prep bob on how to get fuller's attention about their company's product as they sent him off to meet fuller , and will await his return in the hotel room . these two sharp salesmen are reduced to waiting for this smug kid to come back and tell them he saved their ass . the irony of their situation is played out in the darkness of the hotel room , as they stay up late into the night trying to make sense out of their lives . these three performers were outstanding , each understanding what their role called for , each coming through with a marvelous performance . the only problem with the film , is that its more of a play than a cinematic experience . but the insightful dialogue and refreshing dramatics , give it an intelligent selling point and make it a good product to see .
0	everything about this ninth trek movie seems on the cheap , from the roger corman-grade special effects to its highly derivative and ugly ad campaign ( the poster is nearly identical to that of star trek vi : the undiscovered country ) . but piller's not-quite-half-baked screenplay should ultimately claim responsibility for insurrection's failure . i'm about to give the same advice to rick berman and co . as i've given to the financiers of james bond movies : it's time to breathe life into this workhorse by hiring solid genre writers and a real director . ( while we're at it , put that visor back on laforge ! ) for three hundred years , the ba'ku species ( who look just like humans ) have lived on a ringed-planet that might as well be called the fountain of youth . six hundred of them occupy the briar patch , the area affected by metaphasic radition , a positive energy that reverses the aging process in the elderly . but evil ru'afo ( this is probably abraham's last stop before performing " amadeus " at a dinner theatre near you ) , leader of the son'a ( who look just like burn victims after reconstructive surgery ) , wants to relocate the ba'ku and movie his people onto the briar patch in their place , in order to replenish his dying breed . the federation is all for this , but picard feels this is a direct violation of the prime directive : to not interfere with the development of an alien race . ( never mind that the ba'ku didn't exactly evolve-they went wandering in the universe one day and stumbled upon the magic world . ) every time frakes gives an interview lately , he seems to top whatever ludicrous statement he last gave regarding this installment . he has called it a comedy , a thinking man's picture , a throwback to the old series , and , most grievously , he has likened it to a john ford western . ( i presume that's some john ford he went to school with , not the director of the searchers . ) he has also gone on record as saying paramount recut the film from his version . that's no excuse-someone generated this footage . muddy cinematography and sitcom sets are the least of its problems ; star trek : insurrection appears to have been beamed in from the planet plotholia . consider such curiosities . . . picard's love interest , anij ( donna murphy ) , can slow things down by staring at them ( such as a waterfall or falling rocks ) -her scientific explanation for this ? " don't ask . " worf gets a pimple ( he's re-experiencing klingon puberty thanks to the time-defying atmosphere ) , laforge regains his eyesight ( trust me , levar burton's real eyes are scarier than those electronic lenses he wore in first contact ) and troi brags about her firm boobs , but picard remains as bald as an android's butt . most suspiciously , what exactly is the problem with letting this endangered race have a little fun in the sun ? the filmmakers cloud the issue with some nonsense about a family feud of sorts , and they also turn ru'afo into a completely power-mad superfreak , just so the characters will have something to do in the climax . ( and if you've seen return of the jedi , you've seen the ending of this movie . ) didn't picard himself previously disobey the prime directive when he prevented the borg from assimilating millions ? frakes lucked out with first contact , and repeat viewings of that film reveal the seeds of what went wrong in his direction of insurrection : he has no sense of comic timing , and he mines for acting chemistry where none exists . ( take a look at the painful " troi gets drunk " scene in fc and you'll get the general idea of insurrection's unsuccessfully jokey and hollow tone . ) even the worst shatner and co . treks , like the final frontier , maintained a watchability thanks to the effortless , charming comaraderie between kirk , spock , and bones . neither first contact nor insurrection has any idea what to do with crusher ( gates mcfadden , whom i must say maintains a fabulous physique ) , troi , or laforge . and all three next generation films spend too much time on data , who is the franchise's answer to urkel . need a cheap laugh ? have data say something sexual , or start singing , or lift up a four hundred pound boulder as if it's the hunk of styrofoam it really is . here's my proposed title for number 10 : data star data trek : data data data data data . in this movie , data will become preoccupied with learning to blow his nose , while crusher and troi watch silently from 500 yards away and laforge points his sinister gaze at the android in doubly robotic observation . star trek : insurrection had one nice , eerie , silent moment that hints at a better , darker film . i'm not saying all of them should be star trek ii : the wrath of khan , but this one boldly went where no movie should go again .
0	the premise of the new james wong film , final destination , is that alex browning , the protagonist , prevents six of his friends from boarding a doomed airplane , thereby cheating fate . however , fate is not so easily bested , and alex's friends soon begin dying in unusual circumstances . essentially , this premise is a clever-way to make a slasher-flick without the slasher . unfortunately , this is practically the only clever thing about the film . as far as teen horror flicks go , final destination is better than many . there is enough shocking death , graphic gore , and requisite black humor to provide the essential " roller coaster " type thrill at the heart of the average horror flick . unfortunately , this film also suffers from the worst characteristics of this genre . the relationships between the main characters are tenuous and their motivations are meaningless except as excuse to set-up the next death . the scene where two of the characters break into a funeral home to view the body of their recently killed friend is suppose to be scary and dramatic but features some of the dumbest dialogue i have witnessed . if you are looking for a saturday night thriller to scare your date , this film might do the trick . other than that , wait until it goes into heavy-rotation on cable .
1	every now and then a movie comes along from a suspect studio , with every indication that it will be a stinker , and to everybody's surprise ( perhaps even the studio ) the film becomes a critical darling . mtv films' _election , a high school comedy starring matthew broderick and reese witherspoon , is a current example . did anybody know this film existed a week before it opened ? the plot is deceptively simple . george washington carver high school is having student elections . tracy flick ( reese witherspoon ) is an over-achiever with her hand raised at nearly every question , way , way , high . mr . " m " ( matthew broderick ) , sick of the megalomaniac student , encourages paul , a popular-but-slow jock to run . and paul's nihilistic sister jumps in the race as well , for personal reasons . the dark side of such sleeper success is that , because expectations were so low going in , the fact that this was quality stuff made the reviews even more enthusiastic than they have any right to be . you can't help going in with the baggage of glowing reviews , which is in contrast to the negative baggage that the reviewers were likely to have . _election , a good film , does not live up to its hype . what makes _election_ so disappointing is that it contains significant plot details lifted directly from _rushmore_ , released a few months earlier . the similarities are staggering : tracy flick ( _election_ ) is the president of an extraordinary number of clubs , and is involved with the school play . max fischer ( _rushmore_ ) is the president of an extraordinary number of clubs , and is involved with the school play . the most significant tension of _election_ is the potential relationship between a teacher and his student . the most significant tension of _rushmore_ is the potential relationship between a teacher and his student . tracy flick is from a single parent home , which has contributed to her drive . max fischer is from a single parent home , which has contributed to his drive . the male bumbling adult in _election_ ( matthew broderick ) pursues an extramarital affair , gets caught , and his whole life is ruined . he even gets a bee sting . the male bumbling adult in _rushmore_ ( bill murray ) pursues an extramarital affair , gets caught , and his whole life is ruined . he gets several bee stings . and so on . what happened ? how is it that an individual screenplay ( _rushmore_ ) and a novel ( _election_ ) contain so many significant plot points , and yet both films were probably not even aware of each other , made from two different studios , from a genre ( the high school geeks revenge movie ) that hadn't been fully formed yet ? even so , the strengths of _election_ rely upon its fantastic performances from broderick , witherspoon , and newcomer jessica campbell , as paul's anti-social sister , tammy . broderick here is playing the mr . rooney role from _ferris bueller_ , and he seems to be having the most fun he's had since then . witherspoon is a revelation . it's early in the year , it's a comedy , and teenagers have little clout , but for my money , witherspoon deserves an oscar nomination . and once campbell's character gets going , like in her fantastic speech in the gymnasium , then you're won over . one thing that's been bothering me since i've seen it . there is an extraordinary amount of sexuality in this film . i suppose that , coming from mtv films , i should expect no less . . . but the film starts off light and airy , like a sitcom . as the screws tighten , and the tensions mount , alexander payne decides to add elements that , frankly , distract from the story . it is bad enough that mr . m doesn't like tracy's determination to win at all costs , but did they have to throw in the student/teacher relationship ? even so , there's no logical reason why mr . m has an affair when he does . there's a lot to like in _election_ , but the plot similarities to _rushmore_ , and the tonal nosedive it takes as it gets explicitly sex-driven , mark this as a disappointment .
0	starring ben stiller , elizabeth hurley , maria bello , janeane garofalo screenplay by david veloz , based on the novel by jerry stahl directed by david veloz permanent midnight is a pretty bad movie , though it took me a few days to conclude this . the film is more masturbatory than bleak , with its main character intent on confounding us with his stupidity . ( he has a $6000 a week drug habit . ) ultimately , as adapted by veloz , jerry stahl comes off as one of those playground braggarts who chainsmokes at the age of twelve ; you are less mystified by his self-destructive nature than bored into a stupor yourself . ben stiller plays stahl , a young author who arrives in l . a . with ambition and a nasty drug habit . he eventually gets a gig for $5000/week writing for a sitcom called mr . chompers ( a thinly veiled stand-in for " alf " : chompers looks just like alf except he's blue ) , marries a producer ( hurley ) so she can get a green card , and hooks up with a spanish mother ( liz torres ) , who shoots heroin with him in the afternoons . insert proverbial downward spiral here . permanent midnight is structured mostly as a flashback , with recovering addict bello meeting stiller ( at a fastfood restaurant , where stiller works the drive-thru as part of rehab ) , taking him back to a hotel , and between bouts of serious screwing , listening to his life story . i've spent the last week trying to figure out why stiller never seemed to find the frighteningly gorgeous hurley attractive-worse , i've been trying to figure out why hurley did find stiller attractive . as stahl , stiller displays none of the charm or wit one would expect ( post-there's something about mary ) of either the actor or a comedy writer . what separates stahl from the hundreds of other hollywood punk-junkies , it seems , is that stahl wrote a book about his idiocy . watch stahl shoot heroin next to a baby ! watch stahl spoil numerous pitch meetings with smack-fueled babble ! stiller gives a technically flawless performance : the film could double as a documentary on how to be a junkie . but permanent midnight is mostly soulless . when the movie poses the question will stahl be saved ? and then answers it in the form of bello's character ( basically a shrink in black panties ) , could a person care less ? in the film version of his autobiography of the same name , stahl doesn't need saving , he needs someone who will sit there and listen to him go on about himself . if you learn anything about the other characters in this movie , it's that they are the most incredibly tolerant hollywood-types known to man . ( stahl also seems to be the only person at schmooze parties doing drugs . is this hollywood . . . california ? ) i learned very little about the entertainment business from permanent midnight and a whole lot about an egotistical lunkhead . of course you know that stahl triumphed because he lived to talk about his problems . so , basically , his drug habit got him a book deal , a movie based on his life , and now he's apparently collaborating with stiller on future projects . so much for the moral of that story . temporary midnight is more like it . -bill chambers ; september , 1998
1	with the success of the surprise hit alien , directed by ridley scott , a sequel was inevitable . in fact , after watching the first film , a sequel was wanted , particularly by this reviewer . handing over the director's chair to recent box office gem james cameron , who had only made two films previous to this one ( pirahna ii , a surprisingly dull film , and terminator , making cameron a household name ) , the alien series got a face-lift of immense proportions . instead of being a suspense/science fiction film , cameron alters the series and changing it into an action picture . what results is one of the most terrifying films ever created . a film like aliens comes along only once in a while , and when it does , audiences are usually unprepared for it . i never saw this movie in theaters , but i wish i could have . the terror and fright must have been unimaginable , most likely with audiences members literally shrieking in fear . aliens is an action film unlike any i have ever seen . with a science fiction plot , cameron gives aliens added testosterone , pumping up the action and fire power from the original film . in fact , aliens is one of those few sequels which tops the original . perhaps what makes the alien series so impressive is the hero--or heroine , as the case may be . never have we had a more sympathetic hero in an action film , and never have i seen such an impressive acting job done by the main character . sigourney weaver is possibly the only actress who could play this character and make her realistic enough for us to care about . placing a woman in these situations would sometimes seem unusual , but because of weaver's presence , a woman is the only suitable hero . aliens begins 57 years after alien ended . lieutenant ellen ripley ( weaver ) is discovered in hypersleep on the nostromo and is awakened . she explains how she is the only survivor of her past encounter with the aliens , but " the company " is doubtful . they explain that a colony of families is flourishing on the same planet from which she just left . despite stern warnings from ripley , the company remains rigid and won't call the families back . however , when the company loses contact with the colony , ripley's story seems much more feasible . one of the company's directors , carter burke ( paul reiser ) , wants to gather a team to travel to the planet . this team includes a buff private vasquez ( jenette goldstein ) , a questionable corporal hicks ( michael biehn ) , and a loyal android bishop ( lance henriksen ) . burke tags along with ripley as they fly to the planet in order to locate the members of the colony . arriving on the planet , the team finds most of the human life extinguished in a cocoon-type environment . the only survivor is 12 year old rebecca " newt " jorden ( carrie henn ) . ripley finds this a chance to be the mother she never had the opportunity to become , and she becomes newt's surrogate mother . ripley and newt are the only ones who knows what has happened , and soon , all hell breaks loose . aliens not only multiplies the thrills and suspense from scott's version , it also multiplies the number of aliens in general . alien focused on one alien in particular which systematically killed each crew member , except ripley , who managed to jettison the alien out of the nostromo . aliens focuses on an entire race of these aliens , and as a result , the chills are incredibly heightened . then again , this is james cameron , the guy who has given us true lies and terminator 2 : judgment day . he is the best action director out there ( topping renny harlin , who directed cliffhanger ) , and only he could create something as terrifying as this film . it seems that every alien film seems to have some memorable scene or scenes , and aliens has the motherload . with perhaps one of the most astonishing endings ever created for an action film , aliens climax never seems to hit until the viewer is nearly pushed to extreme exhaustion . i can't recall another film ever to sustain this level of intensity throughout , never dropping for a moment . just when you think the movie is over , something else will occur , and it starts right back up again . with a seemingly endless conclusion , aliens ends with one of the greatest moments in film history . this scene is usually the one remembered most from the film , as lieutenant ripley steps into one of the lifting machines to fight the alien queen . using flawless special effects , the climax is exhausting , leaving any audience member drained from extreme anxiety . of course , for a film of this genre to work properly , the technical aspects must be realistic enough for us to believe what we see . aliens is completely realistic , even a decade after its initial release . the special effects are wonderfully seamless , with a terrifying alien to go with them . one of the most overlooked aspects of this film is the music , composed by cameron-regular james horner . horner has created a terrific score , receiving an oscar nomination for his work . not only that , horner has also created one of the best scores for any action film , or science fiction film ever ( and that includes 2001 : a space odyssey , which was mainly a compilation of well-known composers ) . in fact , the climax music is also some of the most recognized of film music . the production design is incredible , which also happened to snag a nomination from the academy . dark corridors lit by red lights are very impressive , but more impressive is the amount of terror which arises from well-lit locations . normally a film will be very dark in order to scare a viewer ; aliens uses lights to scare the viewer . then , of course , is the cinematography , which uses point of view shots , along with video feeds in order to build suspense . some of the scariest scenes involve the perspective of ripley . surprisingly , the acting is not only above average for this genre , but some of the best . sigourney weaver received an oscar nomination for her portrayal of ripley , incorporating the right amount of sympathy into her hard-edged persona . weaver soars above the rest in this film , but she is supposed to . carrie henn gives an above average performance for a child , developing a three-dimensional character from her quiet attitude . lance henriksen is terrific as bishop , showing that androids don't always have to be flat characters . jenette goldstein shows a fair amount of enthusiasm with her role , and steals several scenes of her own ( though her personality becomes slightly annoying when she isn't fighting ) . michael biehn gives a very nice performance in the most obligatory role of the film . however , biehn does a good job , making it seem original again . paul reiser may seem like an odd choice to play the sleazy corporate director , but reiser manages to pull it off quite well ( however , i still see him as paul on tv's " mad about you " ) . a very good cast ( which also includes bill paxton and william hope ) highlights this action film , making it stand out from others . aliens is rightfully rated r for violence , gore , language , and terror . aliens is sort of the redefining moment of the science fiction genre , as alien was more of a suspense/horror film . aliens pumps up the stakes , and cameron directs it with professional quality . cameron certainly knows how to make a good action film , but here he proves how he can create some truly horrific moments on screen . technically astonishing , aliens' only flaw is small characters who are only there to get killed . aside from this , you probably won't experience anything like aliens for quite a while .
