AnyankaCEJ Reviews

A Walk to Remember (2002)

The Funniest Movie So Far in 2002! (WARNING: SPOILERS)

[1/10 · 20 July 2002]

A WALK TO REMEMBER is one of the best comedies to hit the screen in a long time. It seems to have everything: a virtuous "delicate flower" of a girl who seems dedicated to seeking out the most frumpy, spinsterish outfits (and dies, to boot), the jerk popular boy who is calculated to make middle school girls swoon, what with his James Dean wannabe look, and his one facial expression of a pouty glower that miraculously never changes throughout the film, whether his emotion is anger, sorrow, or love, a hick preacher father for the girl and a mother for the boy who looks like a female impersonator, with her squared off jaw and hilarious hairdo. Throw in a school play in which the boy is forced to star in as punishment for his delinquent behavior (somehow, in these movies, jail, expulsion, or suspension is never used, only performance!), a requisite scene in which the plain girl glams up for the play to reveal Mandy Moore underneath, and the cheesiest looking comet imaginable, and you have a great satire of the "doomed teen love" genre. The only problem is that this is not a spoof, but an actual tearjerker starring Moore and Shane West in which tears are in fact generated, but from laughter and not pathos.

The plot is derivative and cheesy, and the dialogue is worse, but that could have been overcome by bravura performances by the leads. Shane West, as mentioned before, has the expressive capacity of a brick wall, Moore is slightly better but still blandness personified, and the two have no actual chemistry! I may sound like the ultimate cynic, but I am actually quite the softy, and have cried at the endings of many films. However, as a teenage girl, I am appalled at the dreck being forced down my throat. If it's doomed romance I want, give me GONE WITH THE WIND, CASABLANCA, or the more recent MOULIN ROUGE any day. There is one scene, though, which makes this an absolute must rent for everybody. About 54 minutes into the film, West asks Moore out in his car, she turns him down, and he makes the strangest face I've ever seen on an actual person! It's technically a frown, I suppose, but actually looks exactly like an upside-down smile. The facial contortion that he achieves is amazing to behold, and I had to rewind it several times to make sure that I saw it correctly. Good stuff, too bad about the movie. For actual merit, A WALK TO REMEMBER gets a 1, but for sheer camp entertainment value I give it an 8/10.

Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939)

Cynics be damned, this is a true American masterpiece!

[10/10 · 20 July 2002]

Many will dismiss this great film with slanders like "sappy," "corny," and, worst of all, "Capra-corn," but anyone who can watch this movie unmoved and uninspired must have a heart of stone. This tale of the idealistic American everyman struggling and triumphing against the greed and corruption that has tarnished the institutions of our country is done in a way that only Capra could pull off. This is perhaps his greatest achievement, with competition only from IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE. The acting is superb, with Jimmy Stewart giving an absolutely mesmerising (and frequently hilarious!) performance, and Jean Arthur making the role of the cynical secretary Saunders truly memorable, and reminding us that she's one of the most under-appreciated actresses of all time. The two of them have great chemistry together, and the balance between comedy and drama is perfect. For me, what makes this film truly remarkable is that it is profoundly patriotic without resulting to the flag waving, "no questions asked" attitude taken by many people today. The movie expresses a real love for the country, but is not afraid of showing the flaws in the government, though admittedly the resolution IS unrealistic, but that just adds to its charm as a political fantasy. After all, who secretly doesn't wait for a Jeff Smith to come around and win us the America we wish we had? Definitely a 10/10.

Stage Door (1937)

Forget ALL ABOUT EVE!

[10/10 · 8 July 2002]

STAGE DOOR wins the prize in the intelligent, crackling, witty writing department. It is also exquisitely acted, and directed in a manner that blends comedy and drama seamlessly. Not really a comedy, it is really a comedy that contains some of the funniest lines you'll hear in the movie. The cast is unbelievably star-studded, headed by the unsurprisingly excellent Katherine Hepburn and a Ginger Rogers who proves that she is much, much more than Fred's dancing partner, actually keeping up with Kate the Great. I must agree that Andrea Leeds overacts and Olivia De Haviland would have been better in the role, but overall she still does a fine job in the part.

