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near the end of frank capra's holiday classic , its a wonderful life , george bailey ( jimmy stewart ) is feeling down . he has devoted his life to others , and never fulfilled his dream of leaving his small supburb town , bedford falls . standing upon a bridge above stormy waters , he looks down , contemplating suicide . he has potential he hasn't fulfilled -- yet , he has done so much for others . as a young chap , his ambition was to leave his hometown of bedford falls . but times and ambitions change . things happen , and he's stuck . his guardian angel is there , and shows him that . . . it's a wonderful life . in a whirlwind tour of the town , george sees what life would be like without him . he learns the moral lesson , that to live is a gift . his earthly problems are solved . the climatic scene is a marvel . frank capra's film is a centenial classic -- watched and re-experienced by every generation . wonderful life is one of the few pictures of times gone by that seems as fresh , maybe fresher , then it did when it was first released . many films of the thirties through seventies have aged poorly . but this one is a near flawless example of how well a perfect script and timing can mesh with first-rate acting , wit and suspense , glorious music , and terrific set peices . the only even slightly dated scenes are those at the begining in which god has a long chat with clarence , george's guardian angel . they aren't all that bad , but they remain corny and a little out of place . nevertheless , this is one film that deserves its place in time , cinema history , and our hearts . it can be equally appreciated by anyone of any age . here is one genuine masterpeice , a classic that reaches heights and ambitions near perfection . this crackling good mixture results in a film which is at once funny , exciting , moving and uplifting . the film itself is almost a reversal of the life of george bailey -- there isn't too much to it , but capra and the gang ( various screenwriters , composers , actors ) plumet the material to its fullest potential . the result is a film -- though not at first intended to be pigeon-holed as a holiday film -- that will always be remembered , celebrated , and loved .

" last night " could have an " aka " tagged on the end of it that says , " it's the end of the world , and we feel fine " . " last night " is about just that . the last night of planet earth's existence . the world is going to end at precisely midnight , january 1st , 2000 . how scientists were so accurately able to predict when this catastrophic event would occur is never explained . nor is the event itself . throughout the entire movie , no explanation is given as to why this is happening . in doing this , mckellar ( who also wrote and directed the film ) seems to be trying to transcend the genre . he's attempted to make a film about people , and how each of them deals with their last night of life . the film contains no science fiction elements , which allows the viewer to concentrate on the feelings and actions of the characters . mckellar is largely successful in his attempt to rise above his material . the film is set in toronto , and follows several people in their various escapades on the last night of existence . there's mckellar , who plays a man who just wants to be alone when the moment occurs , but keeps getting interrupted by a woman ( sandra oh ) in search of her husband . her husband , played by david cronenberg , is spending the day working at the gas company , informing people that they will attempt to keep providing gas right up until the end . finally , there's mckellar's friend , played by callum keith rennie , a man who has spent his final months trying out every sexual perversion you can think of . mckellar has crafted a gang of the some of the most interesting characters i've seen in a film in months . these people all felt real to me , especially the character played by sandra oh . we can see her desperation , her utter need to be with her husband in the final hours . rennie is good , too , as the man who wants to literally try everything before he dies . he exudes such charm and likeablity , it's not surprising that we're rooting for him to get what he wants . but for me , the biggest surprise in the movie is mckellar . i knew that he was a talented director , but i had no idea he could act as well . his insistence to be alone , much to the dismay of his parents , is something that most people would find difficult to understand , but as played by mckellar , we can understand his reasons . he doesn't buy into the whole notion that just because everyone's going to die , he should immediately find some companionship . he realizes the relationship would be forced , and they would only be together for the sake of being together . mckellar gives a brilliant performance , and i hope he alternates between directing and acting . my only quibble with the film is that we never find out why the world is ending . i really wanted to know , and my need to know was hanging over the film at all times . i appreciate the fact that mckellar didn't want the material to rule the film , and that he wanted the movie to be more of a study in human behavious . however , in not telling the audience what the cause of earth's destruction is , he's left a big question that is in their minds throughout the film . another problem is we never see anybody panicking . i would imagine if the world was ending , and there was nothing to be done about it , a large segment of the population would be going out of their minds . instead , we are treated to shots of a giant crowd partying like it's new year's eve . i just didn't buy the fact that everyone had completely accepted their fate . no one had the urge to " rage against the dying of the light " . despite these small problems , " last night " is one of the best movies of the year . as opposed to the moronic " armageddon " , " last night " treats the subject at hand with maturity and believabilty . and bruce willis never shows up to save the day .

capsule : five friends at a stag party are involved in the accidental killing of a prostitute . the cover-up attempt becomes a monster that eats up the friends , two wives and several innocent bystanders . this was a real audience pleaser at toronto , but it did not do much for me . , low 0 ( -4 to +4 ) - directed by peter berg who acted in the last seduction and copland . - five buddies go on a stag outing to las vegas while cameron diaz works through the logistics of her upcoming wedding to one of them . one of the buddies accidentally kills a prostitute . - several people with no moral compass . they started out with a simple , innocent little cocaine party ( ! ) and by accident look what happened . they have one moral person among them ( daniel stern ) , and one totally amoral person ( christian slater ) . it is more selfish to let the amoral lead , so they do . - this film is strange , but not really funny or biting . black comedy should actually be funny as well as strange . there should be some element of satire . the satire is missing here . i did not find myself laughing here either . what we have is a strange crime tale . - one just does not care what happens to these people . - the same idea of people just getting themselves in deeper and deeper has been done frequently . if this film is popular it is just bringing a familiar plot to a new generation . - it begins like diner ( particularly with daniel stern ) and ends up like an extended horror/crime comic book . - there are several logical holes in script . if a security man goes to investigate a complaint and disappears , wouldn't the guests he was investigating be the first suspects ? someone framed for a crime in the way shown would be judged innocent after minimal forensic detective work . ( i am desperately trying to avoid making this a spoiler . ) - popular and situation ethics get a real slamming . - some acting of grief is hammy and overdone . more yelling than humor .