1	have you ever wondered if death is something that simply happens naturally , at any given moment , in life ? or if it is an occurrence that is predetermined by some much larger force within the world , or outside of it ? these thought-provoking questions are the subject of " final destination , " which is the most riveting horror-drama since 1999's " the sixth sense . " stylishly filmed and tautly directed by " x-files " alum james wong , the film deals with several fairly heavy topics that are discussed truthfully by teenage characters ( in accurately written " teen-speak , " rather than overwrought , highly intellectualized dialogue that even harvard scholars wouldn't use ) , all the while developing into a darkly foreboding , severely eerie thriller that successfully leaves you uneasy from the horrifyingly real opening twenty minutes to the less-successful , but still suspenseful epilogue . at the start of the film , 17-year-old high school senior alex browning ( devon sawa ) is about to leave with his 40-student french class for a field trip to paris . progressively getting a case of preflight jitters , he spots several mysterious " coincidences , " including the departure time being 9 : 25 , the same as his september 25 birthday , as well as hearing the john denver song " rocky mountain high " over the sound system in the airport bathroom . " john denver died in a plane crash , " alex grudgingly mutters to himself . once seated , alex suddenly gets a horrific premonition about the plane exploding upon takeoff , and after causing a ruckus onboard , he , as well as six other students and a teacher , are thrown off . arguing in the airport lobby , alex's suspicion comes true when the plane really does explode in flight , killing all 300+ passengers , including the rest of their classmates . as two investigators interrogate alex about how he knew the plane was going to explode , the fellow survivors , whom he has saved , treat him in varying manners . carter ( kerr smith ) , the hotshot jock , holds him in contempt because he believes that it is only he himself who can decide his fate . alex's best friend , tod ( chad e . donella ) , wants to stand by him but can't because of his fearful parents . the teacher , mrs . lewton ( kristen cloke ) , is frightened by him , believing that it was he who somehow caused the disaster , as well as in a state of guilt for giving up her seat on the plane to a fellow coworker . only outsider clear rivers ( ali larter ) , who unboarded the plane due to a sudden connection to alex's premonition even though she had never even spoken to him before , is sympathetic and thankful to him for saving her life . that is only the setup of " final destination , " and the less said about what follows , the better . suffice to say , the film does , indeed , turn into a slasher film , albeit one that is more thoughtful than most , and replaces a knife-wielding maniac for the never-seen granddaddy killer of them all , the grim reaper itself . the setpieces in any horror movie are the death scenes , and " final destination " surely boosts some of the most inventive ones to grace the silver screen in years . graphic and brilliantly orchestrated in a rube goldbergesque manner , they manage to occasionally be so intense you don't know whether to shrink down in your seat , tap your feet in nervousness , or turn away . devon sawa , a rising star who put his physical comedy skills to good use in 1999's underseen slasher-comedy , " idle hands , " is even more of a charismatic presence here . the conflicting emotions he feels for his survival , which he comes to believe he wasn't meant to do , as well as the loss of the other passengers , is superbly and subtly acted on his part . one scene , in which he is watching a news report on the crash and slowly begins to break down is especially realistic and powerful . ali larter ( 1999's " varsity blues " ) , in the other central role , is also effective , as a girl whose life was going well until her father died in a convenience store shooting years before , leaving her stuck with an increasingly uncaring mother who married a loutish man--the exact opposite of her now-deceased father . the other roles are not as fully written , and most remain rather one-dimensional . the movie is mainly sawa's , however , and the rest of the actors equip themselves well in limited roles . tony todd ( 1992's " candyman " ) , as an arcane morgue attendant , pops up for a five-minute cameo , but his appearance is rather supererogatory . and the aforementioned dialogue occasionally hits the bullseye , while at other times it hovers over being just a little too stilted and campy . ultimately , what is so good about " final destination " is that , within the confines of the slasher genre , writer-director wong and screenwriters glen morgan and jeffrey reddick have created a premise that has never been seen before in this manner , and a film that has the ability to both surprise and frighten--two things that are rarely found in today's horror films . if anything , it's safe to say you will never ever look at flying in airplanes the same way again .
1	as fairy tales go , cinderella has to be one of the most famous . almost everyone knows it , well at least in north america . so it is natural that someone will try to make a movie out of it . it has been done before with varying results . this version of the story is both similar to the original and different at the same time . the basic story remains unchanged but , one thing that seems to vanish with this version , and that is all the fantastical elements of the story . there is no fairy god mother or anything even remotely of that nature . after the fantastical elements are stripped away what is left is a realistic believable rendition of the cinderella story and an interesting love story at the least . . unlike in the fairy tale , the prince plays a much larger part than just that of the masked ball at the end . the ? prince' , who happens to be the crown prince to the throne of france , meets 'cinderella' , known as danielle , on a few occasions , most coincidentally and he becomes smitten with her . although this seems to be a far cry from the traditional story it allows for the main plot to proceed with enough room for some imaginative story telling . . the story takes place in a renaissance setting ; in france , with leonardo da vinci providing some comic relief on more than one occasion . this addition of leonardo da vinci , was quite successful in that it added some color to the movie , since some of the roles are a bit stereotypical . for example the role that was scripted for the prince leaves a few things to be desired . for instance the character seems to be a bit too unstable and fickle , a crown prince should not be anything remotely like that . especially since he is portrayed to be in his mid twenties at the least and almost ready to take the throne . the characters of danielle ( cinderella ) played by drew barrymore , and that of the evil step mother , played by anjelica huston , are well developed and well played by the two women . although the part of danielle is a bit stretched it is not too unlikely and not totally unbelievable . the nuances of the character are brought out well by drew barrymore and from watching the movie it seems like she had fun making the movie . as a contrast the part of the evil step mother is clearly seen from the very beginning and is almost clique . but , anjelica huston seems to add a certain flair to the role that makes it suit the movie nearly perfectly . the actual story is fairly predictable since it is after all the basic story of cinderella , but there are more than enough twists in how the story is told to make it interesting and enjoyable . the acting is of high caliber and seems deserved of praise . all in all this movie takes you back into history , into a seemingly magical fairy land . but , don't get me wrong there is nothing but reality , it is just refreshing to watch a movie that is not based in a familiar setting with everyday familiar things happening . so although the story is basically familiar the world it is set in is not , and that adds a dimension to the film which in this humble reviewers opinion makes it worth seeing
0	if you've seen the trailers or commercials , it's rather difficult to really figure out what this movie has in store . well , it's hard to tell after watching the movie as well . bruce willis is a resident of the future , and it is a rather bleak future . the world's population had disintigrated into a mere 200 , 000 and is no longer ruled by humans but animals . the reason ? in 1995 , an organization called the army of the 12 monkeys contaminated the world with a pure virus , thus wiping out practically the world's population in a mere month . bruce willis' character is one of the surviving few , but is enslaved by scientists , as are most of last living humans . they barter his freedom by sending him on an assignment and having him do the ultimate task : go into the past , find the leader of the army of the 12 monkeys , and kill him . well , this explanation didn't come easy . although the movie is very thought provoking of us as a people , our future and the evilo in the world , as a story it is very confusing . and dragging . i know a movie isn''t keeping my interest when i fidget in my seat or feel the need to look at my watch only to find that it's only been an hour passed . terry gilliam has a certain style that i realize many appreciate , and i haven't watched his previous work brazil , but this movie felt like it took too long to tell and yet when one realizes the end is near because it is very easy to figure out , you wish it were more complex , and not to mention that the movie is depressing is the only reason why it did invoke emotion from me .
1	tone alone cannot sustain a film , but it can go a long way . if i can find myself lost in the time and place of a story , it scores immediate style points . when that tone is backed up by an outstanding story and great acting , the effect can be described best by an adjective i do not use lightly : " literary . " what's eating gilbert grape ? is such a film . it's a rich , memorable and stunningly acted story of desire colliding with responsibility , staged in a manner which many viewers might find too prosaic , but which insinuated itself into my imagination with its confidence . gilbert grape ( johnny depp ) is a young man living in rural endora , iowa , facing incredible responsibilities . as the man of the house since his father's suicide , gilbert must support the family by working at the local grocery store . he also must watch over his mentally handicapped brother arnie ( leonardo dicaprio ) and help care for his extremely overweight mother ( darlene cates ) . gilbert seems destined to spend the rest of his life in the small town until the arrival in endora of becky ( juliette lewis ) , a free spirit passing through with her grandmother when their truck breaks down . as he spends time with becky , gilbert begins to think about all the things he is missing . slowly his resentment builds , until he realizes that he can no longer live his entire life for other people . director lasse hallstrom ( my life as a dog ) and legendary cinematographer sven nykvist create a magnificent visual backdrop for peter hedges' screenplay , based on his own novel . endora is a town on the edge of the world represented by the giant foodmart , a tiny insular community where everyone knows everyone else . the midwestern sunsets and sprawling fields are beautifully photographed , and the atmosphere of the town is intensely real . minor characters , like crispin glover as the town's mortician , are vividly realized , and there are echoes of the last picture show in mary steenburgen's desperately unhappy housewife . one of the most perfectly realized scenes focuses on the grand opening of a burger franchise , attended by the entire town and accompanied by the off-key high school band . not a single note in the depiction of endora rang false . the same can be said of the character of gilbert . it's testimony to the precision involved in his creation that he came together completely with one perfectly placed line , when becky responds to gilbert's description of his father with , " i knew someone like that once . " gilbert is a man harboring an ever-growing bitterness about where he finds himself in life , a bitterness which reveals itself in moments of surprising cruelty . in one scene , he allows local children to look at his mother through their window , displaying her like a side show attraction . his entire life seems to be mocked by arnie's repeated chants of , " we're not going anywhere , " but instead of expressing his dissatisfaction he lets his anger simmer , and it becomes clear that he is following in his father's footsteps in this regard . johnny depp expertly demonstrates the tension central to gilbert by playing everything below the surface , but he never gives in to one-dimensional blankness or simply regurgitates his naif roles in benny & joon and edward scissorhands . depp's performance is overshadowed , however , by leonardo dicaprio's astonishing oscar-nominated supporting work as arnie . he puts to shame such big name actors as john malkovich and dustin hoffman , whose mentally challenged characters never seemed completely real . dicaprio is perfect to the last twitch and squeal , and anyone who has ever spent time with mentally challenged kids will be hard-pressed to spot a flaw . darlene cates , a first-time actor , brings real pain to her scenes as gilbert's tortured mother , and laura harrington and mary kate schellhardt are solid as gilbert's sisters . only juliette lewis doesn't quite click , playing a critical role with her now familiar dopey drone and too little genuine spark . gilbert grape does seem to drift into its conclusion , but it never lost me . thanks to a lovingly created setting and a marvelous cast , this 1993 release proves well worth the wait .
1	city of angels is the kind of love story that i enjoy the most : thought-provoking , moving , and completely unsentimental . i find it interesting that this film has been released the same day as my giant , which is a film that is undone completely by its wretched sentimentality . city of angels is a wonderful film , enhanced by interesting and well-rounded characters and some of the most immersive imagery of the last couple of years . it's a love story that takes the familiar angel themes and makes them new and necessary to the story , and avoids most of the cliches we're so used to seeing in films like this . city of angels is an apparently loose remake of wim wenders' 1988 film wings of desire . i have yet to see wings of desire , so i am , unfortunately , unable to make a comparison of the two . i have heard , however , that city of angels is dissimilar from the original in numerous ways , which makes me glad that this film isn't a rip-off of its source material . nicolas cage stars as seth , an angel who , like all of his angel counterparts , is present to lead the dying to heaven ( or somewhere just like it ) . one day , he is forced to take the life of a patient of dr . maggie rice ( meg ryan ) , and his attention is called to her . the angels can make themselves seen to humans , but they can't experience any of the senses ( most importantly , touch ) . he shows himself to maggie , and she falls for him , unaware that he is slightly unavailable because of his apparition status . seth wants to become human so he can feel her . that's when he meets nathaniel messinger ( dennis franz ) , " former celestial messenger and recent addition to the human race . " ( as a side note , i found messinger to be the most fascinating character , for i can only imagine how incredibly liberating it must be to live knowing what lies beyond death . ) messinger explains to seth that it is possible for angels to become human . seth manages to convince maggie that he is an angel ( i know , it sounds ridiculous , but the scene in which she finds out is exceptionally well-done ) ; after much deliberation , she tells him that she could only be with a man who can feel . this , of course , is when seth decides to take the plunge ( literally ) from a building ; when he wakes up from the fall , he is human , and happy to feel what it's like to have a split lip and blood oozing from his forehead . since i love this film so much , i'll make a minor note that it certainly isn't perfect . although it is original and mesmerizing , it does fall prey to a few of the cliches of the genre . the plotting of the story by writer dawn steel is rather formulaic ( though the details are what make the story excellent , and steel has done a great job with them ) . the ending , too , could have been more powerful and less predictable . these elements are minor , though , and barely detracted from my overall enjoyment of city of angels . the acting is superb from everyone involved . this is perhaps my second-favorite performance from cage ( my favorite being the rock ) . he's quiet and pensive , and his eyes are engaging when he speaks his softly-toned words . he's perfect for a role like this , and at the same time he reassures us he's not bound by playing the psycho ( though he is good at it , as he shows in face/off ) . meg ryan is a powerful , enticing , and appealingly-chirpy actress , and her work here is some of her best . dennis franz , however , steals all of his scenes as the energetic former-angel . what i admire most about city of angels is its overall presentation . director brad silberling is a talented man , and he knows that a story like this is driven by the characters , rather than forced sentimentality . his direction is steady , and he shows this in just about every scene : near the beginning , maggie has to tell a mother and her two children that their father is dead . there is no music or elaborate camera work ; we simply see the reactions of the characters to the information . this is the way stories should be told , and the strength of scenes resonates more completely when the emotions are real . the film also appeals to the senses in a way that few love stories do . cinematographer john seale ( the english patient ) provides some of the most stunning images i've seen on the big screen : hundreds of black-clad angels stand on a dim beach in the early morning hours ( just as an example ) . the music , by gabriel yared ( also of the english patient ) , is perfect for this film : it's quiet and moody music ( but not sentimental ! ) , and adds to the atmosphere and tone nicely . the visual presentation of city of angels is easily the best of 1998 so far . all of this adds up to a film that is instantly set apart from other members of this genre . it's a film that relies on character development and imagery to get the story across--the excellent actors and the professional production values make city of angels one of those rare films that both entertains and instigates thought simultaneously .