In many ways, STAGE DOOR seems to be a precursor to ALL ABOUT EVE, in that they both examine female rivalry on Broadway, both are legendary for their literate scripts, and both end in a cyclical manner. However, for me STAGE DOOR is the more involving, satisfying film. None of its female characters are truly villainous: they have a sisterly bond, but must compete with each other to survive. It is also less cynical than EVE, in that it does not emphasize only th evil in human nature. Interestingly, that makes the theme of exploitation ultimately more disturbing: the exploitation of a fellow actress is done not with intentional malice, but out of dire necessity and often unwittingly.

STAGE DOOR is one of those rare films that not only survives repeated viewings, but actually improves with them. The many layers become more apparent each time, and more of the overlapping dialogue is understood. This movie is a masterpiece that manages to be hilarious, touching, optimistic, and disturbing all at once.

Men in Black II (2002)

A complete abomination!

[1/10 · 7 July 2002]

While not a masterpiece by any stretch of the imagination, the original "Men in Black" was a lighthearted, entertaining vehicle smoothly carried by the repartee between Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones. This debacle, however, bears little resemblance to the 1997 crowdpleaser.

Let me begin by assuring you that liking the first movie by no means guarantees that you will enjoy MIB 2. That was certainly not the case for me. The pacing was terrible, the plot pathetic, and the jokes are set up in a haphazard, rushed manner, giving the impression that the director was handed a script containing too many jokes, and of a poor quality!, and attempted to cram them all into an 82 minute running time. The original was fresh, and the actors seemed to be having fun, but here Tommy Lee Jones looks depressed, not as part of his character, but as if he is aware of the terrible quality of the production and is merely waiting until he can go home for the day. Will Smith tries his best, but laden with an asinine script and poor direction, he cannot help failing. As other users have commented, the plot is nonsensical and painful. I understand that the plot is secondary in films like this, and in fact am a fairly major Jackie Chan fan, so I honestly would not have minded if everything else had fallen into place. What's more, whereas the original film's humor was almost entirely clean, the sequel finds it necessary to riddle the script with tasteless sex jokes. I'm not a prude, and I did not object to the risque "humor" because it was vulgar, but because it was truly boring.

This movie's greatest sin, though, is that it exemplifies all that is wrong with filmmaking today: it is a big budget, overly slick, ultimately cynical and heartless film that plays to the lowest common denominator and laughs all the way to the bank. I'm not knocking populist entertainment, but this piece of filth insults the intelligence and makes one yearn for filmmaking lacking in polish but teeming with heart and wit. Only people willing to pay the admission price to see the trailer for "The Two Towers" (which was infinitely better than MIB 2), have a valid reason to see this dreck. My rating: 1/10.

Midnight (1939)

A criminally underrated comedy classic

[10/10 · 7 July 2002]

Why this simply marvelous comedy is not hailed as a screwball classic standing shoulder to shoulder with "It Happened One Night," "The Awful Truth," and "My Man Godfrey," and just under "Bringing Up Baby," is utterly beyond me. Claudette Colbert sparkles in the role of an American golddigger in Paris, Don Ameche is a charming romantic lead, Mary Astor is a delightfully bitchy rival, and John Barrymore is spectacular in one of the funniest performances I have ever seen on celluloid. As others have stated, it is astonishing that he read his lines off cue cards. Anyway, everything in this film works perfectly together: the acting, the direction, the crackling writing, and the zany plot which I will not go into now, but which is absolutely ideal for a screwball. It is also refreshingly politically incorrect, and while feminists might flinch at one or two scenes, that should not prevent anyone from enjoying "Midnight," which is really one of the best comedies of all time. An enthusiastic and unequivocal 10/10.