My reviews of movies in reverse chronological order (i.e. most-recent-first) of date-of-review (which is not necessarily the same as the date-watched).
Title: Pumpkin
Review written: 19 July 2002
There is a line in Ghost World where the characters Enid and Rebecca are discussing how much their high-school graduation party sucks. It sucks so bad that it is good. Nay, it sucks so bad that it is good but comes all the back to being bad.
Pumpkin is such a movie. For about the first 50 minutes, I was prepared to give this film at least a modicum of serious consideration---being that it tackles the theme of a sheltered, preppy sorority girl falling in love, depite her initial disgust, with a mentally and physically retarted boy. I was hoping that, as with Ghost World, the initial over-the-top cliche and comedy would mellow out into some serious examination conscious and unconscious biases of the characters.
However, like Surf Nazis Must Die and Kandahaar, this piece of trash attains the post-Postmanic heights of fiasco crappiness by simply piling on the cliches in what can only be called incompetence. Even the normally tolerant audience that attends free previews was groaning and moaning with agony through the second half of this film.
There is now only one way for me to review this movie:
Tits. Sweet Tits. Ripe Luscious Tits. Pert Perky Tits. Firm Tits. Jiggly Tits. Big Tits. Small Tits. Petite Tits. Melon Tits. Cantaloupe Tits. Peach Tits. Wrapped so tightly in T-shirts that the nipples stand out like doorknobs Tits. God, I want to get my hands on and sink my teeth into those Sorority Tits.
Guys, tell your girlfriends that this is a touchy-feely, I-am-Sammy, chick-flick and then just make sure you don't drool too much at, yes, Tits.
Title: K-19: The Widowmaker
Review written: 17 July 2002
The last thing this world needs is yetta-nudda frigging submarine movie, and that is exactly what we get in K-19. I predict that the apocalypse will not arrive until even landlocked Lesotho has made its very own Submarine Movie.
K-19 is a 2 hour 15 minute too-long shit-mound where everyone becomes a hero, even though they might start out as scumbags. Haha.
In addition to rehashing every single cliche of submarine movies, this turd dropping has an extended 45 minute third act that farts out its buildup of pressure from its so-called cinematic tension in disgusting, annoying little puffs for way too long.
Skip it.
Title: Eight Legged Freaks
Review written: 16 July 2002
The Devlin/Emmerich team of filmmakers are surprisingly clever guys, inspite of the overall crappiness of their movies. Thus one finds plenty of sly jokes, inside references, nudge-nudge wink-winks, and the like at the micro-level in their movies, but there is really little coherence in the film as a whole.
Eight Legged Freaks is a see-and-forget semi-comedy, semi-horror (I mean, a film with David Arquette cannot really be completely serious) summer movie featuring radioactively mutated spiders---see the sly industry joke about Spiderman (one that is repeated in places in the script).
Arquette returns to his hometown, the miserably misnamed Prosperity, AZ, to reopen his father's mine. He meets up with former flame, the fantabulously gorgeous, hottie-hot Kari Wuhrer as the town sherrif and uber-milf. At about the same time, a tank of radioactive fluid leaks into a local pond and causes the spiders in a spider-farm to mutate into humongous arachnids that start to terrorize the town.
Naturally enough, the humans do pull through after the requisite spills, chills, and thrills. Good for a budget theater visit.
Title: Halloween: Resurrection
Review written: 12 July 2002
Some movies exist to show you how good movies can get.
Some movies exist to show you how good other movies can get.
Halloween: Resurrection, the next installment of the Michael Meyers saga is in the latter category of movies.
Now I am being unfairly critical because the Halloween series never intends to take itself seriously. None of the many movies in the series is ever pretentious; they are all teen/slasher flicks that follow the standard plot themes of deliverying a mixture of fun, gore, scares, and jokes. Obviously, given the goals of the movie, it succeeds and is reasonably entertaining---something that cannot be said of recent pretentious crapola stinking with the divine PMS from the ya-ya bitchood.
Give this one a budget theater visit, or make it part of your Halloween movie-marathon, drinking-game celebration.
Title: Crocodile Hunter
Review written: 12 July 2002
Steve Irwin, the Discovery/Animal Planet crocodile hunter, is a crazy crazy man. There is no other word for it. The bruce gets chummy with extremely dangerous, vicious, poisonous, nasty animals while warning us all the time to not try this at home. It is a wonder he has not snuffed it yet.