0	the crown jewel of 1970's irwin allen disaster movies , the poseidon adventure features an all-star cast including gene hackman and ernest borgnine spouting some of the most laughable dramatic dialogue in movie history while trapped on a cruise ship . the story begins on the u . s . s . poseidon's big new year's cruise , where we are introduced to the ensemble of people who will soon be the only passengers left alive . let's see , there's the new age preacher ( hackman ) who advises people to " pray to that part of god within yourself . " there's the ex-cop ( borgnine ) who busted a hooker ( stella stevens ) six times -- then married her . there's the hippie singer ( " there's got to be a morning after . . . " ) who turns to the company of a lonely man ( red buttons ) once her brother is killed . and to round out the group : the elderly couple ( jack albertson and shelley winters ) who live aboard the ship , the beautiful teenage girl and her brother who are sailing alone and adventurous scotsman roddy mcdowall . we get to know these people a little too well in the first thirty minutes of the poseidon adventure , before straight- faced ship captain leslie nielson looks in horror at the giant tidal wave headed right for the ship . everyone's in the giant ballroom at the time , shortly past midnight of the new year , when the ship turns first on its side , then completely upside down . the second- in-command wants everyone to wait in the ballroom until help arrives , but rebel hackman leads his small band of followers on a quest to the top of the ship . in this case , because the ship is overturned , the top is the bottom . or is the bottom the top ? either way , we get to see a lot of bottoms because the two beautiful women in the crew are both conveniently wearing hot pants during the scenes where the camera shoots upwards while they climb up ladders and -- in the ballroom scene -- christmas trees . thus begins an hour or more of hushed trips down long corridors , through burning rooms , etc . while the ship slowly fills with water behind them . it's a race against the clock which is only mildly interesting . the poseidon adventure works more as a bad movie to laugh at , with all the melodrama that comes in-between the non-thrilling action scenes . the one note in borgnine's one-note performance is to be a cranky old man that argues with hackman every step of the way while buttons and the hippie fall in love ( although since there isn't a sex scene , we never find out if his buttons really are red ) and albertson and winters wonder if they'll live to see their grandson's birth . shelley winters provides the most hilarious scene in the movie in a scene toward the end , where water has flooded the next two rooms of the ship and hackman is preparing to dive under with a rope for the rest of them to pull along . winters , who has been the whiny fat woman throughout the movie ( stevens even not-so- affectionately calls her " fatass " in one scene ) , finally finds her purpose . " i was the underwater swimming champ of new york three years running when i was seventeen , " she brags , and before hackman can even ask her how she could be seventeen for three years , she's swimming through the water , her skirt billowing up around her hips , showing off her cellulite ( or do you call it shellulite ? ) ridden thighs . it's not so much funny as innately disgusting , which pretty much sums up the poseidon adventure as a whole .
1	roberto benigni is a clown in the tradition of chaplin and keaton . this italian film star , best known in the united states for the poorly received son of the pink panther , has done the near impossible by creating a comic fable about the holocaust . but benigni's life is beautiful ( la vita e bella ) is not so much a story of the holocaust as it uses that monstrous outrage against humanity as a backdrop to tell a story of familial love , devotion and sacrifice . the movie starts out as a typical slapstick farce with benigni's guido arriving in the small tuscan town of arezzo in 1938 to fulfill his dream of owning a bookstore . like many of the slapstick clowns who preceded him , most notably the almost-forgotten harry langdon , benigni's guido has a childlike innocence . he ignores the growing anti-semitism of the fascist government . instead , guido ardently falls in love and persues dora , a local school teacher who already is engaged to a local fascist official . in benigni's tightly wound script this is the same fascist official with whom guido had an earlier unfortunate - yet slapstick - encounter . guido wins dora . they marry . fast forward about five years . guido , dora , and their 5-year-old son , giosue ? ( giorgio cantarini ) are a happy family . guido has finally fulfilled his dream of opening a bookstore . but racial and anti-semitic tensions are on the rise in italy , and guido has determined to do his best to shield his son from these harsh realities . the task becomes even the more difficult when the family is deported to a concentration camp . here , guido must use all his skill and imagination not only to shield his son , but to keep him from being exterminated . it is at this juncture in life is beautiful may tend to offend those whom the holocaust has touched . for the scenes in the concentration camp lack the horror , the pain , the unimaginable suffering of a schindler's list . true , many italian jews were not deported until the war was nearly over , and most were not sent to the death camps , but to work camps where they were used as slave labor . unlike steven spielberg , benigni is not out to tell the story of the holocaust . his story is about family and the lengths a parent will go to protect a child . for guido , to save his son , transforms the entire experience into an elaborate game . giosue ? must follow the rules without question to amass 1 , 000 points . the winner takes home a tank . therefore , guido tells him , he must remain hidden in the barracks . he cannot make a sound nor allow the guards to see him . guido explains this during a hilarious sequence when a german guard barks the camp instructions to the newly arrived inmates . guido , lying that he understands german and can translate for his fellow prisoners , instead lays down the rules for his son to allow him a chance to survive . throughout their imprisonment , guido's quick thinking continually keeps his son from harm's way . ultimately , the allies rescue the camp . in a poignant scene , giosue ? comes out of hiding just as an american tank rolls into the compound . the boy goes wide-eyed with wonderment and delight , thinking he has won the game . the price for his victory is most high . benigni has succeeded in using the blackest moment in human history to prove that even in hell , a ray of hope and salvation can penetrate the darkness . life is beautiful is a fantasy , a fable . it is not to be taken as a record of the holocaust . those who object to it are missing its point . and that is simply where there is hope , where there is life and where there is love , the spark of humanity will never be extinguished . committed to lifelong learning through effective communication
0	a follow-up to disney's live-action " 101 dalmatians " that's better , more entertaining than the first ? just as unlikely . with " 102 dalmatians , " the disney studios have proven that when it comes to going to the dogs , more is definitely * not * the merrier . 1996's " 101 dalmatians " certainly wasn't the greatest movie-going experience of all time , but it did feature glenn close in an outrageous , larger-than-life performance . in addition , we had two amiable leads in the form of jeff daniels and joely richardson , and lots and lots of adorable spotted puppies . this time around there seem to be fewer puppies on the screen , and close's facial and physical gyrations are starting to feel as old as the 53-year-old actress under that startling black and white wig of hers . but that's only half the problem with kevin lima's laborious film . what makes " 102 dalmatians " such a collosal bore is its embarrassing attempts at humor ( here almost single-handedly foisted on a wisecracking macaw who thinks he's a dog , voiced by eric idle ) , its rabid plotlessness ( cruella goes after puppies again ; winds up in goo again ) and most of all , the incredibly wooden actors who plays the romantic " heroes " of the piece , a welshman named ioan gruffudd and the blander-than-bland alice evans as a parole officer named chlo ? . gruffudd is cute and harmless , perhaps , but evans can't even aspire to that . the dogs upstage them both , of course , but in the case of evans , even close's split ends are more animated . bad acting , however , seems to be a requirement for this sequel , since g ? rard depardieu shows up as a french furrier with a haircut like robert de niro's in " men of honor . " jean pierre le pelt is a flamboyant fashion designer with a penchant for fine furs and depardieu's over-the-top antics mimic those of the campy close flail for flail , and wail for wail . france's most popular export besides brie has long since turned into a caricature of himself , and in " 102 dalmatians " the producers milk that realization for all it's worth--le pelt likes to refer to the furry little critters as " poopies , " par example ( and ad nauseum ) . the finesses of the script ( attributed to four screenwriters no less , and far removed from anything dodie smith ever dreamed up ) are quickly dispensed with , since all it takes for a paroled cruella to be shaken from her years of successful aversion therapy in the slammer is the tolling of big ben ( ? ) . that done , it's back to the mansion to roll around in her heretofore off-limits sables and minks and a plan to skin those little dahlings for the sake of a hooded designer gown . the dogs are pretty cute--try making a puppy look otherwise--but that's pretty much all they are . there's always the feeling that there's a trainer off in the wings , coaxing the dogs to open doors , or pick up their food bowls in unison , or pop a tape into the videocasette recorder . savvy holiday goers should skip " 102 dalmatians " and pop the original 1961 animated classic into * their * vcrs instead . it's one dalmatian less , but 101% more satisfying .
1	" the deep end " uses a color palette of rich earth tones surrounded by a vast array of blues . alluring , attractive blues , but also icy and foreboding . after taking in their beauty , the eye seeks out the reassuring browns and greens , like a tired swimmer searching for the safety of land . the production works that way as well ? it pulls you in initially as a crisp , thoroughly-modern thriller , with clipped exchanges between defiantly non-communicative characters . but the real draw of the film is the submerged humanity of two key players as " the deep end " gradually reveals the melodramatic core beneath its ironic candy coating . spoiler alert : the following reveals the basic storyline . i believe the plot points are incidental , because the real rewards come in exploring the mindset of the main characters , but still , you should proceed at your own risk . with her husband tom , a naval officer , often away at sea , margaret hall ( tilda swinton ) holds down the fort , taking care of the children , beau ( jonathan tucker ) , paige ( tamara hope ) , and dylan ( jordon dorrance ) , while her father-in-law jack ( peter donat ) hovers in the background , always watching . the story opens with margaret leaving the family home in lake tahoe to storm a male strip club in reno . it seems that beau , her eldest , is having an affair with darby reese ( josh lucas ) , a disreputable sort 12 years his senior . margaret demands that darby leave her son alone , only to have the man smirk at her and announce he'll be glad to steer clear of beau ? for $5000 . back at home , she tries to talk about it all with her son , but the kid won't even confirm that he's gay , let alone discuss the issues she has with his boyfriend . he does , however , get attentive when she reveals darby's $5 , 000 offer , even as he maintains his sullen demeanor . late in the evening , darby shows up outside , tossing pebbles at beau's window like a schoolchild . the two meet by the water at the boathouse , where something important happens . i won't reveal what ; suffice to say we become aware of a significant fact that margaret does not . all of this happens in the first few minutes of the movie , by the way . within a day or so , margaret's life becomes even more complicated when a suave man named alec goran visnjic ) turns up with an explicit videotape documenting the sex life of beau and darby . he and his associate are willing to destroy the tape , once margaret coughs up $50 , 000 . oh , what's a mother to do ? end spoilers written , directed and produced by scott mcgehee and david siegel ( " suture " ) , " the deep end " is based on elisabeth sanxay holding's 1940's novel , " the blank wall , " which was also the source of the 1949 film , " the reckless moment . " i've neither read the book nor seen the movie , but i understand that the filmmakers changed some details . in holding's story , the " scandalous " relationship is between an older man and margaret's teen-age daughter . switching the gender makes the tale seem more contemporary , and it also raises questions about margaret's motives . many reviews of " the deep end " describe margaret as a mother ferociously protecting her son , but i wonder . consider this : margaret lives in a meticulously kept upscale home . her husband is absent most of the time and seems to be regarded as a larger-than-life figure . her father-in-law is constantly present , almost as if he is monitoring for his son . and when her husband does call , margaret is careful not to tell him about anything disturbing that is going on with the family . so is margaret a mother who accepts her son's sexual orientation and is simply trying to shield the young man from a lover she fears will take advantage of him ? or is she caretaker of a museum of upper middle class complacency , desperate to maintain the status quo so that everything will be postcard perfect when the old man returns from the sea ? you sort it out . regardless , the resonance of " the deep end " comes from two actors . goran visnjic , best known from the tv drama " er , " is striking as a blackmailer unlike any you've seen before . he engages margaret in a mesmerizing dance of protocol , chivalry and simmering eroticism . but the star of this show , without a doubt , is the remarkable tilda swinton . watch the shadings , depth , resource , vitality and understated sexuality she gives margaret and try to imagine the film without her . days after my second viewing of " the deep end , " i can still vividly picture her negotiating with villains , trying to connect with her son and diving into icy blue water . " the deep end " is an exceptional film and tilda swinton is the best part of it .
1	director david fincher has such an eye for detail which is very rare in hollywood these days ( terry gilliam comes to mind as another one ) . film is one of the best art forms because not only can you tell a story , but you can use the camera to capture the smallest detail and have it mean something . but most directors seem to go for action with the slightest ounce of a story . so whenever a director uses the camera to its fullest potential , the film almost automatically deserves a good review . and when they add a fascinating story to it , you have nearly perfect entertainment . fincher's the game is no exception to this . the game is one of the most interesting and complex films to come out of hollywood in a long time . fincher hasn't made a film since " seven , " his box office and critical hit which defied expectations and became one of the best movies ever . so it is about time he made another film . and what a ride it is . the game isn't quite as powerful as " seven , " but in some ways it is better . overall , the game could have used a little more clarity , or a little more uncertainty . it walks a line of insanity and reality , but it never goes either way until the very end . the outcome is satisfying enough for the preceding events , and it makes a lot of sense once everything is set straight . unfortunately , unlike " the usual suspects , " we are never given enough information to figure out for ourselves what is happening , whether it be true or false . however , this also gives the film a frightening aspect which the game uses to the fullest extent . the game is told completely from its main character's point of view . nicholas van orton ( michael douglas ) is a high-strung and isolated businessman . he lives alone in his giant mansion , divorced from his wife elizabeth , and is celebrating his 48th birthday ; the same age at which his father committed suicide at , in the same mansion . for his 48th birthday , conrad ( sean penn ) , the rebel of the family , gives nicholas a gift certificate to crs : consumer recreation services . " it will make your life fun again , " his brother promises . as skeptical as nicholas is , he is somewhat intrigued , and annoyed by the lack of information--something this businessman hates . seeing a billboard in an office , he decides to visit the mysterious company . jim feingold ( james rebhorn ) greets nicholas and guides him through the sign-up process , which consists of psych-tests , physicals , emotional responses , and other mind games . " each game is suited to each person's emotional and psychological needs , " explains feingold . one day , nicholas gets a call from crs and they explain that he failed the tests . even more intrigued and now somewhat angered at the time he spent signing up , he starts asking around to see what people can tell him about the company . what he doesn't realize is that the game has already begun . the phone call is just the first of many strange events to be thrown nicholas' way . how he finds out that he is involved has to be witnessed because it is amusing and fun and visually impressive . the detail involved in fincher's shots is incredible and almost requires a second viewing just to appreciate the effort that went into them . with " seven , " fincher had almost every single shot mean something . he also has the unique ability to make you look at exactly what he wants you to . compared to " seven , " though , the game is light and comical . because of this film's sense of humor and self-awareness , nothing can be taken quite seriously . so don't try to make much sense of what goes on in the game , because it doesn't want you to . what does make sense is the final revelation--when everything becomes apparent and clear . if taken as it is , the game's ending makes complete sense . but if you try and critique every minute detail , then you get yourself into plot holes and incredibility . perhaps that is the reason i docked the film . while trying to remain realistic and plausible , the plot is too unbelievable to create any real tension on screen . we don't really care if douglas' character lives or not because it isn't believable . the ending requires you to have believed anything that has happened previously , but if you suspend disbelief and take the film as it is , you can accept the game as an emotionally and psycholically disturbing thriller . michael douglas gives a terrific performance as nicholas . douglas has played lonely businessmen before , but here he adds another level to his performance . his character , who is normally level-headed and relies on facts , is forced to trust nobody . can he believe the waitress he bumped into ? what about his brother who got him involved in the game in the first place ? douglas portrays this aspect of his character extremely well , and gives one of his best performances ( even better than his " falling down " persona ) . the supporting cast is essential in this film , and casting was critical . sean penn is always good , and he gives yet another credible performance as douglas' brother . deborah kara unger ( from " crash " ) is the waitress he bumps into , and her performance is extremely good . in fact , she almost steals the film from douglas . james rebhorn portrays his character very well , and adds some confusion and desparation to douglas' predicament . another good performance comes from armin mueller-stahl ( from " shine " ) as the book editor . but considering that douglas is in every single scene of the game , he not only commands this cast , but makes this distant and lonely character come to colorful life . the game is rated r for language , violence , some gore , and some nudity and drugs . what is essential for this film to work is the writing . john brancato and michael ferris have woven a confusing and compelling screenplay with witty dialogue , and some very funny moments . this screenplay will probably get an oscar nomination for best original screenplay because it does almost exactly the same thing the usual suspects' did . however , the visuals of the game are enough to make the viewer enjoy the vexing plot . and if you can get yourself to believe everything occuring on the screen , you will be thoroughly entertained by one of this year's best films .