" the endurance : shackleton's legendary antarctic expedition " in 1914 , as the great war descended upon europe , sir ernest shackleton began his third expedition to antarctica , this time to be the first to cross the ice-bound continent on foot . 28 men set sail on the brigantine endurance and they would not be heard from again for nearly two years . director george butler , using film footage and photographs from the historic journey , tells their remarkable story in " the endurance : shackleton's legendary antarctic expedition . " the expedition started out as a merely incredibly difficult quest to traverse , on foot , the vast wasteland of antarctica . as the intrepid ship and crew entered the weddell sea , the entry to the cold , cruel continent , they did not plan on the dense pack ice bringing the voyage to an abrupt halt as the endurance became trapped within sight of land . for months the ice thickened and compressed until the ship was crushed , stranding the men on the flow , propelling them away from their goal and , eventually , into their lifeboats for safety . shackleton , faced with a desolate situation , made the decision to lead the three tiny boats to the relative safety of uninhabited elephant island . once on this " safe " haven , shackleton next turned his sights to saving his crew and returning them to civilization . he and five of his men leave the island in an open boat to make the 800 mile journey on the world's roughest sea to get help from the nearest inhabited island of south georgia . miraculously , the six land , after 17 days at sea , on the uninhabited side of the target island and are forced to trek across treacherous , snow covered mountains , covering 22 miles in just 36 hours . this ordeal is followed by several attempts by shackleton to get back to elephant island to rescue the remaining crewmen . in the end , he is successful and everyone made it back home alive , only to be swallowed up by the ravages of the war . the title of this fascinating documentary , " the endurance , " is more than just the name of ship that carried the crew of brave men to the edge of the world . it is also the description of the stamina and ability of every one of the men who survived 19-months of the toughest , most grueling conditions on the face of the earth . the name of the film is a tribute to every member of the crew and to the ship that sheltered them for many month of frigid antarctic weather . it also describes the focused mental state of shackleton who never gave up on himself or his men . with astonishing foresight , shackleton brought australian cinematographer and photographer frank hurley along on the journey . the filmed footage and photos are remarkable as they capture the ordeal of the men , day to day life , the affection all felt for their loyal sled dogs , the slow destruction of the endurance and the preparations to get off of the pack ice flow . after the sinking of the ship , the remaining film stock , with the exception of a still camera and three rolls of film , had to be discarded so the continuing chronicle of the incredible journey gets less photo documentation as the ordeal plods on . considering hurley was using relatively primitive photo technology in one of the world's harshest environments and captured so much on film is a feat unto itself . ( hurley created his own account of the shackleton expedition in his 1919 documentary , " south , " an interesting companion piece for " the endurance . " if shackleton's original idea , document his trek across the frigid southern continent , had been successful , it would have been considered a super human feat . as you watch the story of " the endurance " unfold , you realize that the disastrous obstacles the sir ernest and his men faced and overcame were even greater accomplishments than the first intent . ( shackleton's amazing 800-mile journey in an open boat is fodder for a rousing adventure story all by itself . ) there are a couple of minor nitpicks with this fine work , though . actor liam neeson narrates the story , but his voice is too soft spoken and lilting for the dramatic tale . the nature of the ordeal also concentrates most of the visual material , both film and photo , in the documentary's first half . as the crew's adventure takes more drastic paths , hurley had less and less film stock available to chronicle the awesome events . helmer butler and his team fill in the blanks , but the treasure of " the endurance , " its film footage , is mostly relegated to the early months of the expedition . i can't think of a true-life adventure that shows , better , the triumph of man over seemingly insurmountable odds . " the endurance , " based on caroline alexander's book , is an eye-opening documentary that goes where few men have gone before and , even more remarkably , all 28 survivors lived to tell about it . i give it a b+ .

