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Reviews
Alex & Emma (2003)
Extremely thin.
There is far more conflict and romantic tension in the trailer than in this entire very thin movie. Kate Hudson is wonderful but has very little to do, and barely gets to be spunky because her character just sits obediently. Luke Wilson's character is a grinning liar with neither passion nor heart nor a shred of talent, but of course it's Luke Wilson so we're supposed to forgive him. Ah, well.
The Sum of All Fears (2002)
Unbelievably stupid.
This movie lost me in the first five minutes. I think that's a record. How did it do it?
(If revealing the "teaser" can be considered a spoiler, then SPOILER ALERT)
We start with a lone Israeli jet carrying a nuclear bomb over Sinai during the 1973 war, just in case Israeli forces are overwhelmed. While the pilot is fussing with a picture of his wife and child, a SAM is launched and the plane is downed. Years later, Bedouins dig it out of the sand.
a. It takes about six minutes for a jet to fly from Tel Aviv to Cairo. The Israelis wouldn't have launched a jet with a bomb unless they planned to blow up Cairo for real. b. There would have been an entire squadron protecting the plane. c. No Israeli pilot -- or any fighter pilot in any air force -- would be fussing with photos of his wife while flying. d. The Israelis owned Sinai for years. If they lost a jet with a nuclear weapon, you don't think they'd be damn sure they found it before they handed Sinai back to Egypt? e. Russia is chock full of nuclear weapons and underpaid soldiers guarding them. It couldn't have come from there?
The rest of the movie is the same. Cool visuals, story makes no sense. Hard to care when the storytellers don't.
Scratch (2001)
You don't have to like the music to dig the film.
I'm not a fan of scratching, but I really dug this movie. It gave me a real insight into a world I never had a clue existed; and what else is a documentary for? Funny, clever, hip - just like Pray's previous film, Hype! about the grunge music scene.
Random Passage (2002)
A kind of none-of-the-freshest Poor John
A disjointed series of scenes about some of the most wooden-headed immigrants you've ever seen in your life, who never cease in any situation to make the worst possible decision under the circumstances, solely so the filmmakers can try to wet the maximum number of hankies. Reinforces everyone's worst prejudices about the Irish and about Newfies by showing people who, running from poverty and hopelessness in Ireland, work hard to ensure they will suffer equal or worse poverty and hopelessness in the New World. There is no plot or theme, only a series of events that occur, to characters for whom it is hard to feel any sympathy. The dialog is blockheaded and on the nose, and Colm Meaney is lost in a character who has very little to say to anybody. The story logic is entirely lacking. (The following would be SPOILERS if you didn't see'em coming a mile away:) A woman gets a job as a cook on a fishing vessel solely so she can be raped (as if 18th C fishing vessels ever allowed women on board as cooks!). A woman allows a man to have sex with her without ever looking at his face, solely so that she can be embarrassed later when it turns out not to be the man she was hoping for. C'mon, guys!
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (2001)
I you haven't a trace of magic in you, you'll love this...
It's a movie made for people who think that magic is cute and fun. If you're a fantasy fan like I am, and believe in magic (in a fictional sense) then you may very well detest this movie, as I did. Magic comes easily to little Harry Potter, who has no personality to speak of except that he is occasionally sad that he never met his mum and dad. Years of abuse and neglect have left not a mark on him, so when he gets invited to Hogwarts Academy of Magic, he has nowhere for his character to go. There he flies around on his broomstick and gets to be a big hero quite by accident without ever confronting any serious obstacles or anything resembling a plot. In all this, the film is an excellent adaptation of the book, which also thought that magic is cutesy wootesy.
K-PAX (2001)
Anyone seen Man Facing Southeast?
I haven't seen K-Pax (and since I'm a science fiction fan sure to be disappointed by the lack of sf, I won't), but based on the trailer and the reviews, this movie seems to be a serious ripoff of "Man Facing Southeast." Mental patient claiming to be from another planet, ambiguous about whether he's for real or not, changes the lives of those around him, no real science fiction elements ... did they even credit "Man Facing Southeast" in the titles?
Apocalypse Now (1979)
The rerelease is AWFUL.
What possessed Coppola to add all this silly footage back? The movie was unwieldy to begin with, but now it's a rambling, often pointless everything-and-the-kitchen-sink art film. And the music. Oh, the cheesy sounds-like-John-Carpenter-wrote-it electronic organ music! Not only bad, and badly produced, but occasionally laughably inappropriate.
Bring back the studio cut!
Dr Lucille: The Lucille Teasdale Story (2001)
An earnest Canadian snoozer with no driving question.