However, the movie Crocodile Hunter delivers its laughs and provides 90 minutes of excellent entertainment, precisely because of Irwin's craziness. He and his sheila Terri do their thing---speaking on-camera about their projects and tasks, and doing what they normally do on their cable TV programs. Thrown into the mix however, is a bungling bunch of CIA goons intent on retrieving a lost surveillance pod fallen from a disintegrating satellite into the maw of a waiting croc in Australia---you see where this is going?!
While Steve and Terri are desperately trying to save said crocodile from an irate ranch owner, the CIA goons get a taste for wild Australia themselves. Obviously, all ends well with the goons getting their come-uppance, and the wild animals safely in nature preserves. The plot also pokes plenty of fun at the CIA's inability to recognize Steve for what he is, and the buffoonery of Dubya.
A fun, light-hearted movie.
Title: Reign of Fire
Review written: 9 July 2002
There is a difference, dear reader, between derivative and ripoff. A world of a difference.
Thus, while many contend, with justifiable cause, that the greatest movie ever made was derivative, they can never ever apply the approbation of ripoff. The Matrix took every great cinematic theme, made it its own, and thereby obsoleted everything that came before, and by the looks of it, everything that came after it.
Reign of Fire, on the other OTOH hand (as they say), is nothing but a cheap, stupid ripoff. The movie takes place in a Mad-Maxian, Terminatorian, post-apocalyptic world where fire-breathing dragons (I am not making this up) and humans are locked in a no-holds-barred fight-to-death.
Matthew McConaughey and Christian Bale are the dragon-slayers who fill up their screen time with cliches and moronic dialog. Izabella Scorupco is the token babe who manages to always stay in cover-girl perfect makeup while everyone else is covered in grime and filth.
Needless to say, the so-called special effects are miserably executed, and the movie is so poorly lit that one might simply shut their eyes and walk out of the theater.
What a load of crap.
Title: Men in Black II
Review written: 2 July 2002
To paraphrase T.S.Elliot, this is the way the summer sequel season begins, not with a bang, but with a whimper.
What a horrible disappointment!! Men in Black was a fun movie in many ways: interesting premise, crisp dialogue, funny moments, great special effects, and action. Men in Black II fails on every single one of these criteria.
Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones team up, as alien-policemen J and K, in this shitty, sorry excuse for a sequel that has: moronic story, excessive sentimentality that is grossly out of place in a summer action-comedy, lame dialogue, absolutely no jokes whatsoever, cheesy special effects (even the Mummy movies did this better), and non-action. The film is barely 90 minutes long, and even then it dragged itself through mud-and-molasses every 5 minutes. Why the 4-letter word did they make this movie at all.
The only good thing was the few screen moments that Lara Flynn Boyle had as an evil alien attempting to conquer the earth. They should simply have had her pose in Victoria's Secret lingerie for the entire time.
Title: Mr.Deeds
Review written: 19 June 2002
Adam Sandler keeps making the same movie, again and again. Right from Billy Madison to Happy Gilmore to The Waterboy to Big Daddy to Little Nicky and now to Mr.Deeds, Sandler plays the role of a fish-out-of-water simpleton with a heart of gold, surrounded by scumbags wanting to take advantage of him, but pulling through in the end to land the babe and save the world.
What makes Sandler's movies entertaining is that he never lets the melodrama build to syrupy levels, and always has plenty of tastelessness and tits to keep testosterone-poisoned audience members, like me, satisfied.
The funniest character in Mr.Deeds, however, is not Sandler, but John Turturro playing the role of a Spanish butler. The movie is worth watching for him alone.
The one jarring note in this otherwise enjoyable picture is shoplifter Winona Ryder---ugly, stupid, unable to act, and with fake boobs (probably shoplifted from Macy's) that look quite disgusting.
Title: Windtalkers
Review written: 13 June 2002
War! Huh! Yeah! What is it good for? Absolutely nothing! Huh! Yeah!
