Tainted |
Tarzan |
Tarzan and the Lost City |
Team America: World Police |
Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines |
10 Things I Hate About You |
There's Something About Mary |
They Live |
The Thing |
The Thirteenth Floor |
The 13th Warrior |
The Thomas Crown Affair |
Three Kings |
3,000 Miles to Graceland |
Thunderball |
Titan A.E. |
Titanic |
Topsy-Turvy |
Total Recall |
Toy Story 2 |
Traffic |
Training Day |
Tremors |
Trouble in Paradise |
The Truman Show |
The Turn of the Screw |
28 Days Later |
24 Hour Party People |
25th Hour |
Twilight |
Twin Dragons |
Two Girls and a Guy
Tainted (1998)
(Not Rated)
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This was a very well done updating on vampire stories. Two friends get a ride from a co-worker to a movie, but the car breaks down along the way. After a few twists in the story, they end up chasing a vampire trying to kill innocent people. The movie was very well thought out and scripted. The acting was good, and the low budget just added to the realism. There was also some very funny jokes thrown in for good measure. Overall, I really enjoyed this movie.
Links:
Tainted Picture
Official Site
On the set of Tainted
Profile on Tainted
Tarzan (1999)
(G)
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The trend in the Disney animation department seems to be shifting back to what made The Lion King a success, and away from style of the films they have made since. That shift helped make Tarzan a fun and enjoyable movie. The music is one of the high points of this film, with songs written by Phil Collins that are entertaining and closer to pop music than I usually expect from Disney, and a score that is equally enjoyable. The story is generic, but the strongly developed characters and a well-maintained dramatic timing help make it enjoyable anyway. The animation is, for the most part, very good. Overall, I think this is fairly entertaining for a Disney movie and much better than most live-action movies based on Tarzan.
Links:
Official Studio Site
Tarzan and the Lost City (1998)
(PG)
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A very well made Tarzan movie that kept me interested until the climax. The whole movie was well made, and very believable. Then the climax comes, and it turns into a showcase for special effects, seemingly doing whatever would cause the biggest, most dramatic effect to happen. They created characters out of nowhere that just served the purpose of dieing two minutes later, and killed the bad guy with out even explaining why it happened. This not only destroyed the believability of the movie, but was also rather boring (bigger effects don't always mean better). This was a fun movie, I just wish they would change the end.
Links:
Cinema 1's Tarzan Site
Team America: World Police (2004)
(R)
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Yet another absurd movie from Trey Parker and Matt Stone, creators of South Park. This one is literally puppets on strings, so the effects are meant to be crazily bad -- which they were. The story was meant to be terribly crazy -- which is was. And and the acting was meant to be absurd -- which it was. Realistically not an impressive movie, and even though it certainly had it's moments, I was pretty bored overall. I still recommend South Park: Bigger, Longer, and Uncut and BASEketball as the best of the Parker/Stone films. At least those movies are entertaining from start to finish!
There was one scene that was particularly entertaining, though: the puppet sex scene. If for no other reason, see the movie just to laugh your ass off at this. Apparently there's an even raunchier version that was threatening to make the movie NC-17, so they re-shot this scene. I'm wondering just what they did to make it even more nasty!
Links:
Official Site
The Official Unofficial Team America Website
Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines (2003)
(R)
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Terminator 3 continues the story of the first two films in the series, and, like the second film, comes off feeling like an all together different film. It has it's own agenda, motives, and lessons for the audience. That there has been a dramatic shift in the talent behind the camera only highlights this evolution more than the second film, in which personnel changes were primarily limited to actors. This shift in talent is both welcome and disappointing to me, knowing the story could use fresh blood but wishing the series could be continued by the original story-tellers. Allowing for the inevitable changes that take place with a major crew overhaul, I still found the movie, for the most part, enjoyable.
