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: A Tale of Two Sisters
Review written: 21 February 2005
Korean film A Tale of Two Sisters explores the notion that guilt, rather than supernatural need (for vengeance or evil), is the source of the greatest of horrors.
The movie opens in a house set in picturesque surroundings, awaiting as it were, the return of two sisters from a trip (whose details, as those surrounding their absence, are mysterious). The sisters themselves: Soo-mi and Soo-yeon are utterly devoted to each other and inseparable, their mutual bond only strengthened by the fact that their father has remarried and the girls and their stepmother dislike each other intensely, even cruelly.
The stepmother/stepdaughter hatred comes to a climax when one of the sisters is killed, or is she? (spoilers follow)
As the movie's third act moves into a series of dreamlike hypnogogic imagery, we soon learn the truth:
Yes, there really were two sisters and a stepmother whose petty conflicts seem to escalate day by day. On one occasion, the stepmother pushes the younger sister into a huge closet as punishment, but the closet accidentally falls down on the girl, crushing her---not immediately, but eventually to a painful and prolonged death from pain and suffocation. The stepmother is shocked and horrified at the plight of her stepdaughter, but is too angry and afraid to even call for help. The elder sister almost walks into the room (and would have been in time to save her sister), but gets into another petty and inconsequential quarrel with her stepmother and walks away.
Once the weight of the tragedy sinks in, both the stepmother and the elder sister must deal with the horror, not of ghosts or spirits, but of their own guilt---if only they had swallowed their pride and raised a voice for help, the little girl would still be with them, instead of dying while pleading for help from her loved ones. As is often the case, errors of omission (leading as they do to "What if" and "If only" imaginings) are far more guilt-inducing than errors of commission.
The elder sister goes mad and imagines what we, the audience, have seen as the first two acts of the movie---her delirium consists of an elaborate fantasy involving the stepmother's intolerable cruelty and persecution of the younger sister that is unseen by anyone else in the family (especially since everyone else knows that the little girl is dead). We are also led to believe that the stepmother herself is a pale wreck of her former proud and preening self.
What makes A Tale of Two Sisters truly gruesome is, of course, the very thing that distinguishes true horror from mere gore. Human cruelty and human guilt, even in the most mundane aspects of life, are far more terrifying than even the vast emptiness and uncaring attitude of the cosmos, let alone a few pints of blood-red ketchup streaming from a severed prop-hand.
Title: Sex is Comedy
Review written: 3 February 2005
Sex is Comedy is like any other Catherine Breillat film: 50% infuriatingly annoying, 25% thought-provoking, and 25% just plain incomprehensible.
The 25% incomprehensibility is because Breillat, being Frenchie, makes Frenchie films. And no Frenchie film worth its fromage can exist without a heaping helping of bizarreries that leave everyone on the planet bewildered but seem the most natural thing in the world only to the frogs.
The 50% infuriating annoyance comes from Breillat's constant, repetitive, man-hating feminazism. She doesn't miss a single chance to put down men and, if possible, simultaneously glorify women, even when the actions of the people involved so obviously say otherwise.
The 25% thought-provoking is probably the only reason to see Breillat's films (rather than other Frenchie films, all of which feature oodles of gratuitous nudity, etc.). There do exist occasions when Breillat, despite herself, makes some interesting points about human relationships: between men and women, between auteur and actor, and between boss and worker.
Sex is Comedy is a thinly veiled movie-in-a-movie look at Breillat filming one of her own movies (although another actress plays the alter-ego), and having to work through her own insecurities with the material, painful rehearsals, the cast's mutual dislike and indifference, and everything in between.
Marginally watchable, if no other Breillat film has turned you off.
Title: Million Dollar Baby
Review written: 29 January 2005
It is difficult to write anything new or interesting about a Golden Globe/Academy Awards winner/nominee picture. So, let me just give a personal take on the Million Dollar Baby.
Firstly, I am not going to go gaga about Eastwood's directorial or acting abilities, or about Hilary Swank buffing up for the role, or Morgan Freeman's yet another tour-de-force of way-cool gravitas.