1	in 1995 , brian singer and christopher mcquarrie dreamed up a simple concept : the audience isn't stupid . from that , they went on and created the most plot-driven , intricately pieced movie in the last 25 years . the result : the usual suspects , one hell of a movie that redefines the word plot twist . the story is convoluted , and is really confusing to read , although easy to follow on screen . special investigator kujan ( chazz palminteri ) grills " verbal " kint ( kevin spacey ) , a crippled con-man who is the lone survivor of an la boat explosion that claimed more than 20 victims . kujan wants to confirm that his nemesis , the rogue cop keaton ( gabriel byrne ) , is actually dead . kint relates the majority of the film in flashback , beginning with the fateful day when five shifty guys meet in a police-station lineup in new york city . along with dour keaton , kint encounters cheerfully sociopathic mcmanus ( stephen baldwin ) , mordantly sarcastic hockney ( kevin pollak ) , and fenster ( benicio del toro ) , whose speech is virtually incomprehensible . together they plot to steal a small fortune in gems from " new york's finest taxi service " --crooked cops who provide escort service for visiting drug kingpins . what follows is a shell-game of violence and betrayal , all hinging on the identity of a mysterious villain called keyser soze . the film is brilliantly compact : its the shortest 90 minutes you'll ever spend in a movie theater . the cast is exceptional . palminteri shines , he is brutally honest , a true cop , one who is going after the whole story because its there . byrne is terrific , his brooding character , his seriousness is needed to supplement the hysteria of benicio del toro , who is a riot as fenster . del toro is brilliant , his lines are a jumbled mess , you can't understand a word the man says , but it sure is damn funny . baldwin is also very good , he is careful , methodical , and cold , a chilling character with a nasty streak of hot-blooded sarcasm . pollak is also terrific as usual , a very good character actor . however , this will be forever known as the film that launched kevin spacey . spacey is simply breathtaking , he is a force on screen , giving a magnetic performance that jars the senses at the end of this twisting maze . spacey's performance will be remembered for years , for it is the best of his career , it may be the best supporting actor performance in the last 50 years . verbal kint is a clever storyteller , weak , oppressed , and gleefully evil to the bone , yet pitiful , one who draws sympathy . the film is a good one , a decent film until the last 10 minutes . what this film boils down to is the greatest ending in cinematic history , for me at least . the revelation of keyser soze , the closing gunfights , it is something wondrous . you have to see this movie about 10 times to believe what they do . kudos to mcquarrie and singer for giving the audience a delightful , fast-paced , furiously plot-driven movie with quirky characters , phenomenal acting , and some hilarious moments stuck in the middle . mcquarrie refuses to believe the audience is dumb . without furnishing too many details , he concocts his story and lets it run , hoping the audience gets it at the end . we do . this might just be the finest cinematic puzzle ever created . kudos also to singer and john ottman , who created the score . they both create what is a true film-noir setting , carefully setting up this intricate puzzle until the final , jarring ending . there are flaws : more questions raised than answers , lack of character development , and no strong female characters ( save one ) . however , the plot , and that stunning ending , make up for all the flaws and more . if you haven't seen the movie , rent it . watch it . then rewind the tape , and watch it again . trust me , you'll be amazed .
0	robin williams has the rarest of gifts : the ability to rise above the most inept material and suffuse it with his irreverent style . overwhelmingly , his worst films are pleasantly diverting at worst and enjoyable at best ( with the notable exception of flubber ) . so when i , the one person who has refused to abandon him despite patch adams , tell you that not even williams can save his latest project , you know it's in trouble . jakob the liar is a confused , muddled little movie ; a generically " uplifting " film with a fundamental contradiction : the message it delivers is depressing as opposed to inspiring and the movie doesn't realize it . williams plays jakob haim , a jew imprisoned in a polish ghetto during world war ii . one night he wanders outside after curfew and is promptly sent to the office of a high-ranking german officer for his punishment . jakob gets off easy and he gets to hear approximately 30 seconds of a radio broadcast . the announcement ( in english , but punctuated by a triumphant " heil hitler ! " ) is that russian troops are only miles away from jakob's ghetto . liberation ! he thinks . the next day , jakob tells the news to his closest friend , a volatile prize fighter named misha ( liev schreiber ) , who despite being sworn to secrecy passes the message along . soon , it is a common assumption in the ghetto that jakob has a radio hidden in his home -- a crime punishable by death . this is absurdly false , but the more jakob tells the people of the ghetto this , the more convinced they become that he is abreast of the latest developments in the war that is to decide their fate . the danger , of course , is that the germans allegedly have informants throughout the ghetto , and rumors about the radio can get out and put jakob in great danger . in a curiously irrelevant subplot , jakob finds a 11-year old girl who has separated from her parents and decides to hide her in his small home . apparently he is afraid that she will be discovered , and goes to great length to make sure of that -- just why the idea frightens him is never made clear . he and the girl build an uninvolving , generic relationship that never goes anywhere and is as irrelevant at the end as it was in the beginning . the moral of the story is that hope is the best medicine . but jakob the liar forgets that the hope that jakob brings to his ghetto is false . such hope inevitably leads to expectations of its realization and when those expectations aren't met , the results are far worse than if there was no hope . that's the film's biggest detriment : it is based on a false assumption and thus comes off as painfully false . it's never moving because it doesn't give us anything to be moved by . jakob the liar fails to tug any heartstrings which destroys its purpose for existing . robin williams doesn't inject the film with life , as a matter of fact , he seems a little out of it , as if crippled by his fake accent . he is stragely unenthusiastic ; his character is one who spreads hope but his performance is lifeless , hopeless . not since good will hunting has he abandoned his signature style to this extent ; this isn't the robin williams we know and love . in good will hunting he became a serious actor and won an oscar for it . here , he is more of a wannabe serious actor ; an impostor . jakob the liar will be compared with last year's life is beautiful because it is being marketed as a " holocaust comedy " . it's not a comedy . it tries , sometimes , but it rarely works . is it a melodrama ? a war movie ? a character study ? no , no , and no . jakob the liar is the kind of movie that can't be placed into a category ; not because it covers so many different genres but because it fails at just about every one it attempts .
1	after the press screening of " moulin rouge , " i stood in the lobby of the theater listening to the reactions of my friends and colleagues . everyone seemed a bit numb , understandable after sitting through a barrage of often-incongruous sounds and images . a pal of mine simply said that he loved the film and could hardly wait to take his wife to see it . another enthusiast immediately began to analyze the production , while a woman who flat-out hated the movie gave him the skunk eye . when one fellow quietly stated " i've never really been a fan of musicals , " the statement surprised me because , even though the story is told almost completely through song , i didn't think of it as a musical . there is so much going on in " moulin rouge " that " musical " seems too small a term to cover it . " moulin rouge " is the kind of creation that sends critics scurrying off to the big tub o' adjectives in search of proper words to describe the experience . australian director baz luhrmann , the man behind " strictly ballroom " and " romeo + juliet , " fills the heads of viewers with unique camerawork , opulent imagery and songs ranging from " the sound of music " to " smells like teen spirit . " sumptuous and beautiful , vulgar and overdone , " moulin rogue " travels through the looking glass while an ethereal stereo loaded with 50 years worth of catchy tunes operates on the " random " setting . oh , and it has a story as well . " it was 1899 , the summer of love . . . " christian ( ewan mcgregor ) is a penniless young writer newly arrived in paris , " to write about truth , beauty , freedom and love , " where he encounters a group of bohemians , led by henri de toulouse-lautrec ( john leguizamo ) . christian meets satine ( nicole kidman ) , a courtesan from the legendary moulin rogue , and his world transforms from black and white to technicolor . at once fragile and vivacious , the dazzling red-haired woman sweeps him off his feet without even trying . christian instantly falls in love with her and satine finds herself smitten with him as well , which is quite a hindrance for someone in her profession . working with the bohemians and moulin rogue impresario harold zidler ( jim broadbent ) , christian writes an opus modestly named " spectacular spectacular . " zidler quickly finds a backer , the wealthy duke of monroth ( richard roxburgh ) , but there's a catch ? the duke also wants the hand of the fair satine . as if all that isn't enough , satine has a cough , and while a cough in the real world probably indicates a cold , it rarely turns out to be anything that simple in movie land . like a teeter-totter , " moulin rogue " moves up and down between the ridiculous and the sublime . one of the loveliest moments comes as christine and satine commune outdoors at night , becoming part of a defiantly unrealistic parisian cityscape straight from a book of fairy tales . together they dance , while serenaded by the man in the moon ( alessandro safina provides the vocals ) , apparently transported from the classic georges m ? li ? s silent film to guard the nocturnal sky . other scenes merely traffic in everything-and-the-kitchen-sink overload . the cavorting of toulouse-lautrec and his comrades gets strained at times and some of their overt comedy , accompanied by cartoon sound effects , is overly reminiscent of the frenzied farce that sitcoms like " bewitched " beat into the ground . of course , sensory overload was exactly what baz luhrmann had in mind . " we never heard from baz to turn it down , " one of the actors told the los angeles times . " it was always , 'more ! more ! ' " the director even sent a note to his cast reading , " i dare you to make me say you've gone too far . " the musical numbers reflect his attitude . one knockout piece , the " elephant love medley , " incorporates the beatles' " all you need is love , " u2's " in the name of love , " dolly parton's " i will always love you " and elton john and bernie taupin's " your song . " need more ? how about " diamonds are a girl's best friend " spiced with portions of " material girl ? " luhrmann's cast offers a wide variety of approaches that , together , add up to something messy , but often wonderful . ewan mcgregor is extremely likable as christian , emphasizing the sincerity of the love-struck poet . mcgregor's singing voice is robust and adds vigor at just the right moments . once labeled the " ice queen , " nicole kidman melts that characterization with a sizzling , yet tender , performance . she handles the songs adroitly , although her voice sounds a bit thin in the upper range . veteran character actor jim broadbent is suitably larger than life as ringmaster zidler ? wait until you see him perform " like a virgin . " as the buffoonish duke , richard roxburgh proves to be the film's weakest link , although i'm sure he was simply following instructions . i suspect " moulin rogue " will be one of those love-it-or-hate-it films . while i didn't completely love it , i most certainly liked it a lot . over the course of a year , i see well over 300 movies , and most of them look like xeroxes of each other . " moulin rogue " is an original , and an original , even a flawed one , is a thing to be cherished .