Well, maybe the one thing that war is good for is making good war movies. We also know, both intellectually and in a deeply emotional sense, that the greatest war movies (for Americans) are always about Vietnam, the great immoral war, than about WWII, the great moral war because immorality allows for a serious exploration of the struggles and conflicts of the human condition, while there isn't much left in a moral, holier-than-thou stance except back-patting. Conversely, some of the greatest WWII movies, like Das Boot or Tora! Tora! Tora!, have been from the POV of those for whom the war was immoral.
Anyway, Saving Private Yahzee, theatrically known as Windtalkers is about the Allied use of Navajo code-talkers in the Pacific arena during WWII. Obviously, one should not go to watch this film expecting a linguistic exposition on the highly polysynthetic typology of Navajo. And this being a John Woo movie, the body count is terrifically high and the blood, gore, mutilation, use of hand-held cameras, and jarring soundtrack are all intense.
Nicholas Cage plays a US marine sent to Saipan to guard a Navajo code-talker, played superbly by Adam Beach. Naturally enough, they follow the cliched arc of guarded friendship to anger and hatred to die-for-each-other bonding over the course of the movie. And this being a war movie, we all also know from the very beginning that one of the main characters has got to die, and die heroically, by the end of the film, and that it ain't gonna be Adam Beach.
Yet, the movie delivers its required doses of cliches and effects and moments without missing a beat, and makes for reasonably entertaining (if somewhat melodramatic) watching.
Maybe I am now ready to forgive John Woo for Mission Impossible II.
Title: Undercover Brother
Review written: 28 May 2002
Austin Powers meets Shaft. Zoolander meets Soul Train. The Matrix meets Black-belt Jones.
We finally have a parody of the black cinema of the 1970s in Undercover Brother. Eddie Griffin is the eponymous brother who wears his afro and disco pants with pride, while fighting for justice. He is pitted against The Man, a mysterious white man, who is out to suppress the black man. On the way, the Brother is assisted by the B.R.O.T.H.E.R.H.O.O.D, band of high-tech rebels, and by hot babes Denise Richards and Aunjanue Ellis. Chris Kattan rounds out the cast as The Man's sidekick with a barely suppressed black-wannabe complex.
The pardoy is terrific and the jokes are non-stop. I was constantly falling off the chair with laughter as I watched this film.
Solid!!
Title: Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron
Review written: 22 May 2002
The sign that CG technology has matured is that it is being used with great facility to produce utter shit.
Spirit is an over-anthropomorphized, newage-sewage crap-mound a la Lion King, only with horses.
Any parent who takes their children to see this movie should be cited for child abuse. Sending them to the local Catholic diocese would be better.
Title: About a Boy
Review written: 17 May 2002
Ah, the age-old debate between style and substance again.
W.r.t. style, About a Boy is a good movie. Lots of Brits, good acting, crisp and satirical humor, and the gorgeous Rachel "She can be my Mummy any day" Weisz. In spite of the sappy, cliched, predictable ending, the movie works well for its first 70 minutes and certainly benefits from Nick Hornby's strong writing style.
W.r.t. substance, About a Boy is crap. It is a chick flick, excoriates those who choose to be single as being somehow defective, and (although this is not really substance) features Hugh Grant looking dazed and confused (his standard look in all of his films).
Hugh plays Will, a confirmed bachelor who discovers that single-mothers make great short-term SRs: low maintenance, good ego massagers, and low probability of committement dilemmas. Unfortunately, there is something a bit rotten, not just in Denmark, but in this scheme as well because Will soon runs into To Nicollette, a crazy manic-depressive woman whose geeky son Marcus befriends Will. The story then is about two boys: Will and Marcus, and each of their evolution into more sociable, lovable, wonderful people. Blech!!
We now have two-for-two examples of Nick Hornby's novels not translating well into movies. I will however say that About a Boy is much better than that unmitigated crap-fest High Fidelity, and that just speaks to the power of a Brit-cast (excepting, of course, To Nicollette). Even after one takes into account the time/space freedom of a novel and the corresponding constraints of film, one always gets the impression that Hornby is never sympathetic towards his characters---at the end of the novel, his protagonists are perhaps a little better than they were at the beginning of the story, but still engage in the same stupid, irrational behaviors that got them into trouble in the first place. The movie versions of these novels, bowing down to the demands of Hollywoodization and PC-chick-flickisms turns these satires into romantic, fairy-tale, happily-ever-after stories.