poster boy for co-dependency needs patching patch adams a film review by michael redman copyright 1999 by michael redman mediocrity is a pox on civilization . in our heavily consumer oriented society , there is an enormous demand to churn out " stuff . " what would happen to our economy if we didn't feel the need to have more things ? to make us buy more , businesses need to produce a ton of product . the sheer volume of items necessitates that most of them are of dubious quality . the film industry is like any other . in order for studios to survive , they have to make money . the prevailing attitude is that more films equal more profit . some movies obviously exist only to put wares on the screen and to do that , less talented people are used . there aren't enough great directors and actors to create the number of films necessary . for some reason , it's never crossed anyone's mind that the real equation is quality films = more profit . often , mediocre films are more of a pain for the audience than the horrendous ones . at you can have a good time making fun of bad movies . i'm not suggesting that " patch adams " was tossed out just to rake in the bucks . my guess is that someone was asleep at the wheel . it features an accomplished actor and a potentially engrossing story , but it's as dull as could be . hunter " patch " adams' ( robin williams ) desire to become a doctor has an unusual genesis . checking himself into a mental institute after a suicide attempt , he discovers that he can help the other patients by clowning around . patch could be a poster boy for co-dependency . he explains that he likes devoting himself to others because then he doesn't focus on his own problems . he decides that he wants to be a physician , leaves the place and a couple of years later enrolls in the medical college of virginia . as a med student , patch's antics at the school's hospital catch the attention of his soon to be arch-enemy , straight-laced dean walcott ( bob gunton ) . the dean is so opposed to the goofiness that he wants patch kicked out of school although he's one of the top students . he writes in patch's academic file that he shows " excessive happiness . " i walked into the film knowing little about its history and wondered about its odd mechanical pacing . there also seemed to be no reason that it is set in the early seventies . then it struck me . it must be based on a true story . the movie is an adaptation of a book by hunter adams who founded the gesundheit institute , a free clinic . robin williams is an amazing actor . while he is adept at dramatic roles , his forte is over-the-top free spirits . that's what makes his failure here so remarkable . patch is exactly the character he should be best at , yet even the scene where he and another mental patient are battling fierce imaginary squirrels falls flat . something holds him back . most of the rest of the cast is two-dimensional . for a film that champions seeing patients as human beings , it's curious that the ones here are cardboard characters . peter coyote as a man dying of cancer is refreshing because he seems like a real person . unfortunately he's in the film for only about two minutes . the audience is blatantly lead by a ring in its nose from scene to scene . we're not left to our own emotional decisions : we're hit over the head with them . shaved-headed children with cancer , an elderly woman whom patch makes laugh , a beautiful woman who can't love because of her abusive history . when a group of students fix up an old house to use as a clinic in the andy hardy " hey , let's put on a play ! we can use the barn and my mom can make the curtains ! " mode , they laugh and roll around while painting each other . there might as well be giant signs flashing : " feel good now ! " " feel bad now ! " " patch " is a good title for the film . it is a patchwork of every manipulative scene you can think of . the full-of-life student fights stodgy establishment types . there's a touching death . then there's another . the film doesn't trust us to get it the first time . the dean tries to kick patch out and later he tries again . worst of all is the final courtroom bit . scary-looking old men sit in judgment of a man who only wants to help people . the room is packed with patch's supporters . williams makes a supposedly impassioned speech about the humanity of all . it has as much emotion as his earlier statement " humans are the only animal that kills members of its own species " contains truth . most of the blame must be placed with the director tom shadyac and screenwriter steve oedekerk . shadyac also directed the first " ace ventura " movie . oedekerk directed the second one . need i say more ? the real adams is to be admired for his devotion to treating patients as people rather than diseases . the film has a number of worthy messages about the state of the modern medical business with hmos and managed care . the " doctors are not gods " theme will resonate with a number of people , but it's so poorly produced that no one will care .

one can not observe a star trek movie and expect to see serious science fiction . the purpose of star trek is to provide flashy , innocent fun . sometimes the stories are compelling . sometimes they're not . but , with the exception of the first film in the series ( which provides little more than endless shots of amazed faces ) , i've never been bored by any of the enterprise's numerous missions . star trek : insurrection is no exception . the film has gotten some negative reviews ( a friend of mine actually thinks it's the worst in the series ) , but i'm not really sure why . it's an exciting , often hilarious movie that engaged me and left me ready for the next star trek film . some say it's a bit too light , and more of a long episode than a film . others say the special effects are cheesy and that it's boring . i simply enjoyed the film . insurrection , which is the second film to feature strictly the next generation cast , introduces us to a race of people called the ba'ku ; the ba'ku are very old ( most of them are about three hundred years old ) , but they actually appear younger with age due to strange radiation in the rings of their planet . of course , these peaceful people can't horde this fountain of youth all for themselves ? leave it up to their archenemies , the son'a , led by ru'afo ( f . murray abraham ) , to mess everything up . the son'a , who are horribly disfigured and rely on daily reconstructive surgery to be aesthetically acceptable , strike a deal with the federation to move the ba'ku elsewhere and exploit the secret to keep their race from dying . that's when captain picard ( patrick stewart ) steps in : he realizes that moving the ba'ku would kill them ( it also helps that he falls in love with a ba'ku woman ( donna murphy ) ) . so , with his trusty crew , picard defies the federation to keep the ba'ku in their natural habitat . when dealing with a series with as much history as this , it's not entirely necessary to re-introduce your characters with each episode . this is why i believe non-fans have a hard time getting into star trek ; in order to enjoy it , one has to understand how to approach it . insurrection , however , does a surprisingly good job of us new aspects of the characters . stewart is bold as always , a magnetic screen presence and perfectly capable of holding an entire film together . jonathan frakes , who also directed , is funny as commander riker ; a subplot with data ( brent spiner ) discovering his lost childhood is fairly interesting ; and abraham makes a perfect star trek villain , overacting like crazy . frakes showed similar aptitude for direction in first contact ; insurrection is an exciting film , with some really attractive special effects and a lot of good action . this is apparently the first star trek film to utilize computer animation , and the result is very pleasing to the eye : particularly in the climactic scenes , in which the son'a employ a giant space ship to suck up the rings of the ba'ku planet , the special effects have a clean , impressively sharp look . if i have any complaint about the film , it's that it tries to take a moral stance when it's not very appropriate to do so . i don't think it's that big of a deal that the federation wanted to move 600 ba'ku in order to save the lives of thousands . better yet , why couldn't they have co-existed ? insurrection feels a little to light to spring these kinds of big moral questions on the audience . with it's inherent camp factor , the star trek series doesn't seem well-equipped to deal with issues like this . i prefer to just enjoy the spectacle .