0	what's to like about the world of extremely violent trash pornography--ie . the garbage known as " snuff " films ? nothing , right ? what's to like about a film chronicling the world of violent trash pornography ? well . . . nothing . so , why make it , hollywood ? there's no reason why the average , sane movie-goer will be interested in such a topic . no one is going to enrich their life or have a good time by watching material such as this . the lack of quality filmmaking in " 8mm " ( from technical to acting ) stands out even more when you consider the star , writer , and supporting cast--all reputable . but joel schumacher and his brand of unlikable filmmaking strikes again ! like paul schrader , schumacher has his moments , but they're few and far ( far ! ) between . basically , this picture is crap and no one should pay to see it . why not walk out ? well , this wouldn't be a thorough review about a thoroughly bad movie . here's why you should spend your money on dog food or gum instead of " 8mm " . . . first thing--if you don't heed my advice , then understand what you're about to see before you even think about paying good money for this crud . it's not easy to watch . i didn't know the details of the story beforehand , but at least my ignorance can help others now . the ( ha ! ) plot revolves around tom welles ( nicolas cage ) as a surveillance expert and private investigator . a rich old woman discovers a " snuff " film in her late husband's safe . she calls welles and hires him to try and find out if the young girl ( it had to be a young girl , didn't it , schumacher ! ) who appears to be murdered in the film really is dead . she's horrified that her husband would have owned such a film ( in 8mm , of course ) and just wants welles to snoop around without police interference to see what he can find . family-man welles agrees against better judgement or any concrete leads even after cringing and grimacing at the sight of the grotesque " murder " . let me backtrack for a moment . see , " snuff " films are pornos with a violent twist--people are tortured in very sick ways and end up dead . however , the deaths are often staged and , in those cases , special effects and " good " acting make all the difference . very sick people enjoy and pay top dollar for these hard-to-find movies . the thought of this " industry " makes me want to throw my computer out the window and stop this review , but i'll swallow my bile and move on . welles follows clues to hollywood and the porn industry . you'd think he's sherlock holmes the way clues drop so easily for him ! he comes across smut clerk max ( joaquin phoenix ) who knows everyone and everything in the underground business of sleaze . after a lot of digging and bribing , welles finds the men who are responsible for making this , and other , " snuff " films . skip ahead , skip ahead , skip ahead . . . led by dino velvet ( peter stormare in an uncharacteristically terrible performance ) and star-torturer " machine " ( christopher bauer ) , they have a big showdown with welles where death and mayhem ensue . the movie doesn't end there , unfortunately , because welles has to do what all heroes in schumacher films do--become a vigilante . this film doesn't draw you in . it keeps you about 700 miles away from it and who in their right mind would want to get close ? it is possible to like a film that focuses on grime and sick behaviour ( ie . " se7en " ) , but it takes a large measure of restraint ( schumacher has none ) and a larger amount of talent ( schumacher has little ) . by those jabs , i'm not only referring to his stylish destruction of the " batman " franchise , but " a time to kill " was an immensely overrated disappointment . for a guy who gets so much studio money , his track record of making rather bad movies is unparalleled . a good screenwriter and a good director can make you hypnotically watch even disgusting subject matter . writer andrew kevin walker didn't recapture the smarts of the fascinating script he authored for '95s twisted thriller , " se7en " . director schumacher doesn't have that innate ability to make you watch things you don't really want to see like better directors are capable of doing . he must not have believed hitchcock who espoused the theory that what we don't see is more frightening than what we do ( especially when it's a scene where young girl is supposed to be murdered ) . however , gratuitous is joel's middle name . he must think that not flaunting a hard-core act of violent sex is showing plenty of tactful restraint . no , he doesn't go that far , but we see enough unpleasantness . he doesn't leave much to the imagination . it's manipulating to hurt ( or kill ) young girls just to get the audience on the side of a murderous vigilante . the script and acting should be what gets us to believe in these characters , yet schumacher has no subtlety in his ( ha ha ! ) craft . case in point , a shot of a christian fellowship bus ( good , right ? ) drives away to reveal one of the villains ( bad , right ? ) . see . . . no subtlety . does joel think we're stupid or that we need to be held by the hand to comprehend the contrasting imagery ? who do we root for in this mess ? is there anybody out there ? it's not all the director's fault , though . why did the actors sign up for this ? nicolas cage is an oscar-winner , for cryin' out loud ! if he claims to do films to challenge himself and for the artistic merit rather than the money , what was he smoking when this script dropped on his veranda ? what is cage supposed to be in this movie--a whispering batman without the charisma and pointed ears ? villainous peter stormare is five steps past hammy . and what is james gandolfini doing in this trash ? he was so solid as a concerned father in " a civil action " . i guess ol' nic , pete , and jim were promised a mountain of money . . . or they're suckers . or they just don't care . there are moments ( albeit brief ones ) where this rises above the wasteland . catherine keener is good ( although too quick to threaten divorce ) as mrs . wells . baby cindy is obviously cute and wells' devout love of his daughter is sweet . the mother ( amy norton ) of the girl in the infamous 8mm film is not too bad as a woman dealing with the uncertain loss of her runaway daughter . this film has an appropriate blue-toned , washed-out look like " payback " ( which was a much better movie ) . the editing is okay in scenes of no dialogue , but at other times it's rough . during some conversations , close-ups and wide shots are not cut very well , making it look to be editted by someone whose instincts aren't good and whose timing was a half-second off . such a technical error indeed stands out . speaking of standing out , don't believe the misleading trailers . there's not much action here . occasionally , yes , but not as often as your tv will have you believe . after seeing " 8mm " , i may not be interested in ever watching any kind of porn again . is that a positive ? well , if making me almost ill at the thought of glimpsing a dirty movie again is their motive , they've done a swell job here . it'll be a long time before i give a schumacher film another chance--unless i lose my mind and become seriously depraved . but today i'm not depraved , so i ask , why does this film preach that this garbage is out there and that society should be worried about it ? i'm sure that somewhere right now there's some pretty sick crap going on , but that doesn't mean i need to know about it . yes , mr . walker , your script tells us that there are some screwed-up folks out there . yes , mr . walker , the proverbial monster doesn't look like we expect him to . you said all that in 1995 . move on . this film serves no purpose . it doesn't entertain , it doesn't teach us anything , it doesn't make a statement beyond the obvious " this stuff is bad " approach . only if this film awakens the authorities to find a way to abolish these types of horrors would it ever do someting truly worthwhile . that's not likely to happen , though , so " 8mm " is indeed a scummy waste of money . orson welles said years ago in a tribute to film , " to movies . . . to good movies " . if only joel schumacher and the producers had listened and told andrew kevin walker to bury this crud deep in a hole . like " snuff " films , " 8mm " should never have been made . now , excuse me while i go try to forget i ever saw it . useless trivia--joel schumacher loves the vigilante theme . he used it in " batman forever " , in " batman & robin " , in " a time to kill " , in " falling down " , and it's rumoured that joel himself will play the vigilante at his breakfast table tomorrow . . .
1	the sheer horrific audacity of the nazi plan to exterminate the jews of europe is almost incomprehensible . people may make documentaries about it for another hundred years and still not understand the organized , methodical hatred . five concentration camp survivors from the last days of world war ii tell their stories in the last days , the first documentary from steven spielberg's survivors of the shoah visual history foundation . the five interviewees are linked by their hungarian ancestry . as the introduction explains , even as germany started to lose the war , the nazis stepped up their extermination of the jews in europe . in 1944 , hungary had the last big population of jews within germany's reach , and they became the last target of hitler's " final solution . " each of the five tells his or her story . their stories are intercut chronologically , starting from normal life in pre-war hungary . they recall the nazi invasion of hungary , being sent to " work " camps and their realization that they were actually in death camps . they recall their horrible , precarious lives in auschwitz and buchenwald ; the deaths of their family and friends ; their loss of hope . each recalls his or her unfathomable , eventual liberation . and finally , the last days shows their cathartic , pained , modern-day return to their old homes and the camps . needless to say , their stories are horrifying , amazing , and emotionally draining . by themselves , the stories would be forceful testaments , but by cutting them in parallel , their impact is multiplied by five . the last days is a talking-heads style documentary -- it's mostly pictures of people telling their stories , intercut with period photographs and newsreel footage . in this kind of movie it's almost impossible to get archival pictures from the same time and place being discussed on-screen , but director james moll made a better effort than most at finding specific , or at least relevant , images to go with his subjects' narration . the liner notes ( one of the many nice features of this dvd ) indicate that there is some never-before-seen historical footage in the last days . it's not clear which scene it is . it could be one of two that i hadn't seen before , both powerful . one is rare color footage , shot by an american , of piles of victims in cattle cars . there is something jarring , something unsettling about seeing the pictures in color , when so much of the footage from world war ii is in black and white . another segment shows walking skeletons ; survivors who are so starved that they hardly look human anymore . there has been a glut of holocaust movies and i was skeptical that a new documentary would have anything new to say . but by focusing on hungarian jews during the last days of the war , moll told a specific part of the story in a new way , in greater detail . and i'm glad he did because his careful filmmaking stands up well compared to other movies on the same subject . the transfer to dvd is rich and beautiful . x-mozilla-status : 0009f words for a holocaust documentary , but some of the interviews take place in europe in late spring , when skies are blue and trees are green . also , the movie was shot on 35mm film ( and not video ! ) , so the richness and detail are impeccable . the dvd's features are plentiful and well-chosen . there is a theatrical trailer for the movie , which is a great introduction to the subject matter . there are about fifty still photos , both from the production crew and from the private collections of the survivors . also , the disc has two complete versions of the movie ( widescreen and full screen ) , both on the same side . one of the more interesting dvd features is an outtake segment for each of the survivors ( plus one for the crew ) . you'd think outtakes would be inappropriate in a holocaust documentary , but they're not bloopers . instead , they are solid , moving segments that were probably cut from the film only for length . one of them continues a confrontation that was only touched on lightly in the film . renee firestone ( one of the five ) spoke on camera with dr . hans m ? nch , a german doctor who ran the medical clinic at auschwitz . firestone was aggressive , questioning the doctor about what his children thought . the doctor was evasive and clearly uncomfortable . another of the outtakes showed bill basch saying a prayer for his dead friends at auschwitz . he ends his prayer by saying " . . . forgive me for surviving . " it's ambitious to shoot a documentary on 35mm film . it's ambitious to make it on a subject that has saturated cable , television , and movies . it's ambitious to make it 54 years after the events it covers . but the last days handles all these potential obstacles very well . it's only fitting that the dvd , with its wealth of interesting and relevant features , would also be ambitious and successful .
1	here is a film that is so unexpected , so scary , and so original that it caught me off guard and threw me for a loop . okay , it isn't quite original , considering it is a sequel to the box office hit species , but it certainly is smart . most films of this genre are reminiscent of those cheesy b-horror films from the 50s and 60s , and some even become them . however , as we learned with the 1995 small-budget horror/sci-fi film , sometimes expectations can be shattered . a lot of criticism has gone against this film ( from what i have read so far , anyway--yep , all two reviews ) , and it makes me wonder why these types of films are automatically dismissed as gory , laughable pieces of trash . but , the thing is , it isn't . it's well made , well acted , and quite intelligent . i can see most of the critics now complaining about the level of gore or the level of sexuality in the film . but the species series isn't about the lack of these elements . it's about how much it can get into one film . and yet , behind it all , it has this basic premise that allows it to get away with doing so . species ii begins in the present day , though it seems to be an alternate universe . many films ( especially sci-fi ones ) create similar timelines as our realistic one , but change it to fit the film's needs . species ii begins with the arrival of an american spacecraft , the excursion , landing on the surface of mars . aboard is patrick ross ( justin lazard ) , a very bright and very handsome astronaut . patrick is the son of senator ross ( james cromwell ) , who just wants patrick to succeed . well , it would seem that he has succeeded . landing on the surface of mars , he is the first human being to ever do so . of course , he isn't the first ever . about a billion years ago , an alien species supposedly landed on mars and destroyed the perfect living conditions that were able to sustain life . now , of course , the red planet is cold and rocky . no life lives on it . that is , no visible life . patrick , upon leaving the spacecraft and landing on the red soil , collects samples from the ground . he takes them aboard , and puts them in storage . unfortunately , one of the samples contains a form of life , and it gets loose when it is heated aboard the ship . just prior to heading back to earth , this life form creeps along the floor and inhabits the earthlings . they pass out for approximately seven minutes , and then shrug it off as nothing , because they can't even remember . they blame it on a technical malfunction . back on earth , patrick begins to have strong urges to mate with as many women as possible . as we know from the original , this is because the alien wants to breed and take over the planet . however , the children that are bred are half-human , as their father is . patrick is really looking for another alien to breed with , and he finds it in eve ( natasha henstridge ) . eve was cloned from dna taken from sil , the original alien . however , this time around , most of her " alien " urges have been either decreased dramatically , or lie dormant . the project is led by dr . laura baker ( marg helgenberger , reprising her role from species ) , and her motives seem respectable . since she was involved with the original alien attack , she wants to learn how to stop the alien should it come again . and it has . story-wise , species ii is much stronger than its predecessor , but it is also much stronger than , say , aliens ( hey , i love the film , but you can't tell me it was strong on story ) . what surprised me the most with this film was the incorporation of historical facts into the screenplay . in my search for extraterrestrial intelligence course in college , we learned about a piece of rock from mars which landed in one of the poles . this piece of rock contained fossils which may have been proof of life on mars ( later , it was proven that it was not a living creature that created it ) . the script uses this effectively , but also manages to provide a well-balanced plot . beginning with the first man on mars ( something i have always dreamed of seeing ) , i was hoping that the film would turn this element into a useful starting point for the movie . and it does it quite well . the characters are all smart , and they know what to do and what not to do . the only character that seems a little cliched is the general ( george dzundza ) , and yet , he remains logical in everything he does . there are the obvious flaws of course , mostly lying in the technical aspects . the special effects are only mediocre , and some are just plain bad . but for the most part , they remain believable ( i even noticed a homage to the alien series when the mothers gave birth to alien children ) . also , the most realistic ones are usually the goriest , ranging from people being torn open , or someone's head being blown off . however , some plot elements also may elicit laughs from the audience , including a menage a troi that is all but necessary . many people dislike the species series because all it is is an excuse for sex , nudity , and gory violence . however , i tend to disagree . what were the alien films about ? and , if an alien species ever did come to earth , and their sole purpose was to destroy us , wouldn't you mate as quickly as possible with as many people as possible ? my only gripe with this is during the scene where patrick goes searching for a mate in a grocery store . i didn't realize that aliens were that picky on choosing women to mate with ( i just assume it is his part-human side looking for the most beautiful one ) . the acting is quite good for this kind of film . it is a vast improvement over the first film , at least . the acting is the key element to this film : if it was bad , it would have lowered itself into camp ; if it was good , it would have asked for comparison with films like aliens . okay , so it isn't that good . george dzundza is probably the most obvious mistake on casting , as his over-the-top impersonation of a general makes him annoying and distracting . natasha henstridge is limited this time around , as she is usually enclosed in a cage . however , she does manage a very impressive performance with this aspect hindering any of her talent . oh yeah , and she's quite fun to just plain watch . marg helgenberger is immensely better this time around , and her performance is probably the best in this film . michael madsen is so-so , but he isn't annoying , and he soon becomes rather appealing ( with his nice cynic personality ) . james cromwell has a small part , but he makes it much better than what it could have been with a more incapable actor . as i say , any film with james cromwell dramatically increases in likeability . mykelti williamson gives an enjoyable performance , and he gives the film a more down-to-earth feel . and , of course , justin lazard . lazard has so far been ridiculed for his performance , but i think he is effective . sure , he is wooden , but isn't that what his character is like ? the moment when he touches the glass separating henstridge from him was extremely well done , due to the couple's acting . species ii is rated r for strong sexuality , sci-fi violence/gore and language . this is definitely an r rated film that young kids should not see . more than likely , they would probably have nightmares and never have sex for the rest of their lives . hell , i don't even know if i will . what is sure to be a critically lambasted film turns out to be the surprise film of the year . i probably won't see another film where i was expecting so little and got so much for quite a while . director peter medak has crafted a very suspenseful , and sometimes very scary movie out of a mediocre series . medak has also mastered the wonderful " jump ! " moments , and has probably the second scariest moment i have ever seen on film ( scream still has the first ) . strong acting , smart dialogue , intelligent plotting , and a sure-handed director , species ii is exactly what these films should be : entertaining .
1	while watching boiler room , i was constantly reminded of last year's masterpiece fight club . both films consist of a predominately male cast . both films follow young men as they illicitly fight the traditional system for their own desires . and both films are seen through the eyes of one narrator , who eventually realizes that these men have to be stopped . while boiler room writer/director ben younger does not get his point across as well as david fincher does for fight club , he does contribute another impressive work to a series of films aiming to represent the new generation . a generation which has seen the internet prosper and where everyone wants to be a millionaire . paying homage to oliver stone's 1987 classic wall street , younger is almost modernizing the tale by using younger , hipper actors to play the greedy villains as opposed to the older , more experienced types . as is true in real life , younger minds are becoming richer and richer from their knowledge of more standard technology . boiler room dismisses the notion of ingenuity and shows that greed and desire for power come in all ages . another similarity with fight club is that both films are not action flicks . some people are convinced that an all-male cast automatically means there must be gory violence , here is proof that this is not true . if you want to see an action movie starring ben affleck , go see reindeer games this weekend . if you want to see a smart , insightful film with excellent acting and a clever script , see boiler room . giovanni ribisi gives an outstanding performance as the film's narrator , seth . after dropping out of college and running a lucrative gambling center for college students in his apartment , seth is offered a high paying job by a wealthy man ( nicky katt ) . he agrees to take the job ( in which you are guaranteed to become a millionaire within three years ) of selling stock to well-off americans from the mid-west over the telephone and begins to fit in quite well with his co-workers . learning tricky techniques to deceive innocent people into buying shares of a good in production , seth figures this is too good to be true . after stumbling into a room at the wrong time , he knows there is something no good about this company . at this point , seth is left with the ultimate choice ; continue with the american dream and make millions or tell the authorities that something fishy is going on . ribisi is believable as seth especially when he shares scenes with ron rifkin , playing seth's dad . the two have perfect chemistry as a troubled father and son trying to impress each other and simultaneously impress themselves . the transitions from anger to sympathy that these scenes contain are the standout segments of the entire film . the supporting cast of greedy co-workers is also flawless . ben affleck shines in a short but sweet performance as a recruiter for the company , nicky katt is fabulous as the ostensibly friendly boss who eventually becomes extremely jealous of seth , and vin diesel gives his best performance of his career as the foil character of nicky katt . the energy of the cast as a whole makes boiler room well paced and never boring . the only major error in the film is that nothing major happens . there is no big plot twist or climatic point to make the film more memorable . due to the lack of a major event , boiler room never finds a suitable genre to fit into . the movie is not intense enough to be a thriller , the romantic segments involving seth and abby ( nia long ) are not properly finalized , and the dialogue isn't funny enough to make it a comedy . in having trouble to characterize the movie as a whole , boiler room is slightly confused at times . it doesn't seem to know which category to fit itself into . one satisfying concluding scene could have changed the whole film for the better . otherwise , the movie is fun to watch thanks to its lively cast of young actors .