Give About a Boy a budget theater visit, unless you are either a chick, or are married to one (my sympathies) and are being forced to go see this movie.
Title: Death to Smoochy
Review written: 5 May 2002
After a long, almost intolerable, dry spell Robin Williams has finally come up with a comedic performance that does justice to his vast skills.
Death to Smoochy is an extremely fast-paced, satirical, zany look at the hyper-commercialized world of children's television---where even the most lovable characters are nothing more than a conduit to sell candy and toys to a captive audience of 5-8 year olds.
Robin Williams plays Rainbow Randolph, one such TV character, who finds himself out of a job because he was a bit too greedy and took bribes from parents to put their children out in front on the TV show. He is replaced by Ed Norton's Smoochy, a squeaky clean, almost unbelievably idealistic do-gooder.
Unfortunately, Smoochy finds himself disliked by a number of people who want him dead: Randolph himself, TV executives, fund-raising mafias, and other low-life. How he gets past all of them is the story of this gut-bustingly funny film. Both Williams and Norton deliver fantastic performances.
The only sour note in this symphony of hilarity is the extremely unpleasant Catherine Keener. Her facial botox-rigidity and script-cue-card scanning eye movements remind one of the legendary ineptness of Marilyn Monroe---but at least Monroe was good to look at and had big tits.
Still, Death to Smoochy is a great movie worth multiple viewings. Do not miss this one.
Title: Hollywood Ending
Review written: 29 April 2002
How do you tell a happy, carefree Woody Allen movie from a sad, serious one? In the happy movies, Woody schoomzes and romances hot babes (early Mia Farrow, early Diane Keaton, and more recently Mira Sorvino, Charlize "Too Cute" Theron, etc.). In the sad movies, Woody argues his neuroses with ugly women (middle-aged Mia Farrow, middle-aged Diane Keaton, middle-aged Diane Weist).
Hollywood Ending is a happy Woody movie that features him schmoozing with Tea Leoni, Debra Messing, and Tiffani Theissen. Woody plays Val, an aging film director with pretensions to greateness. He is given a chance to direct a major Hollywood movie, but finds himself psychosomatically blind at the start of the shoot. No matter, he directs and edits the movie while unable to see anything that goes on. These are the really funny parts of the film. But the crowning glory comes when the movie is panned and roasted everyone except for the frommaging Frenchies who consider him a genius and invite him to live and work in Paris.
Woody's happy movies always border on slapstick (his early comedies were pure-slapstick) and this one is no exception. The characters are deliberately one-dimensional and extreme in the roles they are parodying, and much of the dialog seems improvised and free-form rather than scripted. The plot is more of a movie-length version of a one-liner joke about modern movies being "made by a blind man".
Still, Hollywood Ending is a light, amusing movie that is easy on the eyes and mind.
Title: The Piano Teacher
Review written: 28 April 2002
A mentally-ill father. An overbearing, abusive, over-protective, perfectionist mother. The result: Erika Kohut, a stern, seemingly passionless, stereotypically librarian (for want of a better word) professor of music at the Vienna conservatory. Unable to form any kind of romantic relationships with men, she finds her pleasure in pornography, voyeurism, S&M, B&D, and self-mutilation.
Into her sad and lonely life comes a young student, Walter, who seems genuinely besotted with her, and Erika reveals her secret fantasies to him. Unfortunately, these revelations merely disgust Walter, and their own nascent romance degenerates into a morass of abuse.
Many reviews of this movie that I have read seem to adopt a superior, holier-than-thou attitude towards the character of Erika. Of course, these people also probably do not know what loneliness means. Those who jack-off to Playboy centerfolds will feel superior to the characters in the movie, just as those who ogle Sports Illustrated swimsuit models will feel superior to the Playboy readers, just as Catholic priests will feel superior to everyone else while buggering altar boys. One may complain that the role of pain in sexual pleasure is incomprehensible, but one cannot categorize it as a perversion. I am unable to consider lifelong alcohol and nicotine poisoning to be acceptable compared to a few minutes of leather handcuffs and nipple-clamps.
To watch this movie and feel happy that one is not into sado-masochistic fetishes is to completely miss the point. What is at issue here is that human beings, in order to form relationships with others, need to take a major risk: that of revealing their psyche to another person without really knowing if this will intensify the attraction between the them, or will backfire (as it does in this movie). That dilemma is universal.