The interesting thing (for me) about this movie is 5 minutes worth of story embedded in an otherwise mundane and pedestrian boxing romance. The character arcs or ring battles are mere sideshow to the kernel of the movie---the morality of, in fact, the nobility of, euthanasia.
A man who deeply loves a woman as much as, or even more than, his biological daughter; who has watched her go from success to success; who has seen her in the prime of athletic ability; who may have religious qualms about (so-called) "unnatural" death; still is able to realize that human life, if at all it is to be honored, must be a life of dignity and happiness, not one of misery and suffering. The surrogate father, eventually, does make the decision to kill his daughter by his own hands rather than see her waste away in extended agony.
In asking for death, the daughter, and in granting her wish, the father, both demonstrate the level of nobility that few humans (and certainly no RepubliNazi) can ever attain.
A superb movie.
Title: Assault on Precinct 13
Review written: 29 January 2005
The primary quality that distinguishes a movie critic from the average moviegoer, if at all anything distinguishes the two populations, is that the critic should be capable of evaluating a movie on two entirely independent dimensions.
On the one hand, a critic should say how the movie stands on its own---i.e. how well the story is constructed, how well the actors perform, and how well the director and his team stitch the story and performances into a set of reels that get projected to the audience. This kind of evaluation constitutes the critic writing for the general public, for the person who picks up a newspaper to make the choice on how to spend those dollars at the local cineplex or videostore that evening.
On the other hand, a critic should also be able to place any movie in context---i.e. trace the antecedents of the story, and the evolution of the work of the movie's cast and crew over their careers. This kind of evaluation constitutes the critic writing for other critics, film students, and those who look at movies with a critical eye.
Unless a critic is writing an essay published in the "annals" of film school newsletters or trade magazines, it is the first kind of evaluation that should be primary in a movie review.
It is therefore excruciatingly annoying to see so-called critics dump on Assault on Precinct 13 by ostensibly evaluating the movie entirely based on how it compared to the John Carpenter original, never mind that many of today's target audience for this movie may not even have been born when the original was made.
I freely confess that I have not seen the Carpenter movie, making me a "cinematic virgin" when it comes to looking at the "remake". And I must say that, whatever its faults, Assault on Precinct 13 (the remake) is a fine piece of entertainment---good story, fine acting by a strong ensemble cast, good direction and cinematography, and a great, fast-paced, action-drama.
Ethan Hawke, as a police officer in a precinct about to be shut down as its facilities are upgraded, leads a handful of his fellow officers and an unlikely group of criminals as allies in defending the police station from attack by, and here is the kicker, other police officers. Hawke has, in his custody, a drug dealer (played by Laurence Fishburne) who is just about ready to finger the very police officers (standing outside the gates in assassination gear) for their complicity and corruption.
Not surprisingly, Hawke and Fishburne make it out of the firefight alive, but the spice in the story is not that they do it, but watching the fun and mayhem unfold as police vs. police battles rage through a cold wintry night in Detroit.
Highly recommended as good, escapist, entertainment.
Title: Are we there yet?
Review written: 29 January 2005
Ladies and gentlemen, the ice cube has finally melted.
It is difficult to look back at Boyz 'n the Hood and then watch the recent crapfest that goes under the annoying road-trip-kid-refrain Are we there yet?. If the question is asking if we are there at the point where yettanudda good actor has been ground into chick-flick pulp, then, yes, we certainly are there now.
Ice Cube has wisely chosen to not stick with the gangsta-rap stereotype that would have been easy for him to slip into and fit in for as long as he might have wanted. The 3 (to date) Friday series of films show that Cube has a deep well of comedic talent to draw on, and I admire his efforts in this area.
However, none of this can excuse a movie like Are we there yet?. Cube is, first of all, a Saudi-supporter: he drives a behemoth gas-guzzler that shames tanks and trucks with its size. But worse, he plays the role of a pussy-whipped LJBF who, failing to get into the pants of a single-mother, agrees to babysit her obnoxious kids. I weep for manhood.