0	so what do you get when you mix together plot elements from various successful sci-fi films such as close encounters of the third kind , 2001 : a space odyssey , apollo 13 and contact ? well , whatever it is , you'd sure as hell hope that it would be a thousand times better than this shoddy attempt at such a melange , considering the disastrous results we're left with here . this is a film that takes a little bit of everything , but ultimately adds up to a lot of nothing ! it's like i said . . . this movie sucks . plot : a rescue crew of astronauts is sent down to mars in the year 2020 , after an unknown energy force leads to a loss of contact with the previous gang of space aviators to visit the red planet . critique : extremely underwhelming is the best way to describe this movie . uneven , would be another . the trailer for this movie actually showed some promise , the buzz around it had been so-so , and even the film itself starts off with a decent first twenty minutes , all leading you to believe that it's actually going to go " somewhere " . but it isn't long before the entire movie downshifts into neutral , features more space walks than anything interesting on the cherry-colored planet , tries too hard to get us into the " pain " of some its characters and unsuccessfully tosses some romance into the mix . in a sci-fi movie ? well , i don't know , much of it just seemed like a bunch of nerdies talking techie jargon for about an hour and a half , only to figure out some big secret in the end , a secret which practically had me yawning with excitement . ultimately , this is a movie that starts off with a decent premise , joins the crew in their " misadventures in space " for the main crux of its journey , and eventually settles down for one of the most anti-climactic endings this side of contact . mind you , if you enjoyed that film's shrug-of-the-shoulders ending , you might just enjoy this frivolous ditty as well . of course , i don't remember contact having such obvious and painfully distracting computer generated effects at its end of story . ugh . what a friggin' mess . films like this generally get me wondering about the brass in hollywood again . didn't anybody recognize the crappiness in this script ? didn't they read the bad dialogue , the cheezy lines , the obvious derivative nature of the work ( mind you , with a director like depalma at the helm , that ain't saying much ! ) . of course , you can't really blame the brass for the inclusion of jerry o'connell in this fine crew of thespians . 'nuff said . neither can you blame them for depalma cranking up the juice on the film's musical score during the last fifteen minutes , presumably in order to wake the audience up ( okay , we get it brian , this scene is supposed to be powerful . . . wow . . . yawn . . . my ears hurt ! ) . so is anything salvageable in this movie ? sure . gary sinise does another great job , as does cheadle , the film doesn't completely bore you as much as it just moves along slowly without anything really interesting happening , and yes , the " sand-twister " effect that you see in the commercial is well done . other than that ? i guess i could say that i admire how filmmakers have become so much more devious in their product placement strategies . . . oops , did i say " admire " , i meant " am disgusted " ! all in all , this movie delivers very little in actual substance , offers two-bit dialogue masked in a lot of sci-fi mumbo-jumbo , pretends to be deep when really it's just sappy , and eventually just settles into an ending which , other than presenting us with a pathetic computer graphic as a part of the story , gives us little more to think about than how we might be able to get our money back for sitting through this rehashed dreck . go see the ninth gate . . . now there's a great movie ! and on a personal note , i think it's time for depalma to stop worrying so much about his proverbial 12-minute uninterrupted film sequences , and start worrying more about how crappy his movies are getting .
0	what are the warning signs of a * terrible * movie ? making it's debut at the dollar theater ? locally , chairman of the board did just that . having the annoying prop comic scott thompson ( better known as carrot top ) in the lead role ? chairman of the board , once again . how about an overly exhausted , paper thin plot approached with utter incompetence ? did somebody say chairman of the board ? that's right , carrot top's long dreaded major motion picture debut ( at least for a starring role ) is poking up in a handful of theaters across the country . chairman of the board stars the obnoxious , wannabe-zany king of redheaded standup comics as a lazy but creative , inventive but uneventful generation x- er named edison . living with a pair of surfer dudes in a small , rented house , edison bounces from job to job , always squandering away the money on his eccentric ( to say the least ) inventions and ignoring crucial responsibilities such as rent . this has the crabby landlady , ms . krubavitch ( estelle harris , best known as george constanza's mother on " seinfeld " ) , threatening an eviction if past due expenses aren't furnished post haste . as luck would have it , edison soon meets armand mcmillan ( jack warden ) , an old surfer dude who just so happens to be president of the multi-million dollar mcmillan industries . sharing a passion for more than just riding waves , armand is deeply impacted by the young inventor's notebook of dreams and ideas , and when the old man dies soon afterward , edison learns he is named a benefactor in armand's will . predictably , edison acquires the entire corporation and has to maintain productivity with absolutely no knowledge of the business world . predictably , there is a bitter nephew ( larry miller ) whose lesser inheritance fuels resentment that will lead to an elaborate sabotage plot . predictably , there is an attractive employee ( courtney thorne-smith ) whose initial repulsion will transform into love for our doofy protagonist . predictably , the man who knows nothing will fight against the odds and give the company it's most profitable and successful turnaround ever , all because he ran things by common sense and not greed . it's as though writers turi meyer , al septien , and alex zamm ( meyer and septien also wrote leprechaun 2 together ! ) pulled a plot out of a hat and worked carrot top into it . the jokes , the " surprises " , the developments - all of them run such a predictable path , it may only be carrot top's signature brazen red hairdo that sets this one apart from the myriad of similar films . a movie this bad speaks for itself . what's left to say when every element the movie possesses is a shameful retread of movies past ? the script is 100% recycled , the direction is hokey , and the acting is absolutely horrible . it is only thorne-smith who seems to take her job seriously , an accomplishment which surely deserves the medal of honor . she certainly went beyond the call of duty - she has to kiss carrot top ! ! ! ! ! ! ( barf bag , please ! ) movies like this give the audience nothing to do but ponder just how many synonyms for " bad " there really are . chairman of the board , without a doubt , deserves each and every one . the only way this won't end up on everybody's " bottom ten of the year " list , is if they were lucky enough never to have seen it . just because you can't miss his outlandish fiery mane , don't skimp on avoiding this abhorrent feature .
1	let's say you live at the end of an airport runway . large jetliners continuously pass over your house , rattling your windows and allowing few moments of peace . let's say the ground beneath your feet is also contaminated with toxic substances , and high voltage power lines run across steel towers only yards from your home . now let's say an airport conglomerate wants to buy your property in order to lengthen the runway , and offers you more than it's worth . wouldn't you jump in the air and have your bags packed before you landed ? of course you would . but what if this bit of land was your idea of paradise , and the house your castle ? that's what they are to darryl kerrigan ( michael caton ) , and although he's happy that a multi-national corporation would like to buy his home , sorry , it's not for sale . unfortunately , the corporation wields quite a bit of influence over the australian government , which serves darryl and his family with what amounts to an eviction notice . not about to take this lying down , darryl enlists the help of his inept attorney friend dennis denuto ( tiriel mora ) and makes a determined , albeit pathetic , attempt to fight back . the castle , an australian comedy by rob sitch , is perhaps one of the simplest movies i've seen in recent memory , yet also one of the funniest . in fact , it is this film's reliance on simplicity which makes it so successful . the good guys and the bad guys are clear , the humor is straightforward , and the storyline is as uncomplicated as it gets . it's the perfect setup for a relaxing , hilarious good time , and as much as i hate to admit it , i liked the fact that i didn't have to think all that much while watching this film . i just sat back and enjoyed myself . the situation is one we've seen before : regular joe fights back against the government , or big business , or whatever . what makes this film different is its characters . darryl thinks he's got the best life in the world - he tells his family that living next to power lines is a constant reminder of the success of mankind , he asks who would ever want to go out and eat in a fancy restaurant when he's got the meat loaf feast prepared by his wife sal ( anne tenny ) , and he swells with pride when his son dale ( stephen curry ) digs a hole in the yard . steve kerrigan ( anthony simcoe ) constantly combs the buy and sell ads looking for " investments " like jousting sticks and overhead projectors , while wayne kerrigan is in jail , as a result of dennis denuto's incompetent courtroom maneuvers . the great thing about the kerrigans is that they aren't so stupid that they get annoying . they're just a group of simpletons whose naive nature is perfectly harmless and even endearing . we look upon them with a little bit of pity , but a whole lot of affection . screenwriters sitch , santo cilauro , tom gleisner , and jane kennedy pit this lovable bunch of unlikely crusaders against a stoic court system and a condescending business conglomerate , further polarizing the extremes and deepening our feelings for the kerrigans . sympathy for their situation , the laughter they bring us , and the family's wonderful characterization , simple as it may be , leaves us with a degree of emotional investment that causes us to actually care about what happens to them . i suppose one might wonder how deep characterization can go when your characters are as inane as the kerrigans , but trust me , it works . i particularly noted that the writers did not have to use slapstick in order to get laughs . don't get me wrong - slapstick , when executed well , can be genius . it's just that too often , a film will resort to it's use as a shortcut to amusing the audience , not always successfully . instead , the jokes in the castle are all hinged upon the dialog uttered by these people who have no idea that they are totally skewed to the rest of the world . when they are by themselves , the are funny , and when they are with normal people , they are hilarious . one of the few problems i saw with this film was a detour taken about midway though . the kerrigans go out to a vacation spot for seemingly no reason other than to pack in a few more jokes and increase the film's running time . luckily , it's a funny little detour that , while slightly distracting from the film's main drive , is still quite enjoyable . with all the levity abound in the castle , the film still manages to take on a pretty heavy concept , that of the innate right of a citizen to keep his property , an issue which has been bandied about in courts across the civilized world with differing outcomes . i'm not certain the courtroom monologue near the end of the film would actually hold up in real life , but it brings to the forefront the essence of the constitution ( of australia ) and certainly sounds impressive at any rate . and , for that matter , it's more than i would have expected out of a light hearted film like this .
0	back in 1980s , chuck norris used to be synonym for the action films . he couldn't , of course , top the success and fame of big action names like sylvester stallone or arnold schwarzenegger , but sheer quantity of his films guaranteed that he was household name among shoot'em up and beat'em up genre aficionados . that quantity was mostly provided by cannon group , prolific production company that dominated the b-movie market in previous decade by flooding it with cheap , formulaic and , more often than not , unwatchable genre products . the hitman , 1991 action thriller directed by chuck's brother aaron , is one of the last among them . chuck norris here plays seattle cop betrayed , shot and left for dead by his partner ( which shouldn't surprise anyone , considering the fact that the partner is being played by michael parks , specialised for roles of usually very mean characters ) . surviving the shooting , cop is pronounced dead and hired as deep undercover agent . he infiltrates the underworld circles in seattle and becomes their top hitman , using his abilities to start brutal war between three major crime organisations - italians , french canadians and iranians . since it is rather absurd to expect great acting ability from chuck norris , at least not in this kind of movie , the biggest attraction of this film should have been action . well , the action in this film falls flat - it is boring , repetitive and not at all exciting . it is nothing more than monotonous series of scenes that contains violence too brutal even for this type of films . we know very little about norris' character while , on the other hand , gangsters are portrayed with more human dimension . in the end we almost feel sorry for them , since they are shown totally powerless against norris and his unstoppable and bloody crusade . during the film , somebody obviously became aware of that problem , so the screenwriter introduced the subplot dealing with the black boy who gets adopted by norris . that caused another problem - any questions about nature of that relationship had to be quashed with another subplot - this one dealing with lady lawyer who sleeps with the hero and gets killed after fulfilling that screenplay obligation . the photography in this film is dark , setting is depressive and this forgettable piece of 1980s style cinema leaves viewers without any reason to justify the hour and half spent in watching it .
1	note : some may consider portions of the following text to be spoilers . be forewarned . during the three years since the release of the groundbreaking success pulp fiction , the cinematic output from its creator , quentin tarantino , has been surprisingly low . oh , he's been busy -- doing the talk show circuit , taking small roles in various films , overseeing the production of his screenplay from dusk till dawn , making cameo appearances on television shows , providing a vignette for the ill-fated anthology four rooms -- everything , it seems , except direct another feature-length film . it's been the long intermission between projects as well as the dizzying peak which pulp fiction reached which has made mr . tarantino's new feature film , jackie brown , one of the most anticipated films of the year , and his third feature film cements his reputation as the single most important new american filmmaker to emerge from the 1990s . things aren't going well for jackie brown ( pam grier ) . she's 44 years old , stuck at a dead-end job ( " $16 , 000 a year , plus retirement benefits that aren't worth a damn " ) as a flight attendant for the worst airline in north america -- and she's just been caught at the airport by atf agent ray nicolette ( portrayed with terrific childlike enthusiasm by michael keaton ) and police officer mark dargus ( michael bowen ) smuggling $50 000 from mexico for gun-runner ordell robbie ( samuel l . jackson ) , who has her bailed out by unassuming bail bondsman max cherry ( robert forster ) . the loquacious ordell , based out of a hermosa beach house where his horny , bong-hitting surfer girl melanie ( bridget fonda ) and agreeable crony louis gara ( robert de niro ) hang out , operates under the policy that the best rat is a dead rat , and he's soon out to silence jackie brown . meanwhile , the authorities' target is ordell , and they want jackie to help them by arranging a sting to the tune of a half-million dollars . only through a series of clever twists , turns , and double-crosses will jackie be able to gain the upper hand on both of her nemeses . although jackie brown marks mr . tarantino's first produced screenplay adaptation ( based on the elmore leonard novel " rum punch " ) , there's no mistaking his distinctive fingerprints all over this film . while he's adhered closely to the source material in a narrative sense , the setting has been relocated to los angeles and the lead character's now black . in terms of ambiance , the film harkens back to the 1970s , from the wall-to-wall funk and soul music drowning the soundtrack to the nondescript look of the sets -- even the opening title credit sequence has the echo of vintage 1970s productions . the opening sequence featuring ms . grier wordlessly striding through the lax , funky music blaring away on the speakers , is emblematic of films of that era . the timeframe for the film is in fact 1995 , but the atmosphere of jackie brown is decidedly retro . of course , nothing in the film screams 1970s more than the casting of pam grier and robert forster as the two leads , and although the caper intrigue is fun to watch as the plot twists , backstabbing , and deceptions deliciously unfold , the strength of jackie brown is the quiet , understated relationship developed between jackie and max ; when they kiss , it's perhaps the most tender scene of the year . tenderness ? in a quentin tarantino film ? sure , there've been moments of sweetness in his prior films -- the affectionate exchanges between the bruce willis and maria de madeiros characters in pulp fiction and the unflagging dedication shared by the characters of tim roth and amanda plummer , or even in reservoir dogs , where a deep , unspoken bond develops between the harvey keitel and tim roth characters -- but for the most part , mr . tarantino's films are typified by manic energy , unexpected outbursts of violence , and clever , often wordy , banter . these staples of his work are all present in jackie brown , but what's new here is a different facet of his storytelling -- a willingness to imbue the film with a poignant emotional undercurrent , and a patience to draw out several scenes with great deliberation . this effective demonstration of range prohibits the pigeonholing of mr . tarantino as simply a helmer of slick , hip crime dramas with fast-talking lowlifes , and heralds him as a bonafide multifaceted talent ; he's the real deal . this new aspect of mr . tarantino's storytelling is probably best embodied in a single character -- that of the world-weary , sensitive , and exceedingly-professional max cherry , whose unspoken attraction to jackie is touching . mr . forster's nuanced , understated performance is the best in the film ; he creates an amiable character of such poignancy that when he gazes at jackie , we smile along with him . much press has been given about the casting of blaxploitation-era icon pam grier in the lead , with the wags buzzing that mr . tarantino may do for her what his pulp fiction did to bolster john travolta's then-sagging career . as it turns out , ms . grier is solid in the film's title role , although nothing here forces her to test her range . i do have to take exception to the claim that this film marks her career resurrection , though -- she's been working steadily over the years , often in direct-to-video action flicks , but also in such recent theatrical releases as tim burton's mars attacks ! and larry cohen's original gangstas ( where she first teamed up with mr . forster . ) of course , it's true that her role here was a godsend -- a meaty a part as this is rarity for * any * actress , let alone one of her age and current status in the industry . while jackie brown may disappoint those looking for another pulp fiction clone , it marks tremendous growth of mr . tarantino as a director whose horizons are rapidly expanding , and whose characterizations have never been better . and while the film's narrative doesn't really warrant a running time of 155 minutes , it's filled with such sumptuous riches , ranging from the brashness of the vivid soundtrack to entertaining , inconsequential conversations between the characters , that there wasn't an unengaging moment . with an impressive trio of feature films under his belt , it'll be interesting to see what he tries next .