The emotional loneliness (properly understood not as the lack of interaction with other humans, but as the lack of appreciation) of Erika Kohut is brilliantly portrayed by actress Isabelle Huppert. Even though the dialogue is in French, I would not consider The Piano Teacher to be a Frenchy film. A superb movie.
Title: Happenstance
Review written: 16 April 2002
Is it possible, even conceivable, for a sane, rational, logical, scientific, and, yes, male chauvanist pig, to develop a crush on not just any woman, but a Frenchy woman? Before Amelie, I would have thought no, but Audrey Tautou seems to defy the stereotype. Before her role in Amelie, Tautou starred in many smaller French films, one of which was Happenstance.
Although Tautou immeasurably brightens up the screen during her few scenes, Happenstance once again reminded me why I hate Frenchy cinema so much and why Amelie is such a roaring exception to the genre.
The movie takes as its premise the chaos theory statement that even the flapping of the wings of a butterfly in one part of the world can affect the weather elsewhere. The execution of this concept, sadly, left a lot to complain about. There were far too many characters in the movie, most of them peripheral and unnecessary, and many of the interconnections were contrived in the extreme. I have seen far better non-Frenchy movies dealing with the same themes of interconnectedness and contingency.
Audrey Tautou is not on screen long enough to justify the pain of sitting through this rather crappy Frenchy crap. Go back and watch Amelie a couple more times instead.
Title: Life or Something Like It
Review written: 10 April 2002
Now who wudda thunk that I could ever like a Devilina Moody movie? But that is exactly what happened.
Life or Something Like It, starting right from its tongue-in-cheeky title, succeeds as a funny and entertaining movie. Devilina, Edward Burns, and Tony Shalhoub all deliver excellent performances, without laying on any sentiment too thickly or getting too syrupy.
Devilina is a Seattle TV reporter obsessed with success, and with little time for anything else. She happens to meet with a homeless prophet (Shalhoub) who predicts that she will die within a week. This immediately sets Devilina onto a fast-track DABDA (a clever joke that makes its way into the movie dialogue itself) and she ends the week having changed her outlook on life: taking things easy, not worrying about pleasing others, finding love, etc. etc.
While this movie is decidedly a chick-flick, it still makes for good viewing, primarily because of the rapid-fire, alternatingly caustic/vitriolic exchanges between Devilina and Burns, and for its constant flow of humor. Worth watching---if only to see the Moody babe herself finally in a jolie role (too much edginess is annoying).
Title: The Sweetest Thing
Review written: 9 April 2002
Warning: Massive amounts of drool and saliva ahead!!
Cameron, Cameron, Cameron. There's something about the Diaz, and it does not take a genius to figure it out. It is her smile---that dazzling, gazillion-volt, uninhibited, totally innocent smile that makes you feel all warm and fuzzy. Often, this is the only reason to watch her movies, but there have been rare exceptions: as with the Farrelly brothers classic, or Charlie's Angels (three babes instead of just one).
The Sweetest Thing is another exception, and not only that, folks, this movie is it: the Holy Grail, the long-sought, considered-impossibly elusive, ultimate date-movie, catering perfectly to the tastes of both men and women. And to think that the plot is nothing more than the age-old, hackeneyed: boy meets girl meets boy, inconvenient marriage looms, wedding aborts, girl meets boy meets girl, and live happily ever after. Hats off to director Roger Kumble for his achievement.
The movie features two utterly luscious babes: Cameron Diaz and Christina "Kelly Bundy" Applegate (and in terms of acting ability, Applegate is just superb). Unfortunately, we also have Selma Blair, but, sigh, I suppose one should not really achieve perfection---I mean, what would other movie-makers do then.
Here's what women will find: Girls doing girly-girly things, going to dances, doing girly-girly things, talking and plotting about men, doing girly-girly things, weeping and bitching, doing girly-girly things, pigging out on icecream and chocolate, doing girly-girly things, engaging in sick and twisted psychological manipulation, doing girly-girly things, going shopping, doing girly-girly things, getting into wedding dresses, doing girly-girly things, landing Mr.Right, doing girly-girly things, and oh, did I mentioned them doing girly-girly things.