The entire movie follows a predictable arc for all its characters: Cube matures from his comfortable bachelorhood into a wannabe dad, the LJBFfer agrees to the booty call, and the kids accept a new dad who just might be a good friend to them as well. Okay, okay, okay, enough with the schmaltz already.
Instead of wasting film on this garbage, Cube should have instead filmed himself saying: "Get on your knees and duck my sick, bitch". That would have been far more enjoyable than Are we there yet?.
Title: Super Size Me
Review written: 28 August 2004
Morgan Spurlock is a masochist on a mission.
To test (so to speak) the claim that fast-food is good (or "not good") for you, he vows to spend 30 days:
We then get to see the spectacle of a man who is declared in good health by 3 different physicians and a nutritionist go (a) 25 pounds overweight, (b) seriously damage his liver function, (c) have a shitty sex life, (d) become frequently tired, depressed, and otherwise lackadaisical except when feeding his addiction to fatty, sugary, and supersized fast food.
Granted Spurlock does not exercise, but then, neither do most Americans who swear by fast food. Granted his exclusively McDonalds diet is a bit extreme, but is does serve as a reasonably controlled experiment that can be carried out in 30 days.
The question now is whether anyone will ever learn anything worthwhile watching this movie, or if Americans will continue down the road to becoming the world's greatest lard-butts.
Note: I watched this movie in a theater that serves food (pizza, buttered popcorn, and soda). The irony of an audience laughing at the bodily degradation Spurlock goes through while simultaneously stuffing their maws with popcorn is thick enough to slice with a butter knife. Ah well, evolution has built bodies that, without the control of a sufficiently strong will, will do just about the worst things possible in this modern world of ours.
Title: Ju-On: The Grudge
Review written: 25 August 2004
Let me start with the statement that I found The Ring to be a far more enjoyable movie in almost every respect than Ringu, although neither movie comes anywhere close to deserving the appellation of being the most scary movie ever made.
Ju-On: The Grudge, a followup movie from the same team that made Ringu is neither scary nor profound---merely weird (but stylishly so). The curse of a wrongfully killed person returning to avenge their death is the primary plot engine---but the story is told through a series of episodic snippets that all end in the death of some person involved in the plot.
While the movie may be good for a budget theater or drinking game viewing, it is by no means something worth spending too much time or money over.
Title: The Corporation
Review written: 18 August 2004
What a disappointment!!
The Corporation was praised by some local movie reviewers as a "scholarly version" of Fahrenheit 9/11, and it ended up being a mostly-gimmicky, often-ridiculous film that squandered a superb opportunity to say anything substantive.
The gimmicky plot point in the movie is the use of symptoms from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual IV to diagnose a Corportation fitting the characteristics of what in humans would be psychopathology. While this gimmick is good enough for a couple of laughs, it detracts from the "scholarly" aspects of the movie (if there were any).
The second major flaw in the movie was that it makes the claim (currently very popular among liberals) that the root cause of the present rapaciousness of modern corporations is the late 19th century US Supreme Court decision that deemed corporations to be "persons". While the claim is made, nowhere is there any demonstration of why exactly this decision automatically leads to a corporation becoming a psychopathic entity, and how/why removing of the "person"hood status of a corporation would automatically improve the welfare of our economies and society.
The third major flaw in the movie is its use of sound and quote bites from the many people it interviews. Rather than let Noam Chomsky make a point---which would require 5 minutes of cogent, closely-knit argument, we get to hear Chomsky's sentences chopped up in 10second bites and delivered piecemeal through the course of the 2-hour movie. This is deep injustice to the people being interviewed, and a mockery of any labelling of the movie as "scholarly".
The good parts of the movie are confined to documenting the fact that modern multinational corpotations act in a manner dedicated to only "enhancing shareholder value" and mindless of anything else that detracts from this goal. While other movies and books have done the same thing, The Corporation would have been a very good movie if it restricted its scope to just the documentation. Unfortunately, the filmmakers overreached and tried to add their own "message" and "moral" into the stort and turned a good (if derivative) movie into a joke.
Title: Fahrenheit 9/11
Review written: 26 June 2004
I am someone who has given up on the human race, but seeing Fahrenheit 9/11 gave me pause---there is still something good about humanity that it can produce a man of the courage and dedication of Michael Moore.
