Change Your Image
szar-1
Reviews
Shut Up & Sing (2006)
blargh.
The Dixie Chicks and their slick machine Just Don't Get It. The movie only makes that more clear. If Maines' disastrous "oh, crowd, please whistle" comment in London was tin-eared, the band's endless misunderstanding of their stew was just unfathomable. Post-ooopsie Dixie Chicks response has been like the New Coke of the modern era. Meanwhile, bands like Sugarland and the Wreckers have harvested the spot the Chicks took themselves out of. Thank goodness bands don't sell stock: the Chicks' would look like Lucent.
Movie went on too long and was shrill. Trimmed to 52 minutes, it might make a good "It's Pledge Week!" special for PBS stations.
American Dreamz (2006)
Trash. I want my money back.
They wonder why people don't go to the movies? This sneering, unfunny movie is a great example of why. The writers are so busy looking down on middle America that they forget they were planning on opening this boorish flick here. I'm sure it'll play nicely in the parts of Britain where hating Americans is de rigeur.
The setting of parts of the movie-- "Padookie, Ohio"-- can be read as a racist, classist slur, except, perhaps, in Hollywood, where everyone knows the Great Unwashed are chumps.
In one scene, the president muses "I like the people." Too bad the movie makers don't.
I want my money back.
Rumor Has It... (2005)
Disappointing dreck
First time I've seen a movie where Mark Ruffalo doesn't win you over. Shirley Mc-however-you-spell-it is over the top as a nasty drunk. Come to think of it, there's no one to like in this movie. The overwound cheerleader sister, her dumb-sheepdog groom, Jennifer Anniston's character whose name doesn't even stick with me.
Plus, what are we supposed to think about these people? Uptight Pasadenans on one hand, rich New Yorkers on the other, no one but Ruffalo's character seems to have a job, yet Anniston's despises...uh, it's hard to tell what she despises: "everything her family likes" comes to mind. Costner, an internet-um-it's-not-clear-what-he-does, quotes Che Guevara and is in a photo with Castro, so I guess that means he's, uh...not from Pasadena? A man of the people? He's...given his money to the poor and the fabu place overlooking the sea is just a time share?
What amess. No wonder no one's going to the movies anymore.
Journeys with George (2002)
thumbs up.
What a fun film! George W. Bush, the snarky third generation of an important political family, as filmed by Alexandra Pelosi, the snarky third generation of an important political family. It's interesting to watch the movie keeping that element in mind. Who was Bush at her age, and who will she be at his? In a time when the public side of politics is so vicious, it was refreshing to see the personable side of the President, and the playful side of the child of one of his loudest critics. Neither of them is an automaton, or stupid, or thoughtless; it's hard to imagine that family gatherings in either the Bush household or the Pelosi one are anything but rowdy, open, and a blast. Left or right, these come off as good, non-strange people who might not do everything right, but probably don't set out to do wrong.
Flightplan (2005)
One of the worst in a year of bad movies
My gosh, this was a bad movie. I'm a Jodie Foster fan, ignored the bad reviews, caught the first Saturday matinée because I was eager to see it. Oh, my. Spare yourself. This is an awful movie. Seriously non-sensical resolution. Bad Lifetime Channel movie epilogue. It's hard to understand why this movie isn't stalled in Berlin while they figure out how to revise the last quarter of the reel.
Remember when Jodie Foster seemed like someone who was going to do something really different in Hollywood? What's with the string of lame "Women in Peril" movies? Is she getting lazy? Or was she just over-rated? I'm going to have to re-watch some of the older stuff. Maybe she was only "that good" because all of us kids born in the 60s wanted to believe she was. Troubling thought, but seriously... Panic Room? This?