1	the last steve martin film i saw , the spanish prisoner , was a very different approach for the comic actor . as a millionaire leading a massive conspiracy in order to rob " a process " from a clueless businessman , martin's character did it all for money . in his most recent movie , bowfinger , martin plays yet another con man except this time he does it to succeed in the film industry . he wants to direct a successful picture that will force people to remember his name , that will make him more popular at the parties , and , most importantly , that will cause fed ex to deliver important business packages to his front door . playing the title role , martin is once again the good guy ; the one we cheer for to complete his low budget action movie . this con man is very likeable for some reason , even though he is doing the same exact thing as the malicious jimmy del from the spanish prisoner . maybe the message is that , in hollywood , to win over the trust and friendship of others , you have to be a little evil . bowfinger is a very clever comedy with great performances from its two stars . martin , who also wrote the screenplay , is perfect as a jerk with a conscience and eddie murphy does his best " peter sellers " in two different , but equally hilarious , roles ; one as a big time move star and the other as his nerdy , burger king employee brother . the story follows aging and failing director/producer bobby bowfinger as he makes one last attempt to become a respected member of his field by creating a b-action movie called chubby rain . in order to attract actors and crew members , bowfinger promises them that hot shot actor kit ramsey will star in the movie . the only problem is that kit refuses to be in it . but this won't stop the aggressive bowfinger . he is so determined to complete his film that he decides to put kit in it without even telling him . he has his actors approach kit on the streets of los angeles in character with a hidden camera filming the footage . will bowfinger be able to make his film ? or will kit ramsey discover what exactly is going on ? bowfinger is a very cartoon-like movie that pokes fun at hollywood and its famous residents while simultaneously holding a very solid story line . the only area where the film really lacks is the cameo department . this is the kind of movie that cameos are all about , it is always funny to see actors/directors/producers making fun of themselves or co-workers especially in a playful movie such as this . besides the very repetitive and superflous ending , bowfinger is a joy to watch . if you take a movie like this seriously then you will never enjoy it . if you accept the incredulous plot and the extreme caricatures of real entertainment figures , the movie is great fun .
0	running time approximately 1hr 40mins reviewed by jack choo rating : the movie starts with a rather se7en-ish opening sequence , rather cool and sets the mood for things to come . the story propels the audience into a neo-reality ; somewhat very close to conscious reality but laced with weird tinges of blue and red . existenz is actually the name of a new virtual-reality game . supposedly , vr games are highly popular as is considered a legal-drug in this neo-reality . * * * * ( leigh ) is the ultimate game creator and introduces her ultimate game-experience in the form of existenz . players are required to have bio-ports embedded in their spine , which plugs to a game-pod in order to enjoy the immersive experience . during a secretive beta-testing-cum-teaser meeting for this new game , an assassination attempt on * * * life occurs and she runs off with fellow bodyguard * * * ( law ) . * * * is more of a realists than anything else , afraid that he'll lose reality if he begin to play these games but * * * requires his help to immerse together with her into existenz to check if the program is still functioning properly after the assassination attempt . as they soon discover , they are transported between realities within existenz uncovering more than they initially expected . existenz has all the cronenberg-gore that is expected of him . even so , this film is no-where near his cult classics such as videodrome or scanners . not even half as suspenseful as the commercially successful the fly . existenz can probably be looked upon as his 90's version of videodrome , even so , it is a poor follow-up . while in most of his famed films , his penchant for gore always hit the right note with theme of the film and plot . in existenz , the gory sequences are no more attached to spirit of the film and seem to be an act of over-indulgence than anything else . jennifer jason leigh and jude law , both commendable actors , looked aloof and miss-directed throughout the entire film . the scripting and acting barely pulls the film out of the b-grade category . it was obvious that cronenberg worked on a really tight-budget and it seems that he handled that pretty well in the production design and values created for this film ( the opening sequence , though , probably formed a considerable portion of the budget ! ) which is actually quite good . existenz is too predictable and cliched in these times . 10 years ago , it would have been another classic for cronenberg . cronenberg fans however , ( those people who enjoy seeing friends getting queasy over mutilation on film ) should not give this film a miss as some form of appreciation can still be offered by you .
0	if i were to plot a graph of year against movie-plot-ridiculity for = hollywood movies , you'll probably see a line with constant gradient . = now , if i were to plot that same graph for the movies that the michael = bay/jerry bruckheimer has made over the last 4 years , that line would be = exponential in growth . the team started out with the will smith vehicle = bad boys which was no more than a 2hr long action-music-video , = nevertheless entertaining . then came the rock , where audiences flocked = to see nicholas cage team up with sean connery against some terrorizing = general fighting over some stupid cause . con-air was ridiculousy dumb in = its premise but it did have fun moments , and who can forget the nursery = rhyme sang by that psycho killer played by steve buscemi . while these = movies worked because there was something better to cover-up the dirt , = armageddon does not . very much like deep impact , a meteor is heading towards earth and they = didn't realize it until 18 days from impact . deep impact settled with = the modest meteor size as large as the city of new york but armageddon = just had to be bigger . . . . well about the size of texas ( that kinda meteor = whould probably knock earth out of its orbit ! ) . the panic of this = sighting spurs the idea of landing people on the meteor , drill it then = nuke it ( sounds familiar ) and who better to do such a job than harry = stamper ( bruce willis ) , your very own oil-driller extraordinaire and = his team of macho-misfits , nursing the tagline `there ain't nothin' on = this planet that harry can't drill ! ' . in that 18 days , harry's group was = split into 2 teams , trained for deep-space flight and finally blasted = into space in with special drilling vehicles on 2 new space shuttles . the main relationship drama of armageddon is formed within the = relationship of harry , a . j . and grace . to give you an idea , a . j . works = for harry , and loves grace , harry's daughter . the problem is , harry = hates to see his daughter hanging around some scruffy grunt like himself = for the rest of her life . so while a . j . and harry struts it out , grace = is place in a position where she is unable to take sides , so she remains = seated in the nasa control tower , crying over both of them in about 80% = of the movie . the human elements this movie tries to inject proves to be nothing more = than just an excuse for more slow-mo's and gold-tinted photography . the = anguish of the world is potrayed with scenes of people praying , running = for their lives or just sitting still staring at the sky , sounds fine = right ? i know , but it looks too out of place on screen , too staged . if = you were to ask yourself , `what's the difference between armageddon and = a r&b music video ? " you'd probably just said `the music . " . not = surprising since michael bay is a child of that industry and has = actually managed to transpose his mtv skills to screen successfully . his = foray into armageddon just proves that he doesn't when to stop . well there's really nothing much to sum up here . the = stock-aitken-waterman of hollywood movies have projected their art-form = into ridiculity , beyond the plane believability , where people still = accept even if they didn't believe . deep impact was ridiculous in most = aspects and i believe the makers know this . the thing is , they decided = to shroud myth and fantasy with a purely believable human tale of = suffering and coming in terms with ones problems , which ultimately = brought it above the ashes which it had initially put itself in . = armageddon , is an overcrowded , loud , messy , preposterously manipulative = waste of money and deserves to remain in that same pile of ash . . =20 if you have planned to watched this over deep impact because of liv = tyler , bruce willis or the tagline " from the makers of `the rock' ! ! " . = please catch deep impact before it finishes its run , it may be the only = meteor worth watching in long-long time . if you have to see it , please = bring ear-plugs and some aspirins ( for the vertigo ) . expect armageddon = ld's to retail at s$19 . 90 at carrefour come release time . gee . . . . . . even = that's not worth it !
0	plot : a little boy born in east germany ( named hansel ) loves the american music . one day , he gets the opportunity to meet and marry an american g . i . , but first , he must get a sex change ( enter hedwig ) . once married , the two move to the states , but quickly thereafter , get a divorce . at that point , hedwig starts writing music and meets another confused boy , who soon turns into a star . that boy also turns his back on hedwig , and it isn't long before hedwig puts together his/her own band and tours the states via seafood restaurants . this is the story of his/her life , told via flashbacks and musical numbers . critique : an artsy-fartsy musical with great songs and a superb performance by john cameron mitchell , doesn't really come together as a whole , with over-the-top symbolism , incoherence and too much pretension to retain my interest all the whole way through . in fact , this isn't so much of a realistic , articulate , behind-the-scenes look at the rise of a rock 'n roll star , as it is an ambiguous , overly poetic and incomprehensible struggle of a man , his sexuality and his identity as a whole person on this planet . i guess that i was expecting the former going in . the film is somewhat interesting to a point , but i was personally never able to involve myself too much , as the basic symbolic and incongruent nature of the film left me feeling cold and distant . but it is definitely tuned to a certain type of audience . chances are that if you are a fan of the wall , the rocky horror picture show or even priscilla , queen of the desert , the elements tangled in this movie will likely strike your fancy ( some of the characters in this film even ask the audience to sing along at some point , and provide the lyrics of their song , on-screen ) . well , i personally don't care for those films , and didn't really get into the whole " show " atmosphere of this movie either . i guess i might've looked at it all too literally , but like i said earlier , i just didn't care enough about the characters to delve into the " so the butterfly represents his freedom ? " side of things . all i know is that the film left me with many questions unanswered and didn't make me feel any more fulfilled . what was hedwig's relationship with that other member of his band ( with the beard ) ? what happened with hedwig and tommy gnosis at the end of the movie ? ( was that an actual sequence or a fantasy ? ) what ever happened to the lawsuit ? and more . . . all of which were part of the film and interested me somewhat . if the only idea behind the film was for the main character to uncover his/her sexuality , then that's one thing , but as many of the relationships and situations presented themselves in this movie , i wanted some resolution to those pieces as well . i didn't get it . the film's humor also didn't tickle my funny bone either . then again , i've seen many a film in these art-house theatres in which patrons are rolling down the aisles with laughter , while all i see is a tiny bit of whimsy on the screen . some of these films are also better enjoyed with the added " atmosphere " of a plant called marijuana , and i can certainly see how this movie ingrains within itself some nifty visual elements , in order to jazz up that experience . but being sober as i was and expecting a coherent , funny , musical with a transsexual twist , i didn't leave the theater very satisfied . i came out having watched an existential story of a confused man caught up in a musical lifestyle , wrapped in metaphors , dramatics and more questions than answers . i will , on the other hand , definitely hand some props out to the lead in this film , john cameron mitchell , who is also the man who wrote , directed and created the play on which this movie is based , and the tunes , which will likely be enjoyed by anyone who digs the sex pistols , david bowie and the whole 70s glam-rock scene . note : btw , it seems as though pretty much every single " mainstream " critic in the united states loved this movie from top to bottom ( and thought that it was really funny to boot ! ) , so you might want to take that into consideration yourself . but having said that , the main reason that i started this dinky website in the first place was because films like this would sometimes be uniformly applauded by the " official " critics , while i , a regular " joblo " in the audience , just wouldn't get what all the fuss was about . this movie is a perfect example of why i continue to write movie reviews . where's joblo coming from ? moulin rouge ( 8/10 ) - grease ( 8/10 ) - everyone says i love you ( 5/10 ) - the opposite of sex ( 8/10 ) - dancer in the dark ( 5/10 ) - o brother , where art thou ( 7/10 ) - love's labour's lost ( 8/10 )
0	there have been bad films in recent years : 'mr . magoo' was by far the worst ever made , the spectacularly bad 'blue in the face' , the horrible 'baby genuises' and now 'i woke up early the day i died' . it may not however be the worst movie made but it certainly ranks as one bad movie . the film's acting ( if that's what you want to call it ) is well mediocre to me . loaded with a sensational cast you would think that the cast would at least save the film a bit , boy was i wrong . after escaping from a mental institution 'the thief' played by billy zane goes out in the real world and finds that it is pretty harsh and gritty . he turns to burglary to survive , robs a loan back , kills the loan officer and runs with thousands . a country-wide man hunt is on for him to catch him and bring him down . he ends up in a cemetery where he puts his money in a coffin to keep it for later , comes back and realizes that someone took it and put it somewhere . now he is determined to kill all the visitors at the funeral earlier that day until he gets his money back , ultimately leading to a finale that is less that satisfying . a film which was based on a 'long-lost' script by ed wood , i have only one question : no dialogue , only music and movement where exactly is the point ? the film moves along at a rather slow pace , but does have one advantage : the soundtrack which is catchy and vibrant except the first song which can be offensive to some . it opens with a fun , innovative opening credits sequence and quickly goes downhill after that . some of the low points are when 'the thief' steals a woman's purse , and then she faints , sandra bernhard as a dancer and tippi hendren as a deaf woman whom 'the thief' kills to the music of 'psycho' . come on people get some new ideas already ! what's even worse is that the film has no plot at all . well to a certain extent it does , but who cares by the time the middle of the film arrives we're bored out of our mind and ready for something fun and exciting to happen . 'i woke up early the day i died' is a perfectly bad film . it shows us how low filmmakers get sometimes just when desperate to make a movie . even with the huge cast talent , the film is a waste of my time and certainly a waste of yours .