Here's what men will find: Cameron and Christina wearing extremely tight dresses, C&C showing off their tits, C&C bending over with greater agility than Romanian gymnasts, C&C progressing through greater and greater stages of undress (guys, you reading this?! I am not making any of this up!!), all combined with extremely gross potty (literally) humor, simulated lesbo-action, oval-office Clintonianism, and a level of tastelessness that would make the Farrelly brothers weep with joy.
This is one jaw-droppingly, breathtakingly beautiful, funny, and entertaining movie. Cameron's supposed $15 million paycheck for this film does not even begin to provide fair compensation. The guy introducing the premiere that I attended thanked the movie studios, the theater, the local radio stations, advertising sponsors, and, of course, Cameron's parents. Amen, brother!! Makes me glad to be a man.
Title: High Crimes
Review written: 5 April 2002
As Jack Nicholson once said, "You want the truth? You can't handle the truth!". Well, I can, and the truth is that war-crimes-trial-with-a-twist movie High Crimes stinks to high heaven.
Ashley Judd once again demonstrates her vast acting range: from cute trying to look tough, to tough trying to look cute, going through half of one, 50% of the other.
Judd plays a high-profile civil lawyer whose husband (Jim Caviezel) has been arrested by a military tribunal for desertion and murder of innocent civilians in Central America. Judd hires former Marine and now small-time lawyer (Morgan Freeman) to save the hubby.
Not only is this movie following in the well-plodded footsteps of A Few Good Men or Rules of Engagement or countless other military trial dramas, it also fails to follow the most basic rules taught in film school:
Judd should have gone to the Grand Ole Opry with her mother and sister instead of infesting Hollywood. This film has absolutely nothing of value to offer to anyone---it is a morass of potentially good ideas wasted through I-don't-know-what-kind-of-stupidity.
Two years from now, when this movie is finally playing in highly edited form on ABC's late-late Wednesday night film-o-rama, switch over to watching Ron Popiel sell his chicken rotisserie instead.
Title: Big Trouble
Review written: 2 April 2002
When I had finished reading Dave Barry's novel Big Trouble, I picked myself off the floor, wiped the tears from my eyes and the drool from my mouth, and thought: Boy if that doesn't read like a screenplay.
And indeed, director Barry Sonnenfeld has brought Barry's book to life in the bigscreen version of Big Trouble---the movie. The film remains faithful to Barry's novel most of the time (although it does not explore a few angles for time reasons). The result is an outrageous, hilarious, fun movie for the entire family to watch. And as dear Dave himself might say it, I am not making this up.
It would be pointless to tell the story of the movie, just as it would be pointless to tell the story of Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels or Snatch. The vast ensemble cast, headed by Tim Allen and Rene Russo, plays its role straight (and even underplays at times)---but this is exactly what the film needs---the novel is so funny in the bizarre predicaments that it places its characters in, that any attempt to try and bring so-called depth to the roles will ruin the effect. The filmmakers allow style to triumph over substance in this movie.
So, you now have two choices in life. One, you can be a (metaphoric) "man" and go for delayed gratification---read Dave Barry's novel first and then see the film, and you will experience far greater enjoyment that you might hope or expect. Otherwise, you can be a wimp and just see the movie. Either way, you will have plenty of fun.
BTW, this movie was initially slated for release in September 2001, and we all know what happened then. Still, I am glad that the studios did not cut out the dark yet funny scenes about bad airport security and nuclear bombs on planes---these were all there in the novel.
Title: Clockstoppers
Review written: 26 March 2002
Clockstoppers, people who can stop the flow of time. No, this is not a cinematic adaptation of Nicholson Baker's superb science-fiction erotica The Fermata, but a very enjoyable family movie directed by none other than Star Trek's No.1, i.e. Jonathan Frakes.
Zak Gibbs is a teenager whose father stumbles onto a top-secret research project that has developed a device that can slow down time for its possessor. Zak gets one of these devices and finds it fun to play with. But soon, the fun and games turn sinister as he has to do the obligatory movie battles with the villains who have kidnapped Daddy Gibbs and his former student Earl Dopler (French Stewart). Naturally enough, the goodies win, the baddies lose, and the time-stopping pranks continue.