The focus in now almost entirely placed on the character John Conner, played in this movie by Nick Stahl (filling in for original John Conner actor Edward Furlong). John must survive another attack on his life, again with the help of Arnold Schwarzenegger's Terminator robot. However, this time around the film allows John to grow up, continuing his character's development from where it left off in the first film.
The film itself doesn't tie the character development into the action as well as the first films did, making an obvious gap between the action scenes and the story and character development scenes. However, the action is well choreographed and very well done, and the story is good enough to keep the movie interesting. The ending almost seems to be setting itself up for a final act to be continued later, but makes no real promises of this. This film simply comes to a different resolution than the previous films, again showing the change in the film's crew. Fans of the series, and especially the second film, may be a bit disappointed by where this film goes, and where it leaves off. However, taken on it's own merits, and as part of a continuing series, this film is almost up to par with the previous movies. It's only major downfall is that unlike the previous films, it almost makes me more intrigued about where the plot could have gone and where it could go when the story ends than about the film's actual plot itself. Had the ideas the script merely hints at been further developed, the movie would have been up to the same standard set by the first films. Overall, not the great adventure/sci-fi film that the first two Terminators were, but still worth a look.
Links:
Official Studio Site
CNN's Review
SPLICEDwire's Review (SPOILERS)
Roger Ebert's Review
10 Things I Hate About You (1999)
(PG-13)
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Two boys set out to get a girl a date so one of them could take advantage of her father's rule that her sister couldn't date until she does. This is a mildly entertaining teen comedy that's been done before, but still has it's moments. Overall, not too memorable, but I still found myself laughing a few times.
Links:
Official Studio Site
Film.com's review
Roger Ebert's Review
There's Something About Mary (1998)
(R)
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From the makers of Kingpin and Dumb and Dumber, this movie has some very, well, painful moments when it shows it's characters getting abused in all sorts of ways. That's not to say that it isn't occasionally funny, but in a twisted, painful sort of way. It centers on a man who was asked to the senior prom by Mary, one of the most attractive women in his high school (sample painful scene: while at Mary's house, he gets some of his parts caught in his pants zipper). Thirteen years later, his friend convinces him to send a private investigator to find out about Mary again, and catch him up to speed on what's happened to her since high school. The PI finds her, and falls in love. After telling him a lot of lies about Mary, the PI tries to get Mary to fall in love with him. Then the guy who knew her from high school finds out the truth about Mary, and sets out to find her himself. The movie has some funny parts, but is fairly gross. Definitely not for the squeamish.
Links:
Official Studio Site
They Live (1988)
(R)
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A construction worker notices suspicious things happening around him, such as someone who continually interrupts TV broadcasts to preach about impending doom, and a group of people who spend time in a church with a fake congregation. He then discovers sunglasses that let him see that aliens have taken over earth and are changing what people see. The movie takes a while to get interesting, and when it finally does, it's almost over. The plot is creative, and when the film focuses on advancing it the film is fun to watch. However, the film also spends too much time focusing on unnecessary fluff.
Links:
Washington Post's Review
The Thing (1982)
(R)
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A group of scientists in Antarctica discover an alien that can take on the identity of anyone it kills. They then must try to figure out who among them are aliens and kill them. The movie was able to build a lot of suspense and was creative enough that I never got bored. I really enjoyed that it didn't rely entirely on making loud noises to build suspense, but on interaction between the characters. Overall, a decent suspense movie.
Links:
Tribute Page
The Thirteenth Floor (1999)
(R)
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Three men are working on a top secret computer experiment, which involves creating real people in a computer program and then plugging your mind in to interact with these "people". The head of the group is murdered and his two co-workers try to figure out what happened. In order to do that, they must go into the computer world that only their boss had been in. This film was an attempt to pull film noir into the computer age, and worked fairly well. The story is interesting and original, although it did seem like a better version of "The Truman Show". The acting and directing were both good, and although the film did drag a little, it was still entertaining. Overall, "The Matrix" for people who value story over action.