The movie is a capsule summary of the rape of the entire planet by Republican Motherfucking Motherfuckers for the last 4 years.
It is difficult to predict (and I will not predict) what effect the movie might have on the 2004 elections or the future of this country (where more attention is paid to J.Lo's latest marital adventure or Britney Spears's boob-jobs).
However, any decent human being must stand in admiration at the effort Michael Moore has expended in getting this movie made---especially at a time when the so-called media-whores have done nothing but bend-over and get reamed up the ass by the right-wing. In a world (and certainly in my world) where people are judged by the motivations of their actions, not by mere results measured in mere money, Moore stands far above the scum that will surely raise a stink about this movie.
Michael Moore: I salute you. If there were more like you, maybe this sad species has a chance.
Title: Saved!
Review written: 8 May 2004
Trust Hollywood to pussy-foot so gently over the territory of religion that they manage to simultaneously enrage religious nuts (who will always be enraged, no matter what) and leave intelligent movie-goers dissatisfied at the wimpy pile of crap that ends up being projected on screen.
Saved! is supposedly a slice of the life of a teenage girl who gets pregnant, and who must now come to terms with the fact that she lives in a community, has a mother, and goes to school among religious nut-case zombies.
Rather than use this as a vehicle to explore the contradictions of religion, roast Christianity's founding myths over hot coals, expose the deep hypocrisy of so-called family values and right-wing zealotry, we end up with some smarmy, cheesy, shit-cake about prom-night and pimples.
Even the presence of the fabulous Jena Malone cannot make up for the fetid heap of Hollywood trash.
Title: Walking Tall
Review written: 4 April 2004
Perhaps the time for the 60-minute back-to-back double feature idiom to hit movie theaters.
Walking Tall would have made an excellent 1-hour movie, but ends up being a weirdly paced, and ultimately disappointing 75 minute film where end credits (in ridiculously sized baby-fonts) take up the last 10minutes of screen time.
The story of the movie is based on the supposedly real-life events of Buford Pusser and his vigilante approach to justice (do check out The Rules of Attraction for a very funny reference to Pusser).
The Rock returns from a stint in the US military only to find his small-town home-town ravaged by rapacious local "businessmen" (mini-me clones of the Republican Mofos who are carrying out the carnage at the global level these days). Fed up with ineffective, corrupt, and bought-out law enforcement, The takes justice into his own hands. He runs for and wins the office of Sheriff, and then proceeds to beat the shit out of the evil-doers.
The movie needs to be remade as a 4-year, 24-hour long, continuous C-SPAN series featuring Republican Mofos having the shit beat out of them by Pusser-wannabe recruits from all over the world. Now that would be a spectacle worth paying cable rates for.
Title: The Dreamers
Review written: 19 February 2004
Of all of the varieties of wankers in the world, the very worst are the Frenchie wankers. Not authentic frogs, mind you---those are bad enough, but why blame them (too much) for what is really an accident of birth.
No, I am talking about the frommage-wannabes that go out of their way to display their Francophilia, not realizing that this is like broadcasting one's love for farting on creme brulee before eating it.
Bernardo Bertolucci, pervert, is a new entrant to the ranks of Frenchie wankers. Bertolucci has long since given up on making sensible movies, and here he caps (or diapers, more like) his demise into a well-deserved oblivion with a self-referential, Frenchie-film-quoting, horribly masturbatory 2 hour ordeal (for the viewer) of a movie.
The Dreamers is the story of an American in Paris; not in the heady honeymoon days post World War II (when he would have broken into song and dance every few minutes), but during the violent protest-filled turbulent times of the Vietnam War.
Said American student is a film buff, and befriends (or is he befriended by?) by an incestuous, surgically separated Siamese-twin, brother-sister pair. He then spends the next however many days in a stupor of constant fornication (with sister), vapid Frenchie pseudo-philosophizing (with brother), and scavenging through garbage for food. The pretext for fucking is play-acting scenes from Frenchie "classic" movies---so we get to see glimpses of frog-crap that should have been burned before they ever saw the light of day.