up until about a year ago , john travolta's career consisted of those " look who's talking " movies ( notice how they never called them look who's talented ) and the 1991 bomb shout ( which was bad enough to make most people scream ) . but somewhere along the line , travolta got the starring role in the tarantino masterpiece pulp fiction and his career soared once again . weird how someone whose career was on par with the bee gees back in 1978 would experience fame and fortune once again , while barry , robin and maurice gibb could do no better than a 1993 straight-to-the-cutout-bin album aptly named " size isn't everything " ( and of course , they learned that sales are everything ) . but now travolta's back on the hollywood scene once again , and i think we all know why . four words : contract with the devil . and this has nothing to do with newt gingrich's " contract with america . " no , satan is much more humane . anyway , yes , travolta has sold his soul to the hairy host of the netherworld . how do i know ? i own the document in question . amazing what you can buy at those collector's shops for a few hundred dollars , isn't it ? get shorty continues in the vein of pulp fiction , with travolta as crime minion chili palmer . he goes to collect some of the mafia's money from a b-grade director ( gene hackman ) and suddenly finds out he wants out of the mob game and into the movie game . sure , a ruthless criminal like him is far too honest to make it in hollywood , but i guess that's beside the point . palmer is determined to get hackman's next project made , so he sets out to convince big star martin weir ( danny devito ) to star in the movie , bringing along down-and-out horror actress karen flores ( rene russo ) , who has already had affairs with hackman and devito . it doesn't take a las vegas odds-maker to predict that she and travolta will soon be hitting the sheets as well , after the customary sexual tension and denial , which has been used in every comedy from " who's the boss ? " to speechless . it works in this case , unlike " who's the boss ? " although it's interesting to note that tony danza has signed a contract with the devil also . complicating matters somewhat are the mobsters who have backed hackman's other films and want in on this one too , along with travolta's mob boss trying to track him down for defecting . get shorty is by no means on the same level as pulp fiction , despite the obvious similarities . this movie doesn't have near the amount of originality or depth as pulp fiction but it is definitely one of the most entertaining movies i've seen this year ( yes , even better than halloween vi ) . get shorty is my kind of movie , one that mixes intelligent humor with action and violence . i'm definitely going to have to check out the novel it was based on . are you getting this , shorty ?

synopsis : sonny koufax ( adam sandler ) is a rich , childish , angry man who has just been dumped by his girlfriend vanessa ( kristy swanson ) . in a bid to impress vanessa sonny impersonates his friend kevin ( jon stewart ) and adopts a 5 year old boy named julian ( cole and dylan sprouse ) while kevin is on an overseas trip . under sonny's supervision julian soon learns to lie to women , tell people how he " wipes his ass , " throw tantrums , and scream for his " god damned " treats . self centered , julian breaks a school classmate's arm without apologizing or even realizing he has done anything wrong . meanwhile sonny bribes julian with sugary talk , food , toys , and flashy promises in order to get the kid to perform . not surprisingly the government takes julian away from sonny's incompetent supervision , and this leads to a custody battle . opinion : it's a movie about an embittered creep teaching a little kid to be a jerk , and we all get cheap laughs because for 90 minutes the innocent kindergartner never finds out what it means when he mimics all the bad boy behavior . that's the essence of big daddy . but there's a bigger issue involved : marketing . movies that are rated pg and pg-13 are heavily marketed towards children of preteen age and below . on tv , film clips advertise these movies as family-friendly hit comedies . then when you go see them they turn out to be either raunchy sex acts like austin powers with characters named fat bastard - - or big daddy where adult characters get their jollies by buddying up to naive five year olds and encouraging them to experiment with drugs and mistreatment . folks in hollywood are trying to develop a preteen market for raunchy stuff , but i think most american parents would agree that early childhood is a time of mental innocence that should be protected from uncaring media market exploitation . to many american mothers there's probably nothing more pathetic and unsettling than the sight of a theater full of unsupervised little eight year olds laughing raucously as movie character father adam sandler jokes about a woman's " ice cold tits . "