This beautifully shot film has no plot, only a series of events in a pioneering woman doctor's life that are unconnected by any driving question about the main character. We know very little about the main character, what drives her, what she fears, what she wants, what's getting in her way. Everything that looks like it might develop into a promising bit of conflict is immediately brushed away as she goes from success to success. As a filmstrip about an important Canadian doctor, fine, but as drama? I think not.
Le dernier souffle (1999)
Unwatchable, tired, cliche.
Once this movie got its world-weary Montreal cop to "America," boy did it get tiresome. Has the director ever actually been to the States, or did he just make it up from watching old TV shows? Abusive Southern cops, a "frameup," etc. ZZZ.
Planet of the Apes (2001)
Plot does matter
As usual, Burton is brilliant at production design, but the characters suffer ... and suffer ... until in the end no one is doing anything for any reason but that Burton thought it would be neat if they did. The ending in particular is laugh-out-loud preposterous. Oh, what a shame. He should really stick to producing.
A.I. Artificial Intelligence (2001)
How did this creepy movie get a G?
A loose takeoff on "Pinocchio" in spite of the credit to Brian Aldiss's "Supertoys Play All Summer Long," this is a deeply disturbing story. A robot boy is created who can "love" his human "parents." But it quickly becomes obvious that he has no understanding what love is, and is obsessively searching for what he can't have. The movie treats him as if he has human feelings, but what it is in fact showing is a robotic compulsion that, indeed, lasts long beyond the point where a human being would give up. The ending seems warm and Spielbergian, but it is in fact horrific if you think about it.
What bothers me most, though, is that this got a G rating. There are many scenes of horrific violence in this movie. All of them are directed at robots, but they are very "human" robots, played by human actors, and one particularly vicious act is committed by the young (robot) hero. I can't imagine taking a child under 13 to this picture. But of course, no one at the MPAA would dream of offending Steven Spielberg; hence the G rating.
A Knight's Tale (2001)
A lame attempt at an "update" of the knights-in-armor genre.
"A Knight's Tale" starts with a medieval crowd singing "We Will Rock You," as if to say "we are going to be anachronistic as hell, but at least we've got guts." But director/writer/producer Brian Helgeland never does anything positive with the anachronisms in his picture. It's just an excuse to be sloppy. The hero's noble lady comes to his tent at night alone, as if medieval ladies ever went anywhere alone. She offers to run away with him and be poor, as if that was a real option in the days when the poor were really starving.
The movie misses every conceivable dramatic opportunity. A "peasant squire" becomes a fake knight with the help of his friends. Where's the scene where he gets all high and mighty with them because now he's Sir Ulric? Where's the scene where his beloved gets mad at him, not because he's not really noble, but because he's lied to him? Nothing ever goes particularly bad for him, so it's hard to get worked up about anything.
I hope this movie does well because I like to see medieval movies. But "Monty Python and the Holy Grail" is far more faithful to the genre - and far more deserving - than this one is.
The Ninth Gate (1999)
Lame film, a fizzle of an ending
This is possibly the lamest occult film I have seen in years. An unlikable main character underplayed by Johnny Depp pursues a mildly interesting quest for a book, only to discover ... less than he bargained for, really. The ambiguous, anti-climactic ending had the audience actually laughing when the credits finally rolled. Save your money.
Stalker (1979)
The most unutterably boring picture I've seen this year.
Based on a kind of neat science fiction story, Tarkovsky has made an unutterably boring, molasses-slow, dreary film full of portentous babble. The story is minimal, oozing out slowly over 160 incredibly long minutes. If you watch the film on fast forward, the plot picks up a bit, but not much. Don't be confused: this is in no way a science fiction picture. It's pretentious, talky navel-gazing by an over-indulged director.
To Walk with Lions (1999)
A powerful performance by Richard Harris
Richard Harris is amazing as George Adamson, an old man obsessed with returning captive lions to the wild in spite of poachers, politics and his own personal demons. Based on the life of George Adamson, Joy "Born Free" Adamson's husband, the movie has a flock of really great characters wonderfully played by all sorts of semi-stars (Ian Bannen, Geraldine Chaplin, etc.). I'd see it again.
Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace (1999)
Characters I cared about would have been nice.
I'm a huge fan of the original, but Phantom Menace seemed to me a cold, uninvolving picture about its own special effects. I didn't care about any of the characters, if you can call them characters. Anakin Skywalker didn't seem to have any of the fear or anger he should have, and the Jedi knights have nothing to say. As for Jar Jar Binks ... must KILL.
Hackers (1995)
Coolest hack movie yet
The only movie apparently written by someone with a cyber-clue, Hackers is a sexy, thrilling movie about some very cool hacker kids who actually behave like hackers. Angelina Jolie is HOT. Jonny Lee Miller is, too.