The orgy ends with the brother-sister pair going bonkers and taking to the streets along with the rest of the mad-Parisian Vietnam war protestors, while the American schmuck is left to ponder the meaning of it all.
This thoroughly unwatchable film has been rated NC-17 in the US, probably because of a clear shot of well-defined cunt-lips, and fleeting male nudity (one of the last taboos in American cinema). However, I think the movie should have been rated NC-99---anyone with functioning brain cells should not be allowed to watch this piece of crap.
Title: Eurotrip
Review written: 17 February 2004
A true teen classic.
A graduating high-schooler is, in the space of a few days:
Accompanying him on his trip are 3 friends who have equally entertaining and tasteless adventures. This is a not-to-be-missed movie for those who enjoyed Road Trip and the American Pie series. For those who think cinema begins and ends with Merchant-Ivory, there's always the hell called Tea with Mussolini (let's keep the Euro-theme, shall we).
Title: Fog of War
Review written: 30 January 2004
It is very difficult to try and review or summarize an Errol Morris film. There is something very peculiar and unique about the way Morris combines the immediacy and objectivity of a documentary with the powerful emotional roller-coaster of great fiction that is both impossible and inappropriate to put into words.
In Fog of War, Morris sets up the camera in front of Kennedy/Johnson Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara, turns it on, and takes us on a 2-hour journey through the Vietnam War, the great folly of a previous generation (just as Iraq is the great folly of this generation).
Watch this movie multiple times, and realize, if you have not already done so, why 20-th century Republicanim s the greatest evil unleashed from the maw of human depravity.
Title: The Girl Next Door
Review written: 30 January 2004
Would you, if you were a teenager about to leave high-school, date and marry a teen-porn star?
Now ponder the question carefully. We are not talking about boning her for the duration of your pathetic 30-second arch from arousal to climax. We are talking about taking her home to your parents, and introducing her to your professional colleagues 30 years down the road all of whom may have jacked off to her when they were in high-school.
Now we are talking. If this were literature, we would have had an interesting look at the psychology of sex and sexual taboos. But this is Hollywood, and mainstream Hollywood at that---so, what we get instead is a modern-day teen comedy with no lessons and base pandering. Not that I am complaining---hey, give me hot nekkid babes and I will stop complaining about anything. Well, almost anything. Nothing, nothing, nothing can stop me from complaining about Republican mofos.
In addition to winning the love of his porn-queen Elisha Cuthbert, teen-hero Emile Hirsch also pays for his way through college in political science (Bill Clinton in the making?) by making the best sex-education video ever.
There is nothing much else to talk about in this movie except that you get to see plenty of skin, boobs, butts, backs, fronts, and flesh---all female, of course. Be sure to make this your "valentine" (haha) movie.
Title: Against the Ropes
Review written: 30 January 2004
Meg Ryan is too cute for her own good.
At the lower end of the age scale, she has been so thoroughly out-cuted by Charlize "Too Cute" Theron, so much so that we forget that anyone other than The Ron could have ever played any of the too-cute roles available for young Hollywood starlets.
At the upper end of the age scale, Ryan retains far too much of her good looks and charm to command the kind of mature gravitas that Meryl Streep or Glen Close are able to (by virtue of their having lost any feminine luster they might have ever possessed in their professional lives).
Try as she might to play serious roles, poor old Meg finds herself continued to be cast as the girl in constant need of a knight in shining armor to save her.
Against the Ropes is another one of Meg Ryan's failed attempts at a more serious role, but the failure here is caused as much by moronic storywriting, horrendous casting, imbecilic direction, as by outright incompetence all through the entire effort.
Ryan plays the role of (supposedly) real-life female boxing manager Jackie Kallen. I say supposedly because I don't give any credence to the authenticity of the movie (and if it were really authentic to the life of Kallen, then that woman in turn has got to be a downright buffoonic tart).
The imitation Philadelphia accent in this movie is confined to everyone saying "baaaaaxing" when refering to that pugilistic sport. Ryan prances around in costumes too scandalous for even The Ron, and certainly for any real-life person to wear when urging boxers to punch the life out of their opponents inside the ring.