Links:
Official Studio Site
Everyday Junk's Page
The 13th Warrior (1999)
(R)
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Set in the year 922, a man is chosen to help fight some fairly unknown enemies of a group he has just met and can't understand the language of. As they travel to find the enemies, he learns their language and customs, and when they do find the bad guys, he must learn to help them fight. Although not a great film, the plot keeps up it's pace enough to keep it interesting, and the action gets exciting at times. Overall, a decent medieval sword-fighting movie.
Links:
Official Studio Site
A Fan's Site
The Thomas Crown Affair (1999)
(R)
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A millionaire decides to rob a art museum and then toy with the people trying to get the painting back. The movie could have been very fun, and a few parts live up to the potential, but not quite enough to make it worth it. The movie is fairly dry, made without a lot of feeling to it. It is almost like watching a James Bond film without any real action sceans, and a lot of what it does have gets old fast. Overall, close to entertaining, but needs a little extra kick to make it good.
Links:
Official Studio Site
Three Kings (1999)
(R)
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The day after the Gulf War ends, a group of soldiers find a map to where they think they can find some gold Iraq stole from Kuwait. They then sneak away from were they are stationed to try to steel the gold for themselves. The film gives you a good idea of what it was like for the soldiers during and after the war, and what the effects of war can be. It also has some images that are fairly hard to watch, including some cutaway pictures of what happens inside a human body when it gets hit by a bullet. If you can handle the squeamish parts, though, the movie is very well made, very dramatic and worth seeing for anyone who is even mildly curious about the gulf war or war in general.
Links:
Official Studio Site
Rotten Tomatoes' Three Kings Site
3,000 Miles to Graceland (2001)
(R)
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A group robs a casino during an Elvis convention week in Las Vegas. The eventual survivors then attempt to keep the money for themselves, creating a fight between the robbers, a local woman and her child. The movie has an interesting story, but was a little too long. The director also made the mistake of not allowing the action to add much to the plot, instead just combining good looking shots and rock music to make some fairly boring, surprisingly tedious scenes. The movie had lots of potential, but seemed to be trying too hard for all the wrong reasons and suffered for it.
Links:
Official Studio Site
Film.com's Review
Roger Ebert's Review
Thunderball (1965)
(GP)
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Sean Connery's fourth outing as Ian Fleming's superspy. A British plane carrying two nuclear bombs is hijacked by SPECTRE. With the clock ticking, James Bond must track them down before the unthinkable happens. This film is often criticized for being too long, the underwater scenes tending to drag on. Thunderball also lacks a strong villain (Emilio Largo seems weak compared to Auric Goldfinger). Even so, this is definitely one of the better 007 adventures. The Bahamas provide an excellent backdrop for the high-stakes story, and Connery's Bond is at its zenith.
Links:
Thunderball Obsessional
007.com
Titan A.E. (2000)
(PG)
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After humans develop the technology to explore space, a group of aliens destroy earth in an attempt to keep the humans from becoming too powerful. The only way the humans can get a new world of their own is by finding a spaceship that can create one for them, while continuing to fight off the bad aliens. The film was made for a teen audience, but is fun enough that anyone can sit back and enjoy the ride. Overall, a fun space adventure.
Links:
Official Studio Site
The Titan A.E. Universe Encyclopedia
Titan A.E. - The Web Site
Roger Ebert's Review
Titanic (1997)
(PG-13)
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A man and woman meet on the Titanic and fall in love with each other. They then have to break the rules of society of their time to see each other, which obviously doesn't go over well with the woman's current boyfriend. What follows is an interesting story about how people react to extreme situations in life. The visual effects are the high point of the movie (if you can, see it in the theatre). The acting is good, and the writing is great except for a few of the characters being too two dimensional. Over all, a good movie.