Given the small suspension of disbelief to enable the time-warping plot device, Clockstoppers delivers on its promise to entertain with jokes and action, while steering clear of melodrama and pathos. It fondly evokes the delight one felt watching the Back to the Future movies.
An enjoyable film.
Title: The Return of the Secaucus Seven
Review written: 25 March 2002
John Sayles's first film, The Return of the Secaucus Seven, is the story of a weekend reunion of a bunch of friends trying to make it in life, and finding their youthful idealism not quite as strong as they thought it might be.
Obviously, some of you are doing a double-take and wondering if I am thinking of Larry Kasdan's The Big Chill. Sayles's movie predates Kasdan's, and there are still unanswered questions about the source of the inspiration for The Big Chill.
Still, Sayles's view of the reunion is decidedly lighter and more humorous than Kasdan's. For one thing, the reunion is an annual affair among these friends (and not a meeting forced by a death). All of the friends are still holding on to their ideals and dreams, although they are not quite as successful in life as they might have wanted to be. Relationships are hard to come by and hold on to. The future looks scarily uncertain. And yet, they are comfortable enough in each other's company to let go and enjoy the weekend.
Watch The Return and The Big Chill back-to-back and in that order, and decide for yourself which is the better movie. And whatever your opinion, also watch all of Sayles's other movies---the pleasure of looking at the work of one of the best contemporary moviemakers around is not to be missed.
Title: The Others
Review written: 25 March 2002
2001 was the year of the Kidman. As Monty Python might have said, she's a good Sheila, Bruce, and not at all stuck-up. Moulin Rouge, Birthday Girl, and The Others are all enjoyable movies and Kidman does an excellent job in each of the very different roles in these films.
The Others is a ghost story with a Sixth Senseian twist at the end. The movie is directed by Alejandro Amenabar (of Open Your Eyes fame).
Kidman plays a widowed mother of two children living in Channel Islands just after World War II. Her two children are both photosensitive and the entire mansion they live in is darkened---the household help must follow a bizarre ritual of opening and closing doors so as to not allow direct sunlight to shine through the house.
This already creepy atmosphere is further deepened when the 3 household staff turn out to be plotting something sinister for Kidman and her children. The house seems haunted by strange ghosts---playing the piano, talking to the children, weeping, moving things. The supernatural events do resolve themselves at the end of the movie, but only after the audience has to completely reevaluate its assumptions about the real and the unreal, and about what a ghost really feels about itself.
An excellent movie with great performances.
Title: Panic Room
Review written: 20 March 2002
David Fincher is among the new generation of directors who grew up in the MTV-era---shooting commercials or music videos, and thereby becoming utterly comfortable with the slickest tools of the trade.
Right from the opening credits, Panic Room shows the kind of Fincherian touches that made Se7en and Fight Club such unusually delightful movies to watch. The camera moves seamlessly and continuously through digital and real worlds in physically impossible directions and angles, and yet there is nothing gratuitous about the cinematography.
Jodie Foster plays a newly divorced woman who moves into a New York brownstone with her young, diabetic daughter. The house contains a sealed and secure Panic Room that was built to cater to the paranoia of the former owner. The initial novelty of the room is suddenly turned into a survival necessity when a bunch of thieves (Forest Whitaker, Jared Leto, and Dwight Yoakam) break into house at night to find a safe containing lots of moolah.
The entire movie takes place inside the house and Fincher keeps up the pace and suspense throughout the movie, including a few nice touches that seem to be going the way of movie cliches, but ending with a little twist, or even using that classic film school technique of over-cranking the camera to highten the tension of an already tense moment. Jodie Foster once again demonstrates her remarkable skills and screen presence as an actor.
An excellent movie.
Title: 40 Days and 40 Nights
Review written: 26 February 2002
What utter rubbish.
Josh Hartnett plays Matt, a dot-conner living in San Francisco, who decides to give up sex for the 40 days and nights of Lent, because he is depressed about losing his most recent girlfriend. Huh?? Cry me a river, dick!!
This movie is absolutely devoid of any humor, and certainly even the most retarded moron could not have made it for the sympathy factor. Each and every character displays a level of stupidity rivalling that of Bridget Jones.
Stay far far away from this crap-fest.
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Last updated: Sun Aug 29 17:59:30 PDT 2004
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