this review contains spoilers , but believe me , i don't say anything you can't guess 10 minutes into the movie . i * did * go into this one with high expectations . i had been exposed to media reports that this film would signify a departure from the slasher flicks . i sort of expected another exorcist or the shining . i even put aside my general rule of not seeing this type of film . boy , was i wrong ! another garbage slasher flick , the only difference being that * this * one has a story ! the story , you ask ? well , a scumball buys a chinese puzzle from a guy in an arab souk . he takes it home , somehow getting it past customs : - ) and starts fiddling with it in his attic . lo and behold , after he takes it apart , three demons appear and start taking him apart , but with meat hooks . when they're finished , his gizzards are hanging from the ceiling . they botch up their cleanup job , however , and manage to leave his heart ( or some gland ; i didn't really recognize the organ ) under a floorboard . the guy's brother and his brother's wife appear at the door soon after , and decide to move in . they throw away scumball's belongings , and set up house . turns out that wife is a bit of a nympho , and screwed around with scumball right before her marriage . she starts having some wild hallucinations . later , hubby spills some blood on the attic floorboards ( slow-mo special effects of the buckets of blood hitting the ground--all from the tiny cut on his hand ) . said blood is eagerly sucked up by scumball's organ . the organ grows into a thing that requires yet more blood in order to complete the regeneration into a really ugly thing . it establishes mind contact with wife , who agrees to help him get more blood , because she really wants to be screwed again . so , she helps him kill three businessmen . scumball , at this time , gradually gets his strength back and grows all his organs back . problem is , he doesn't have any skin , and even after three or four corpses , still doesn't get any skin . he finally gets some , though , but strangely enough , he ends up looking like his brother . guess they couldn't get the original actor back . who knows . scumball ( whose name is frank ) is not a nice guy . he describes his torture by the demons fondly , as the " ultimate pleasure and pain , since at that level there is no difference between the two . " somehow , i don't see getting torn apart by 90 fish- and meat-hooks a lot of fun . this guy is * so * bad ( " how bad * is * he ? " ) , * so * bad that the * rats * cower in a corner in fear . for good reason , too ; he crucifies two of them for fun , and carves a third while the nympho's horsing around with hubby . anyway . hubby's daughter ( who , if course , is not * wife's * daughter ) starts to suspect something is wrong after she sees wife going into the attic with one of her johns and the ensuing screams . the dumb bimbo meets scumball , and is not impressed . she manages to escape with the chinese puzzle , and brings out the demons . at any rate , the demons are pissed off that they screwed up their cleanup ; they're normally quite meticulous about that type of thing . the story boils down to the demons trying to correct their mistake . the demons are not , however , the good guys . the dumb bimbo's the good guy . she somehow not only gets them to take care of frank , but also banishes them to hell or oblivion , we're not too sure which . not too shabby for someone with single-digit iq . this is basically a " bad jinn " story . it is an * awful * movie . awful acting , bad focus in the photography , many scenes of skin being penetrated by meathooks , which is really unrealistic , and looks like the latex that it is . continuity ? who cares . acting ? * terrible * . script ? horrible . sounds canned . unrealistic . story is so-so , but the impact is lost long , long before the film ends . i do think the * rat * acting was quite good . i have never seen rats look afraid . they should get nominated for an award . really good acting there , the best in the movie . " the envelope for best furry rodent , please . . . " a " " rating would be far too generous . a " 1/10 " rating ( or -4 in the -4 to +4 rating system ) is far more accurate . this movie is so bad that people in the audience were laughing , chortling at the bad acting and crummy dialog . i can see this film turning into the next rocky horror picture show . people were getting so fed up they were yelling warnings up to the characters on the screen . had to have something to do . dumb , dumb , dumb movie . i was embarrassed that i spent money to see it . it goes without saying that i disagree with the other reviews on the board that attempt to review the film for itself . lots of slime and red-dyed corn syrup does not constitute " horror , " in my opinion .

" mercury rising " has numerous flaws , but there is one that really stands out : its central plot device is unnecessary . that's right . the major aspect of the film , that which is supposed to make it different from other routine government conspiracy / action flicks could be dropped from the beginning , and the movie would turn out exactly the same , if not better . this central device is the fact that a nine-year-old boy is autistic . his name is simon , and an evil government bureaucrat named nicholas kudrow ( alec baldwin ) wants him dead because he unknowingly cracked a supersecret government code slipped into the back of a puzzle magazine by its programmers just to see if someone could beat it . simon is intended to be the heart and soul of the film , and we are supposed to feel for him because he is a poor handicapped child thrown into a violent , unfair world against his will , with only a renegade fbi agent played by bruce willis to protect him . the fact that he is autistic does nothing for the emotional intensity or the plot necessities of " mercury rising . " i suppose the original novel upon which the movie was based did much more with this aspect of simon's character and his relationship with willis , but here it is lost . miko hughes , the young actor who plays simon , goes through the prescribed motions of being autistic : he walks slowly , drawls his words , kicks and screams when he's touched , and has a hard time looking at other people . it's a difficult role for an adult , much less a young child , to play , and unfortunately hughes never convinces us that he isn't playing like he's autistic . unlike dustin hoffman's performance in " rain man " or leonardo dicaprio's in " what's eating gilbert grape , " we are always painfully aware that hughes is acting . however , unlike " rain man " which used its character's autism in unique and interesting ways to build a credible and touching story , " mercury rising " could go right about its generic , predictable plot with simon being simply a really smart but really shy kid . hell , he doesn't even have to be shy . in fact , the movie might have been more interesting if he had had a more active role , rather than just being carted around under willis' arm . willis' character , art jeffries , is a disillusioned fbi agent who has been removed from undercover work and is now doing menial tasks like listening to wiretaps with rookies who are happy to be doing anything . he becomes involved with simon when he is called to check out a murder scene at simon's house , where his father has apparently shot his mother in the back and then committed suicide . of course , we know that isn't the way it happened happen because we saw an evil , square-jawed government hitman with a mean-looking crew-cut knock off the parents . simon was able to get away , and jeffries finds him hiding in a secret compartment in a closet , which the rest of the chicago police department had overlooked . jeffries -- who is accused by several characters at different times of being paranoid although his actions never suggest it -- knows there is something more , and he makes it his personal mission to go against everything and everyone in order to protect simon . this is quite a task because that same hitman who knocked off simon's parents is crawling everywhere , attempting to kill simon at the hospital , on the highway , and every other place he goes . late in the movie , jeffries is forced to enlist the aid of a pretty young woman named stacey ( kim dickens ) who he meets at a coffee shop . of all the hard-to-believe aspects of the movie , this is the worst . i can believe in the decency of the human heart , but stacey's character is far too accommodating . not only does she agree to watch simon while jeffries runs off to solve the mystery , she lets him into her apartment at two o'clock in the morning when she knows the police is after him , and then lets him leave simon in her apartment which means that she has to forgo a business trip that is desperately needed to pay the rent . the grinding squeals of the rusty plot machine are almost overbearing at this point . the movie might have been redeemed by some good action sequences , but even here " mercury rising " doesn't rise to the challenge . the movie was directed by harold becker , who has made some good suspense films including " sea of love " ( 1989 ) and " malice " ( 1993 ) , but his talent is nowhere to be found in this latest excursion . there is one fight on a streetcar between jeffries and another hitman ( played by peter stormare ) that is so ineptly directed , shot and edited , that i had no idea 1 ) exactly where they were on the streetcar , 2 ) who was hitting who , and 3 ) where this hitman came from and how he knew where jeffries and simon were . the grand finale takes place on the roof of a tall building , and features a harrowing ( yawn ) scene where simon walks along the very edge of the building , not because he has to , but because it's more suspenseful that way . taken as a whole , " mercury rising " is an tepid , confused movie that lacks style , wit , and any traces of a sense of humor . usually willis brings his personal brand of understated humor to his roles , but here he is too straight and serious . this is because the movie wants to be an action flick and a heartfelt drama at the same time , but it ends up failing on both fronts . maybe the book was better , but the way it's handled here is a perfect case study in formula filmmaking guaranteed to bore .