The entire story about the evolution of a raw streetfighter into a well-oiled, honed professional champion is so cliched that it forces deep well-springs of rage in me.
Skip this utter piece of garbage and instead rent In the Cut where you can supposedly see Meg Ryan's furry feline.
Title: Stuck On You
Review written: 16 December 2003
It is a bad time to be a brothers. The Coens seem to be content making mild comedies about lawyer scumbags finding love and honor at barracuda conventions instead of churning out wood-chipper ground man-meat, and the Farrelly's have come down a long, long way from the early morning fresh bucket of milk and ultra-firm hold hairspray that made their earlier efforts so memorable and funny (some might even dare to include the Wachowski in this siblingular debacle, but I disagree, and digress).
Stuck On You continues along with the Farrelly Brothers' fascination with freaks. Matt Damon and Greg Kinnear play a pair of non-identical, Siamese twins (haha) who seem almost entirely oblivious to their conjoined state or to the puzzlement of anyone who is surprised by them---leading to situations involving Kinnear being the star of the local town play while Damon cowers behind him in stage fright.
While the premise of the movie seems full of possibilities, the Farrelly brothers lose their way surprisingly quickly and end up with a movie that any random hack could have turned out as a film-school project on how to imitate themselves---badly! The end result is neither tasteless nor funny nor moving nor dramatic---in fact, it is just not much of anything at all except pathetic and boring.
The twins move to Hollywood for a TV and film career, get separated, and reunited as all ends well in a surreal musical scene involving, and this baffles me greatly, Meryl Streep.
Rent Dumb and Dumber, Kingpin, and There's Something About Mary and weep, ye mortal, at the destruction of yet another American movie institution.
Title: Cold Mountain
Review written: 9 December 2003
What kind of a moron would cast the incomparable Nicole Kidman in a movie, and not have her buck-nekkid in the first 5 minutes?
Well, it would have to be Anthony Moronghella, that's who!!
I enjoyed both the borderline schmaltzy The English Patient and the darkly comic The Talented Mr.Ripley, but now I have to credit the quality of those two movies not to Moronghella, but to the writers of the source material: Ondaatje is a Canadian (from Britian by way of Sri Lanka), and Highsmith is a Brit.
But when Moronghella chooses an American, and a slave-owning apologist at that, as the author of choice, he has made his first and fatal mistake. A long list of big-name celebrity cameos only makes this self-indulgent artsy-fartsy buffoonery even more unbearable.
I had to tolerate 2 hours and 15 minutes of utter crap about how the South suffered during the Civil War before I finally got to see Nicole Kidman naked---even then, it was the briefest glimpse of butt, slice of tit, and lone nipple. Even Natalie Portman (one of the celebrity cameos) showed more skin.
Cold Mountain is the kind of disgusting crap that has led to the slave-raping, nigger-fucking, hypocritical, decayed semen-spawn that is Strom Thurmond. We do not need a book nor a movie commemorating these bastards.
My advice to Moronghella is to not make any more movies, certainly not any based on books by American authors, certainly not any sympathetic to slave-owning mofos, and for goodness sake, get Nicole Kidmand buck-nekkid ASAP and keep her that way for the rest of the movie (learn from Stanley Kubrick, man---his dying gift to humanity is one that we should all cherish for eternity).
Title: The Cooler
Review written: 18 November 2003
A down-on-his-luck loser goes to Las Vegas, and paradoxically finds true love, happiness, riches, and redemption.
Hey, didn't Paul Thomas Anderson make this movie a decade ago and call it Sidney and then call it Hard Eight.
Now we have the same kind of movie remade as The Cooler, a 2-hour long, highly forgettable, pseudo-comedy (I have to imagine that the filmmakers realized that they could not bill this movie as either a drama or a comedy, and if they said that it was a dramatic-comedy or a comedic-drama, they would reveal themselves to be shills out to fleece the movie-going audience out of its cash).