Links:
Official Studio Site
Schmitty's Titanic Page
Pete's Titanic Page
Radio Free's Review
Topsy-Turvy (1999)
(R)
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Playwrights Gilbert & Sullivan get a slice of life drama about a short period in their lives as they deal with the disappointing run of their latest play and their ideas for what they should do next, leading to the creation of one of their most famous plays, The Mikado. A very dramatic movie, the director managed to get me interested in what could have been very boring material. The actors are all great as well. The movie does move rather slowly at times, which doesn't affect the movie for people who don't mind. Overall, very well done and a fairly interesting look behind the scenes at a theatre.
Links:
Official Studio Site
Interview with the director
Film.com's Review
Total Recall (1990)
(R)
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A man discovers that his memories aren't real, they've been created by a group which now wants to ether erase his resurging memories or, as a last resort, kill him. The story is very well thought out and original, and the acting and characters add to the fun of the movie. The action sequences and special effects are great, but the story is the hilight of the movie, creating a completely new world and making it seem real.
Links:
Roger Ebert's Review
Toy Story 2 (1999)
(G)
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A toy store owner spots Woody, who happens to be a collector's item now, and steals him to sell to a museum in Japan. Buzz Lightyear and a few of the other toys take on the mission of rescuing Woody. The film is never dull, and is almost as fun as the original. It avoids becoming too sappy or melodramatic, and even though it reuses some of the same plot lines from the original, it still manages to keep the entertainment value up to the same level. Overall, great for fans of the original.
Links:
Official Studio Site
Traffic (2000)
(R)
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This movie deals with several plot lines at the same time, switching between them all, including a man being appointed Drug Czar in America while discovering his daughter is a drug user and a woman taking over her husbands drug job after he gets arrested. The movie keeps a very consistent style throughout it's almost two and a half hour run time, but also tends to drag. It's too dark and dry to support it's plot to the point that I was almost relieved that the movie finally ended. It did have some good points, but needed to be trimmed down by at least half an hour to work well for me.
Links:
Official Studio Site
Robert Horton's Film.com Review
Ernest Hardy's Film.com Review
Roger Ebert's Review
Training Day (2001)
(R)
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Denzel Washington is a cop who's gone bad, spending the day training a play-by-the-rules rookie (Ethan Hawke). The film has great acting, but the action and suspense was a letdown for me, focusing more on being violent than interesting. All that I really got out of it was an annoying aftertaste of an unnecessarily dark film.
Links:
Official Studio Site
Roger Ebert's Review
Tremors (1990)
(PG-13)
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A small town in Nevada is attacked by big man-eating worms, and the residents try to reach a mountain range where the worms can't dig through the rock so they can escape. The direction is great, keeping the movie very light-hearted while also pulling off several good suspenseful moments. The humor and suspense find a good mix, and the actors manage to make their characters fun to watch. A good throughback to the giant bug horror movies of the fifties.
Links:
Washington Post's Review
Trouble in Paradise (1932)
(Not Rated)
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A very entertaining romantic comedy from director Ernst Lubitsch. Urbane jewel thief Gaston Monesque falls in love with a pickpocket named Lily. Together, they win the confidence of the beautiful Madame Colet, owner of the Colet Perfume Company (little does Mme. Colet know that they plan to make off with her fortune). This film was adapted from a play by Aladar Laszlo. The performances by the individual actors are enjoyable enough; but the clever script is what really makes this movie work. Trouble in Paradise is also memorable for its Art Deco production design (count the clocks!).
Links:
Review at Lubitsch.com
The Truman Show (1998)
(PG)
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This was a very well made and very original movie. Jim Carrey steps out of his silly humor mode to play a man who doesn't know he's the star of a T.V. show. This movie shows the lengths people will go to for freedom, even if it means leaving everything they know behind. The movie was very creative and definitely worth seeing once.
Links:
Official Studio Site
Radio Free's Review
The Turn of the Screw (1992)
(R)
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A new governess is brought in to watch two children, but after see arrives she starts to see the ghosts of people from the children's past who she believes are out to influence the children. This is based on the same story as the movie "The Innocents" but isn't as successful at making it work on the screen. The acting is good, but the script goes mostly for shock value instead of real horror, giving us people surprising each other or quick, unexpected images of people getting hurt. The film tries to be a terrifying look inside the mind of a woman who's going insane, but comes off rather weak. It does have some promising elements in the acting and directing, but they never amount to much. Overall, it kept coming close to it's mark, but was never able to find it.