i didn't realize how apt the name of this movie was until i called the mpaa ( the motion picture association of america - the folks who decide what's g , nc 17 , pg , r or x ) to ask why the preview was rated r . so that we can make some sense of their response , let me tell you about the movie itself . " the celluloid closet " is a documentary about how homosexuality has been portrayed in the movies over the past several decades . it's brilliant , funny , naughty and extremely poignant . it tore at my heart to watch a gifted lesbian screenwriter explain that , as a rule , gay audiences hunger for any hint of homosexuality on screen . regardless of how veiled - or how sordid - the presence of a gay or lesbian person allows others to lessen their sense of isolation and makes them feel as if they're not quite so invisible as america seems to want them to be . the movie itself is rated r - and for good reason . it contains scenes of bloody , violent gay bashing and graphic , uninhibited , sex . as with any movie , i appreciate knowing about these things ahead of time , so i can decide for myself whether to see the movie with a friend , a date , my 11 year old niece , alone or not at all . but , that's the movie . now back to the preview . prior to this film being theatrically released ( it was originally filmed as a documentary for hbo ) i had seen the coming attractions trailer for it at least six times . there was no nudity , no violence , no bad language , nothing that i could see that would be offensive or inappropriate for a general audience ( okay , whoopi goldberg did refer to someone " boning " someone , but the last i knew that wasn't one of the seven words you can't say on tv ) . except for a scene of two fully clothed men kissing . hmmmmm . when i inquired about the rating on the trailer , a very nice woman at the mpaa quoted from " the handbook " that a trailer approved for all audiences could contain " no homosexuality or lesbianism and no going down on someone . " hello ? i was in the office and it was the middle of the day . bravely , i pursued . " i've seen that trailer , oh . . . probably half a dozen times , " i gulped . . . " and i don't remember that scene . " " well , " she chirped . " it's there . our little eyes are trained to see that . " no really . in the words of dave barry , " i am not making this up . " they are " trained " to " see that ? " when someone who was shocked at the rating the first time and made a note to watch it carefully the following five times or so managed to let it slip past her ? gosh , i certainly don't mean to question the mpaa , or " the handbook " . i would , however , like to suggest that it's they who are in the closet on this one . and the light ain't good in there . but , having seen " the celluloid closet , " and being one of a handful of straight people involved in a primarily gay and lesbian weekly bible study ( email me and i'll give you the details ) , none of this was any big surprise . the point of the movie was that homosexuality , even in the politically correct 90s , is ridiculously perceived as a threat to a mostly heterosexual society . a point well made in this candid and honest film . now , i could go off on the mpaa's ruling that a trailer must contain " no homosexuality or lesbianism " and ask how that is defined , particularly in light of some of the things , both sexual and non-sexual , that i've watched straight people do in trailers . i just don't feel the need to go there , because it seems so obvious . i'll instead suggest that the mpaa re-evaluated their evaluation criteria . let the ratings reflect not subject content , like " sex " and " violence " . let them reflect attitude content . in the future , i'd be interested in knowing whether the movie is rated d for disrespectful or s for stereotyped . then i'd truly be able to make an informed decision about how i spent my time .