Finally, did the Founding Fathers write the Bill of Rights and did Abraham Lincoln emancipate the slaves only so that in 2003 we get to see William H. Macy's shrivelled Little Richard on screen. He and his co-star Maria Bello drop trou in their love-scenes (blech!!), and these are among the most unerotic scenes in recent movies (I can only think of Kathy Master Bates's nude appearance in About Schmidt to rival the disgust factor of this one).
Bello may have once been a beauty, but her days of shedding clothes were 20 years in the past.
See this movie only as part of a drinking game---a chug of beer each time you laugh inadvertently at the incongruity of the cramatic-domedy (or is it domedic-crama) in this piece of silliness.
Note to Alec Baldwin: Dude, I love your politics and your open bashing of the MoFoMo, but please choose better roles.
Note to Joey Fatone: Yo fatty. You already have a fucked up name, don't make it a descriptive one by billowing out on cheesecakes and butter popcorn.
Title: Bad Santa
Review written: 11 November 2003
I am going to fuck you so hard, you ain't gonna shit right for a week.
A classic quote from what I would consider the best Christmas movie ever made: Bad Santa. Step over Frank Crapa, your crap-mound It's a Wonderful Life has lost to the new game in town---a Christmas movie more in keeping with the times and mores of the 21st century than your unrealistic fantasy cheese-melt.
Billy Bob Thornton plays the titular Bad Santa, a disgusting, foul-mouthed crook with a penchant for anal-boning fatty-females who, along with his midget elf-partner, robs upscale department stores posing as Santa. The rest of the year is spent indulging his passion for drink in a ratty motel in Florida.
This particular year, Bad Santa finds love in the heart of a loser child who seems oblivious to his own pathetic state of being.
While the movie does end well and happily, the spicy dialogue, fall-off-the-chair laughter, and Billy Bob's wonderful acting all make this Terry Zwigoff movie worth watching multple times, especially by those who are sick and tired of the treacly parade of standard Christmas fare.
An excellent movie.
Title: Matrix Revolutions
Review written: 5 November 2003
Much ink has been, is being, and will be spent analyzing the second and third installments of the Matrix trilogy.
While I admit to being incorrigibly biased in favor of the concept and execution of the Matrix, I have to confess that I am puzzled at the complaints that are being leveled against the Wachowski Brothers.
Every supposed "problem" with Reloaded and Revolutions could be said equally of the original The Matrix.
Every legitimate open question was satisfactorily (and even well) answered in the sequels. Not all supposed "open questions" (as in "some random, mistaken, thought in the mind of vapid, irreflective viewers") was not and cannot be addressed, and hence was not. But that is the fault of those who had the incorrect expectations.
The acting (or lack thereof) of Keanu and Carrie-Anne is the same in all of the movies.
So what's the beef all about?
Perhaps then, the real complaint that some people have with the trilogy is that the second and third movies failed to achieve that special, first-love, virgin-sex feel of the first movie. But, this is, by definition, impossible to do, just as it is impossible to step in the same river twice.
Let us then take stock. When you strip away all of the action and special-effects, what remains of Reloaded and Revolutions, and of the original movie is this:
I consider this to be a tasty little paradox and resolution, and a conclusion worthy of the setup of the first movie. Naturally, those who were wowed by the kung-fu action and freeze-frame bullet trajectory facade of the first movie (and failed to appreciate its philosophical depth) feel let down since these cinematic tricks have now become commonplace to the point of parody.
The Matrix trilogy remains the greatest movie(s) ever made. This history of the Universe can now be said to be divided into 2 periods of existence: Before The Matrix, and After The Matrix. The purpose of my life has finally been fulfilled.
PS: For those who have not yet seen the 2nd and/or 3rd installments, or who plan to see them on DVD, I suggest watching The Animatrix first. The interpretation of many of the characters and situations in the trilogy become richer and more nuanced if one is familiar with the back stories explored in the animated shorts.
Title: Spellbound
Review written: 1 November 2003
Truth is not merely stranger than fiction, it is also more thrilling.
Spellbound takes a topic, the annual National Spelling Bee competition for 8th graders, that at first blush seems duller, dorkier, nerdier, and geekier than anything imaginable, and makes it into a docu-drama that beats the best of John Grisham for sheer suspense and buildup to its ultimate climax.