Links:
Liz's Essential Film Reviews' Review
28 Days Later (2003)
(R)
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A virus converts most of Earth's population into crazed zombies who try to kill anyone they see. A man wakes up in a hospital and, while trying to figure out what happened, meets several others who haven't been infected. They then go about looking for a way to survive the new world they have been forced into, while avoiding those infected by the virus and those simply using it to fulfill their own desires. This film isn't made for everyone to like, but those that do will find it very intriguing. The writers manage to keep it from falling into pure camp by building a story around the central characters regarding how they, as well as others they meet, attempt to survive, and several problems they encounter. This dissipates for the climax of the film, when it turns into simply a no-holds barred slugfest between the heroes and some minor characters. However, it is overall a good film for fans of the genre.
Links:
Official Studio Site
filmcritic.com's Review
Roger Ebert's Review
24 Hour Party People (2002)
(R)
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The story of Tony Wilson - a frustrated TV presenter who moonlights both as a club owner and a promoter of Manchester pop music. Spanning the late seventies and early eighties, this film is shot in the style of a documentary (it mixes in archival footage at appropriate times). Many notable '80s bands like Joy Division, New Order, and the Happy Mondays are nurtured by Wilson's "inspired madness" (a Roger Ebert quote). This is a great movie for anyone who likes New Wave music or is interested in learning more about its origins.
Links:
Roger Ebert's Review
25th Hour (2002)
(R)
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Video Pick of the Week
(5/25/03 - 5/31/03)
Spike Lee's latest film is set in New York City - post 9/11. Edward Norton plays Monty Brogan, a drug dealer facing a 7-year prison term. With only 24 hours of freedom left, Monty roams around the city in an effort to tie up all his loose ends. Along the way, he's forced to re-evaluate his life and understand how he got into the mess he's in. The people in Monty's life go through a similar degree of self-examination, showing them to be not quite as innocent as they appear. Norton is teamed with a brilliant supporting cast that includes Philip Seymour Hoffman, Brian Cox, and Rosario Dawson. Despite a thin plot and a screenplay that tends to wander, this film never seems to lose it's continuity. The end product is a very enjoyable drama with great character development.
Links:
Roger Ebert's Review
Twilight (1998)
(R)
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This movie seemed like it was trying to be a noir-ish police drama, and it comes close. It also came close to being a good movie. It centers on a retired man who is lead back into the private investigation business by a friend of his. The movie has a mystery that it tries to solve, but it takes it's time doing it. It tries to center on the characters, and the characters are interesting enough, but not given enough to do to really hold my interest. It was never really suspenseful, never really dramatic, and almost always really predictable. The acting was great, but the characters weren't given very much room to grow, and the movie didn't move fast enough to keep me interested in the story.
Links:
Official Studio Site
Twin Dragons (1999)
(PG-13)
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A re-released Jackie Chan movie that has Jackie playing identical twins that were separated at birth. Years later, they finally find out that each other exist when people start confusing them for each other. They then get involved in each others lives, with a lot of fight sequences and slapstick humor thrown in. Not a stand-out movie, but enjoyable enough, and Jackie Chan fans will definitely like it.
Two Girls and a Guy (1998)
(R)
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Two girls meet outside a apartment building and eventually realize they both have the same boyfriend. They then break in to his apartment and surprise him when he gets home The rest of the movie is spent with them all discussing their relationship with each other and trying to figure out what's going to happen next. The movie was all right, but nothing really worth noting. It was mostly just the three of them discussing sex, with a few other discussions thrown in for good measure. Parts of the movie were entertaining, but a lot of it was fairly boring. And did they really need to have a guy who seemed to be so separated from reality?
Links:
Official Studio Site
Roger Ebert's Review
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