woody allen is one of the most successful artist-directors in hollywood , but he is becoming less and less reliable as a filmmaker . in his early years of film-making he mastered the simple comedy . from there he went into a second phase and took risks experimenting with different approaches and styles . some of these work better than others . zelig and crimes and misdemeanors are the work of a creative and intelligent artist . deconstructing harry goes to the other extreme and is a bizarre experiment demanding more of the viewer than it gives back . harry block ( allen ) has in his life only two drives . he wants to have sex with as many women as possible and when he makes a mess of his life and those of his lovers he wants to retreat into his writing . the story of this static and highly unsympathetic character is told with a number of often clumsy stylistic experiments . perhaps the most irritating device is to express the disjointedness of harry's life by editing harry's scenes putting in cuts in the middle as if to show missing time with something edited out . as a writer , harry puts his friends into his books in the thinnest of disguises . the film dramatizes incidents from these supposed books and cuts between his real story line and fragments from harry's books with different actors playing the real and fictional people in harry's life . these fragments are frustrating in their lack of completion , but even more frustrating is the bringing of the characters out of the fragments into scenes with the real characters . it is up to the viewer to keep track not just who is fictional and who is real but also to keep straight who is the fictional doppelganger of which real person . if that sounds complicated , it is . then as another device in one of the stories , an actor seems to have the peculiar property that he has gone out of focus and can only be seen in blurry image . harry sees this as a metaphor for his own condition and himself goes blurry for a short time . as if these touches did not create sufficient confusion , the story is told out of chronological order . if allen were giving the audience a story that was worth decoding , any and all of these stylistic touches could be excusable . but allen puts the audience through all of this to give us a portrait of harry block who is a selfish manipulator who is not worth the effort to understand . deconstructing harry is set at a time when harry's old college , the one that expelled him when he attended it , wants now to honor him for a lifetime of writing achievement . harry is searching among his friends to find one who will go with him . just why someone who is so unwilling to commit to a relationship with anyone suddenly needs the support of someone else is unclear . harry tries his current girl friend fay ( elizabeth shue ) only to find that she is about to marry harry's old friend larry ( billy crystal ) . block would like his son hilly ( eric lloyd ) to accompany him , but hilly's mother , previously first harry's psychiatrist and more recently his wife , refuses to let her son see his father . another friend richard ( bob balaban ) would go but has health problems . harry also considers bringing a prostitute cookie ( hazel goodman ) . it is interesting that allen should introduce another likable prostitute so soon after mighty aphrodite , but cookie is considerably different--black and a lot brighter than mira sorvino's character in the previous film . while the comedy sequences are never complete , a few are elaborate and some quite funny . the centerpiece of the film is a journey into hell with allen playing a sort of orpheus rescuing fay from the clutches of the devil , who looks a lot like larry . that story also is left uncompleted , perhaps to show harry's unwillingness to commit even to telling a story . the linchpin that was needed to tie together the stylistic quirks of this film was a central character who changes and who gives us something about which to care . that character is patently not the one allen creates in harry block and not the characters around harry as seen through his acerbic eyes . allen can do much better than deconstructing harry . i rate it a 3 on the 0 to 10 scale and a -1 on the -4 to +4 scale .

one of the last entries in the long-running carry on series , carry on behind is very similar to carry on camping in that it involves a group of holidaymakers descending on a 'caravan' site . professors anna vrooshka ( elke sommer ) and roland crump ( kenneth williams ) and a group of archaeology students stay in the caravan site owned by major leep ( kenneth connor ) so that they can explore the nearby roman settlement remains . anna has a little trouble understanding english and sometimes people get the wrong end of the stick : - for instance , when anna is asking for 'scrubbers for dirty caravan' , she means that she wants a scrubbing brush to clean the caravan ! arthur upmore ( bernard bresslaw ) and his wife linda ( patsy rowlands ) take her mother daphne barnes ( joan sims ) and her minah bird on holiday with them . mother-in-law jokes prevail . furthermore , the trouble that joe and norma baxter ( ian lavender and adrienne posta ) have with their large irish greyhound allows for some comical moments between the two families . fred ramsden ( windsor davies ) and ernie bragg ( jack douglas ) leave their wives ( liz fraser and patricia franklin ) behind for a fishing holiday . however , they have more in mind than fishing when they catch sight of two young girls , sandra ( carol hawkins ) and carol ( sherrie hewson ) . the story involves the disruption caused by the archaeological professors of the day-to-day running of the camp , the search for the minah bid and greyhound , the major , fred and ernie's desperate need of a woman , a misunderstanding leading to a striptease at the caravan park's pub , and a shock in store for daphne . the partnership between sommer and williams is very effective and amusing . this is what binds the movie together . joan sims stands out as the demanding mother-in-law , bernard bresslaw and patsy rowlands work well together as husband and wife , and carol hawkins and sherrie hewson are a welcome addition to the cast . on the other hand , there are low-key performances from kenneth connor and peter butterworth as barnes the handyman , and there are very poor performances by windsor davies and jack douglas who spend far too much time on the screen ! even though there is no real plot to speak of and the jokes are getting bluer due to the new scriptwriter dave freeman , there are enough truly comical moments and bright and breezy performances to lift this carry on above many of its predecessors . although the regular cast is depleted , the ones that remain show that they can still make a good carry on film . a relative flop at the cinema , this movie deserves a lot more recognition .

ever since wargames , the first real computer hacking movie , hollywood has attempted to produce more and more films about hacking . these films usually show the audience a look into computers that really is not impossible and is usually ridiculous . if it's not this , the exaggeration about what is real is usually greater than you would expect . hackers is guilty of all of these crimes . to anyone familiar with computers and/or the internet , most of the movie is so incredibly stupid that you can't take it anymore . those of you who frequent one of the greatest sites on the world wide web , the internet movie database , are probably aware of the section for movies entitled " goofs " . this is the section for mistakes in the movies . well , imdb sums up hackers extremely well with the first goof listed : " generally ill-informed and ridiculous to the extreme regarding the capabilities of computers and technology " . and truthfully , this is one-hundred percent correct . the plot , obviously , centers around computer hacking . more specifically , it follows the exploits of dade murphy , a young computer hacker played by jonny lee miller . miller should be extremely thankful for the film trainspotting , because if it were not for that , who knows where his career would be now after hackers . the film opens with a young dade murphy being arrested for hacking computer systems . he was forbidden to use a computer until he turned eighteen years old . the film then picks up at that point , an eighteen year old dade murphy hacking away at the computer . dade later meets up with fellow hackers acid burn ( angelina jolie ) , cereal killer ( matthew lillard ) , lord nikon ( laurence mason ) , and the phantom phreak ( renoly santiago ) , who are basically trying to do what is next to impossible : hack the gibson computer and not get caught by the fbi . oh , and as a little sub-plot , dade also tries to woo acid burn , the only female hacker in the film . really , i can't think of much more to say about the film's plot aside from what i've said . it's just a bunch of computer geeks ( no , obsessive compulsive computer geeks a little too advanced for reality ) running around hacking computers and staying away from the fbi . thanks to this movie , the public unfamiliar with computers now has a distorted viewpoint of computers and what they can do . this movie makes computers look a little bit too advanced for their time , and the frivolous suggestions it makes are too many to list . to sum it up , hackers is a terrible computer film . if you're looking for a film about computers closer to what goes on in the real world , i suggest sneakers . although at times it too may seem a little far fetched , it should be much more believable than hackers to regular computer users . hopefully , this film didn't influence too many young computer users out to think they can do what is portrayed in this 105 minute waste of time .