In 1999, the filmmakers picked 8 children who were regional champions of various local spelling bees, and followed their journey to the 2-day national competition at Washington D.C. The children were chosen to represent a varied socio-economic and racial background (although participation in the competition itself is heavily skewed towards children of first-generation immigrants---i.e. those whose parents came to the US and achieved success here primarily for their academic skills).
Spellbound also offers us a glimpse into the extremely lonely life of geeks who endure isolation and abuse among their peers, but, almost paradoxically feel most at home at the national championshipships where the pressure to succeed is intense and everyone of their competitors is out to beat them---and yet, these are the very geeks and nerds who most validate each other and the year-long strenuous preparation and dedication that paves the road to the final competition.
More than the children, it is their parents who seem more driven to succeed, and one cannot help but think that the spelling bee is also a venue for the adults to vicariously experience the thrill of competition.
A brilliant film that deserves widespread viewing and recognition, and heaps of accolades for its makers. Not to be missed.
Title: Scary Movie 3
Review written: 21 October 2003
Scary Movie 3 has been savaged by critics and will probably not do too well among most movie audiences either.
However, the movie demonstrated to me how little it takes to make me laugh when it comes to: parody, comedy, and tasteless humor, especially when it has liberal heapings of hot babes and big titties.
Scary Movie 3 takes off on Signs, 8 Mile, and The Ring, with bits of pieces of other recent movies thrown in.
If you like parodies, you will enjoy the film. Otherwise, go waste your money on some crappy chick flick---what do I care!!
Title: The Runaway Jury
Review written: 19 October 2003
John Grisham has always written eminently filmable books. Even the most novice of directors can round up a good ensemble cast and let the flow of the story's twists and turns captivate the audience for a good couple of hours.
The Runaway Jury provides us with an example of what can be called legal vigilantism---executing personal vendetta by means of the machinery of the legal system.
The scene is set with a high-profile, high-stakes lawsuit brought against gun makers in New Orleans by the wife of a man who was the victim of a shooting spree by a disgruntled employee.
The gun companies hire the best jury selection committee, headed by Gene Hackman's Rankin Fitch, to make sure that they already stack the odds in their favor, but the lone dark horse, Nick Easter (played by John Cusack), sneaks in past them.
Easter and his girlfriend Marlee (the incomparable British babe Rachel Weisz) seem to have a mysterious agenda of their own, and for a while it seems if they are mercenaries who roam the country, infiltrating juries in high-stakes trials, and sell the verdict to the higher bidder: plaintiff or defendant, without regard for any sense of truth or justice.
However (and, in some sense, in deference to movie-logic), we learn at the very end of the film that Easter and Marlee are exacting sweet revenge on Fitch for another lawsuit engineered by Fitch many years ago against the then teenaged Easter and Marlee and their small town in Indiana, also in a gun-related case.
Payback, as they say, can be a bitch, especially when she bites back decades later.
A very enjoyable movie in spite of a few ridiculous dramatizations of the war room design of the Fitch team and their operations.
Title: Veronica Guerin
Review written: 19 October 2003
Veronica Guerin is the Hollywoodized, saccharinized, and sentimentalized dramatization of the real-life story of a reported for an Irish newspaper who is gunned down and murdered in public for her investigative reporting of drug traffickers.
While Cate Blanchett delivers a competent performance given the material, and while the rest of the cast (of mostly Irish actors) do a commendable job, the movie itself suffers from the same disease that afflicts any movie that has the (mis)fortune of being produced by Jerry "I never saw a car crash or pyrotechnic explosion I did not like" Bruckheimer.
Car crashes and explosions make sense in Con Air (especially when combined with Nicholas Cage's Waa din ya put the banne baak laak ah said?), but skill in that area does not automatically translate to a pseudo-documentaries.
If the movie had not been so heavily Hollywoodized, for example, by focusing more on facts and less on emotion and fictional reconstruction of the inner thoughts of its protagonists, it might have made for not just better viewing, but would have also been a more appropriate homage to a journalist in search of facts.
Skip this one.
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