0	barb wire , pamela anderson lee's first foray into films , highlights the fact that her only talent lies in her silicone enhanced assets . being the only notable member of the cast , the camera lingers lustily o n her body at every opportunity , making her character's catch line , " don't call me babe , " sound very ironic indeed . from the very opening of the movie , we are treated to a striptease routine from anderson , ending in her hurling her stiletto smack between the eyes of a lusty male who happened to call her babe . throughout the movie , there is ample footage of enormous breasts and cleavage , if not of anderson's , then at least of the female extras . this alone is enough to retitle the movie babe wire . for a plot , barb wire rehashes the casablanca storyline . it is 2017 , the middle of the second american civil war , and barb wire , a former resistance fighter , runs a joint in steel harbour called hammerhead ( ! ! ) . known for attracting resistance fighters an d characters of all sorts , the bar attracts the attention of the government forces who appear dressed in nazi-style uniforms . in between bashing up helpless males and showing off her trademark breasts , barb wire has to help a former lover and his wife get to the airport on the other side of the town , past the government-controlled areas , and to freedom . even the airport looks like the one in casablanca , except that the plane in the background is a modern , private jet . there are hardly any significant moments in this film , and one gets the impression that it was designed for young teenagers familiar with the dark horse comics version of " barb wire . " if anything , one leaves the film with the confirmation that anderson di d not do her own stunts . who could fight and jump in a skimpy , strapless leather top , and yet keep her breasts from spilling out ? only a stuntwoman . not pamela anderson lee .
0	movie reviewers have an obligation to see the good , the bad , and the despicable . i originally wrote this review for my college newspaper back in '95 , but i wanted to re-write it because not all retro reviews should be about the classics . we need to be warned about some truly awful films , too . this picture was so bad , it inspired the description for my 1/10 rating ( see ratings chart below ) . the only thing saving it from a 0/10 rating is that being able to rent a movie like this is slightly less embarassing than renting a porno . so , it does indeed have some plusses . . . in fairness , elizabeth berkley is certainly worth seeing in the buff . and her ability to whine and irritate us , even while nude , was appropriate in her role as selfish temptress nomi malone . this character is not smart , not interesting , and ( deliberately ? ) far too annoying far too often . like in 1998s " bulworth " , when the movie was over i didn't care one little iota about the main character . at least warren beatty tried to make a statement with his dreary and overrated film , though . " showgirls " is too stupid to make a statement . some people claim that the story is based on the legendary " all about eve " of all things ! if exploitation expert joe eszterhas was half the screenwriter that joseph l . mankiewicz was , he'd be . . . well , he'd be a good screenwriter . instead , this project may have sunk his career . he wrote the ( ha ha ! ) script and the usually reliable paul verhoeven directed . the same team who created a good sex-film in 1992 ( " basic instinct " ) struck out here with their occasional violence , gratuitous x-rated sex scenes , and numerous ( and quite unnecessary ) lesbian overtones . the predictable storyline revolves around nomi streaking into las vegas to make it big as a dancer . after the supposed street-smart young " lady " gets conned out of her suitcase by a slack-jawed yokel in the opening sequence , she befriends a tailor of the glamorous stage production at the " stardust hotel " . nomi doesn't take advantage of this contact to break into the big-time of dirty dancing right away . first , she becomes a lap dancer at a scummy strip club . she sells her hot little wares at " the cheetah " for a short time , turning on the fictitious customers and the actual theatre audience . hey , i never said she wasn't a hot number . . . maybe it's that , her body , which gets her into the big-time when the star of the " stardust hotel " , crystal connors ( gina gershon ) stops into the strip club ( it certainly isn't her brains or pleasant disposition ! ) . crystal requests a private lap dance for her boyfriend ( kyle maclachlan ) . he also happens to be the pleasure-seeking worm who runs the big show . crystal gets nomi onto the " stardust " team and , after an interminable amount of time , nomi " earns " the role of crystal's understudy . the slut then deliberately injures and hospitalizes crystal . it was almost laughable that nomi had the guts to claim that she's " not a whore " . that's a phrase we hear a few different times and it's completely ludicrous . of course she is ! she sells her soul to make it big , but in the end we're supposed to believe that she's a better person than that . we're supposed to root for her . no way ! she's a tramp and a back-stabber who deserved nothing--least of all vindication in the . . . ahem . . . climax . she is not a good person and they take over two hours to explain that the audience should think that she is . the sub-plot with a male dancer ( glenn plummer ) who claims to see talent in nomi is just a gratuitous opportunity to let her dance naked a little bit more . it sure ain't character development ! plummer also appeared in " speed " in '94 in a smaller , yet better role . this sub-plot goes absolutely nowhere except maybe to deliver an unsubtle hint that fornicators should practice birth control . kyle maclachlan must have been promised a big pay-day or his standards have dipped since appearing in " blue velvet " . that picture was weird , but some critics claim it's one of the best movies of the '80s . now ol' kyle can say that he acted in one of the worst of the '90s , too . his sleazy character is important to " showgirls " , but we don't learn anything about him . he uses people to get what he wants , but that only means that he fits in well with the other characters in this movie . is he a villain ? who cares ! ultimately , this movie is as tiresome as it is explicit . everyone must know by now about the soft-core acts of copulation , especially the riotous romp between berkley and maclachlan in his pool . what few reviewers take issue with is how mean-spirited this movie is . everyone's either having sex , exacting revenge , or wishing they were having sex or exacting revenge . it's just too hard to take ( especially for over two hours ) . if we must be exposed to the evils of the vegas world , why couldn't verhoeven have also made a point of highlighting the whispers , grunts , and other sounds during the dance numbers ? it's hard to care about these people if we can't even appreciate what they're capable of doing on-stage . berkley may have a future in hollywood because she can dance and she has a great body . after all , the world of porn is still an active , dishonourable profession . perhaps berkley could join their ranks and leave the real acting to pauly shore and cindy crawford . oops , they're bad actors , too . well , at least , they're not selfish and contemptable like good ol' slutty nomi malone . useless trivia--ironically , elizabeth berkley played virtuous and " holier than thou " jessie on the teeny-bopper tv show , " saved by the bell " , before breaking onto the big screen .
1	first , i am not a big fan of the x-files tv series . i have nothing against it particularly , i just don't happen to watch it . having said that , i can now say that i liked the x-files pretty well . for us non-fans , there's nothing big going for it , but there are a lot of little things . the movie opens on an ice cave in north texas in 35 , 000 b . c . two proto-humans enter the cave and find a space alien cocooned inside . the alien breaks free and kills one man in a struggle while the other is seemingly captured by the bloody ooze from the alien . the movie jumps to the same cave today where a boy ( lucas black , from sling blade ) is captured by the same black ooze . we then cut to fbi agents scully and mulder ( gillian anderson and david duchovny ) , who have been pulled off of their previous assignment ( investigations into the paranormal ) and put onto the bomb squad detail . a caller has threatened a federal building in dallas , texas . on a hunch , mulder checks out the building across the street , and , wouldn't you know it , he turns out to be right . the fbi finds the bomb in time to evacuate but not in time to defuse . five people die in the blast , and when mulder learns who the victims were , a light bulb goes on over his head . the two agents team up to investigate , against fbi orders , the links mulder has made . their search leads them back to the north texas cave , all across the country , and even to antarctica as they get closer and closer to " the truth . " the plot , and " the truth , " are uninspired . i got the feeling that what i learned was supposed to shock and amaze me . it didn't . the possible existence of aliens on earth has been explored so many times before in movies that one could hardly count them . but the point of the x-files is not what the truth is , but the extent to which it has been hidden . it's a slightly more interesting angle , but it still raises expectations about that " truth " too high . if this were the whole film , i would say the movie was mediocre , perhaps even boring . but there are other qualities that make me like this movie well enough to recommend it . the pacing of the film was brisk enough to hold my interest . before the audience can get tired of one location , the agents follow a hot tip to another location , and so on and so forth . the locations are not all computer-generated sets , either . there are some artificial settings , but the desert night of nevada , the edge of suburbia in texas , and the endless fields of snow in antarctica ( actually somewhere in north america . ) make this fantastic film feel more real . ward russell's cinematography is very good . the overall look is dark and ominous , appropriate to the intended tone of the film's plot . russell is able to make something as innocuous as a cornfield look foreboding . when the movie is set in darkness , the picture quality is still rich and detailed . finally , and specifically , there is an incredible shot at night in which the camera crosses the tracks in front of a fast oncoming train . i don't know if the shot is faked in any way , but it looks dangerous , and it looks great . the movie's soundtrack is also used to convey the dark tone of the film . ( skip to the next paragraph if you have yet to see the movie - there is a spoiler in the following sentences . ) during the opening prehistoric sequence , a howling wind dogs the soundtrack , never giving the characters or the audience an escape from the lonely terrible sound . in one of the movie's most effective sequences , metallic doors suddenly slam open to release a cloud of buzzing bees . the visuals of the scene are good , but what makes it so surprising and frightening is the sound . there was no question as to who the movie's stars would be . even so , duchovny and anderson are an interesting pair of actors and a good combination . both are easy on the eyes and together , they have some good timing , banter , and energy . there is a hint of chemistry between them , but it never gets in the way of their professional relationship . they are like a couple of kids out exploring the empty lot at the end of the street . there might be some romantic interest , but for now they're more interested in their environs than they are in each other . no single element really makes this movie outstanding - not even the sense of paranoia that makes the tv show so popular . but enough things were done right that the x-files is one of the more interesting summer adventures to come along .
0	there is a scene early in jakob the liar that hints at how much better it could have been . the scene is set in a jewish ghetto in poland circa 1944 , where a one-time cafe proprietor named jakob heym is walking resolutely through the streets , fists stuffed into coat pockets . to one side of him , residents scavenge for food in the street ; to the other side , german troops beat a group of jews . jakob , however , never stops moving . it's an efficient , effective set-up for the character , who is clearly nobody's idea of a hero at the outset . he is a man who has responded to the horror of his surroundings by withdrawing from them , excising his moral peripheral vision . the set-up is critical because fate will turn jakob into a reluctant savior . after a visit to a german commandant's office and a moment alone with a turned-on radio , jakob learns that russian troops are quite near . when he brings this first news of the war in years to his fellow jews , they become convinced that he must have a radio , which is a punishable offense in the ghetto . the good news brings hope to the ghetto ; the everyday specter of suicide vanishes . a private man of limited creativity finds himself burdened with creating stories of russian military progress just to keep his neighbors alive . this promising story of an ordinary person doing the extraordinary is burdened from the outset by casting : the " ordinary person " in question , jakob heym , is played by robin williams . i am of the depressing opinion that williams is growing less assured as an actor in his " serious " roles with every passing year . compare his dramatic scenes in the world according to garp and moscow on the hudson with what dreams may come or patch adams , and see how much more mannered he has become ( or , at the very least , how much less sensible at choosing material ) . jakob the liar depends on the notion that jakob has to struggle to craft his fictions , but williams always looks like he's struggling _not_ to craft them . when he improvises a radio address by winston churchill for ailing 10-year-old orphan lina ( hannah taylor gordon ) , he seems relieved that he can finally get wacky . oh yes , and then there's that little girl . some viewers will undoubtedly consider the hero's fanciful stories for a young charge too reminiscent of life is beautiful , but those scenes aren't problematic because they're familiar . they're problematic because they're jarring and distracting , introducing a cutesy relationship into a film that shouldn't have been about cutesy relationships . jakob's character arc may be about his willingness to act for the benefit of others , but there are plenty of others without poor little lina . every scene with her feels contrived , pulling jakob the liar away from its central story of hope coming to a previously hopeless people . it is a pleasant surprise to find that jakob the liar is a much grittier production than you might expect from a hollywood-ized holocaust , combining the weighty subject matter with dark humor in some effective ways . director peter kassovitz , working from jurek becker's novel , crafts some nice scenes between jakob and the other townspeople , and draws solid performances from armin mueller-stahl ( as a once-revered doctor ) and bob balaban ( as a barber drifting into depression ) . there are just too many things going on that prove distracting , whether it's the sketchy romanctic angle involving liev schreiber as an earnest former prizefighter , or williams' incongrous presence , or a sweet but utterly irrelevant little girl . jakob the liar deals with too delicate a subject for such fumbling , and has too compelling a central character to waste . and after one wonderful early scene , you can see the film wasted and fumbled away .
1	men in black is an explosive mix of science fiction , action , and comedy that hits the target in every possible way . although another alien movie , men in black succeeds in every way that independence day didn't , and towers above many other movies of its type . the brilliant acting , especially by tommy lee jones as agent kay , is also as good as it gets . director barry sonnenfeld , who was behind the camera for the addams family movies and get shorty , has crafted a masterpiece . the story behind men in black is just as interesting as you would want it to be . the men in black , or mib , are a top-secret governmental agency that is not known to exist . the mib are responsible for " saving the world from the scum of the universe " . a though job , indeed . the film opens with a truckload of illegal aliens ( the human kind ) being transported across the mexico border and into the united states . presumably , these " aliens " are all migrant workers . that is , until the mib show up and begin interrogating them . agent kay selects a particular suspicious worker and takes him away from the other local authorities to discover that he is not an illegal human alien , but a real extra-terrestrial alien . when the alien makes a run for it , agent kay is forced to eliminate the alien with one of the mib's very unique weapons , and after one of the local law enforcement officers witnesses this bizarre occurrence , agent kay is forced to use another very unique device on them . the device , described as " out of state " , eliminates the memory of anyone it is used on . >from here , we are introduced to james edwards , played very well by will smith . edwards , a police officer , is chasing a fleeing criminal . the criminal gives a very good chase , and at one point when edwards confronts him , the criminal pulls out a very different looking weapon that disintegrated when it hit the ground . edwards continues to chase the very athletic criminal to the top of a building , where the criminal informs edwards that he must let him go , because someone is after him . edwards doesn't take this seriously , but when the criminal shows very non-human characteristics and leaps off the building , he begins to wonder . back at the police station , agent kay shows up to ask edwards a few questions . he informs edwards that is was , in fact , a non-human that he was chasing , and that the gun he pulled out was definitely not man-made . he has edwards identify the gun , and asks edwards to come to the mib headquarters the following day . edwards arrives and finds that he is involved in a recruiting process , along with various other men who seem a bit more qualified than he . after goofing up for half of the time , edwards puts on a show at the firing range , and agent kay notes the reason why he feels edwards should be the man to join the mib : he chased down the " criminal " on foot , which is something that no one is supposed to be able to do . in the meantime , an upstate new york farm has a very close encounter . edgar ( vincent d'onofrio ) , owner of the farm , investigates a strange crash landing and is attacked by the inhabitant of the flying object , which presumes to jump inside edgar and use his body as a human transport . the " bug " , as he is called , is an intergalactic terrorist who has come to earth to attempt to kill two ambassadors . and it up to the mib , with newly recruited agent jay ( formerly james edwards ) to exterminate the bug and save the planet from intergalactic war . men in black delightfully combines fast-paced action with often hilarious comedy , which is usually from will smith , although tommy lee jones opens up his comedic personality in this film . the special effects are also very well done and are not the entire source of the plot , as in another big alien film from the past summer . screenwriter ed solomon , writer of super mario bros . and the upcoming x-men film , has surely struck gold with this story . all ages will enjoy men in black . it is an extremely fun film that you will want to see again . although it runs a very quick and speedy 96 minutes , the entire film from beginning to end is a non-stop adventure . the ending of the film , which ties up a few loose ends for one of the main characters , is also very well done . a sequel is already being planned , so there is more to look forward to !
