jgfoot Reviews

The Evening Star (1996)

Only one good point in its favor

[28 January 2001]

This movie's sole contribution to the human experience is the director's achievement in convincing Scott Wolf to do a scene where he poses for his girlfriend in his underwear. Other than that, this film has nothing to recommend it.

Small Wonder (1985–1989)

Extremely disturbing and annoying

[3 October 1999]

One of the most repellent shows ever on American TV. As I child, I once suffered from a horrible fever, and the image of Vicki appeared in my panicked nightmares. The combination of sappy, prepackaged, predictable jokes and all-too-happy '80s sitcom stock characters was bad enough; add in really, really bad sci-fi and I'm ready to fire-bomb any TV station that puts this thing on the airwaves.

Bulworth (1998)

Through the liberal looking glass

[24 July 1999]

An eye-opening view of the world as it must appear to the rich liberal white class that Beatty finds himself in. Here is a world where homeless people are fonts of sage wisdom, teenage drug dealers in South Central will coo and smile as long as a nice white man buys them an ice cream cone, and black drug lords are laudable father figures because they actually care about their kids and are able to make profound speeches about -- are you ready for this -- the importance of educating our nation's youth.

A movie with messages? Maybe if you're a liberal high school civics student who has never read a copy of The Nation yet. The rest of us see a movie full of grossly exaggerated characters and story twists that are so implausible that it robs the film of any claim to making a serious political statement. I can believe that a lobbyist would work hard to kill a bill; I can't believe that a lobbyist would order a hit in order to accomplish that.

The Blair Witch Project (1999)

Intelligent and scary

[10/10 · 18 July 1999]

An excellent horror film that works on many levels. Towards the end of the film we see that the three characters have as much reason to be afraid of themselves and of each other as they have reason to be afraid of the witches out to get them. This isn't a message-laden film, but it makes a few neat points about filmmaking and the imperfect relationship between movies and reality.

Amistad (1997)

The many historical inaccuracies (see Goofs sectio...

[1/10 · 3 August 1998]

The many historical inaccuracies (see Goofs section) suggest that this is a liberal re-telling of history, more interested in making a commentary about race in the 1990s than in the history of this important event.