jarvis cocker of pulp once said that he wrote common people after noticing mike leigh box-sets on the video shelves -- he had a feeling that economic deprivation was becoming a tourist experience for the well-off . maybe it's a classic case of displacement : it's easier to see jarvis' own lyrics ( obsessed with acrylic and wood chip on the wall ) as a fetishization of lowlife , rather than leigh's films . but it's worth being reminded that drab interiors and a couple of working-class characters don't make for a guarantee of 'authenticity' , let alone a good film . it's the triumph of secrets & lies , then , that it goes beyond gestures of sympathy for the common people into a probing of just what it means to seek 'authenticity' and honesty in everyday lives . following her adopted mother's funeral , hortense , a young black optometrist , sets out to find her birth mother , and is disturbed to find out that she is white . it is cynthia , a factory worker who lives in a shabby house with her perpetually moody daughter roxanne . cynthia's younger brother maurice is a successful photographer who has not seen his sister for ages , largely because of his wife's animosity towards her . hortense calls up cynthia , who initially breaks down in tears and refuses to see her . but their mutually suspicious meeting gives way to a warm friendship eventually . cynthia invites hortense to come along to a party , which maurice is hosting . . . secrets & lies has a simple enough theme at its heart -- as one character puts it , " best to tell the truth , isn't it ? that way nobody gets hurt . " . but if the film delivers much more than a trite message , it's because we are also shown how hard it can be to face up to ugly truths , even while the evasions and unspoken grievances slowly choke us . hence , cynthia's difficulty with acknowledging ( first to herself , then to others ) that hortense is her daughter . one of her first reactions to seeing hortense is a sincere denial that she has ever " been with a black man " , before a long-suppressed memory seizes her . at the party , cynthia's pretense that hortense is her factory co-worker leads her to ever more convoluted lies , as agonizing as they are funny . little lies seep into every corner , like maurice pretending that he's " just dropping by " when he visits cynthia after much deliberation . maurice's job as a photographer gives the film opportunities for side comments on the main theme - a sad-looking bride that maurice coaxes to smile , a couple who pose awkwardly with a prominent wedding ring and argue about his spectacles . one of the most startling images is of a beautiful woman with large scars on her face : she says she needs the photo to look " as bad as possible " to collect insurance money , yet the short scene leaves you wondering about what untold story lies behind the scars . there are occasionally hilarious moments , as when cynthia attempts to give her daughter some unwelcome advice on contraception , " i've got a dutch cap floating about somewhere upstairs " ; or when cynthia stares at her own rather pedestrian legs and tells roxanne , " if you've got it , flaunt it , is what i say . " as played by brenda blethyn , cynthia comes close to being a caricature , with her nervous , somewhat disconnected way of talking . but she's really just right for the role of someone who inspires sympathy and yet strains the tolerance of those around her , precisely because she's so needy of love , perhaps . indeed , the whole cast gives warmly rounded , detailed performances . the script was developed partly through improvisations , and the fusion of cast , script and director shows best in the party scene - seemingly everyone is talking at the same time , and yet many subtle observations are being made throughout . in a very different way , but also using a long single shot , the scene of hortense and cynthia's first meeting in a lonely caf=8a achieves a touching intensity , all the more for their reticence and unspoken feelings . the film's climax - with all the secrets and lies finally spilled out in ibsen-esque revelations , and everybody hugging each other - is the one thing that seems false about this film . however , it's a film that truly earns its happy ending after the misery and repression of the character's lives . when cynthia says near the end , this is the life , innit ? , you get the sense that , following the cynicism of his last film naked , leigh has rediscovered that life can be sweet after all , without comforting illusions . the flying inkpot's rating system : * wait for the video . * * a little creaky , but still better than staying at home with gotcha ! * * * pretty good , bring a friend . * * * * amazing , potent stuff . * * * * * perfection . see it twice .

the full monty is a whole lot of fun , its wacky , witty , and original . it's written and directed by relatively unknowns , simon beaufoy and peter cattaneo , who both turned up oscar nominations . how did this movie with a budget under 10 million gross over 175 million worldwide ? its been rumored that this film may be the second most profitable movie of the year ! and to think its about male exotic dancers , and not sinking ships . six steel workers who have been recently been laid off and are all looking for jobs . inspired by the success of a chippendale's production , gaz ( robert carlyle ) decides they should all put on a strip show to make some money quickly . as the six team up to put on the show of their lives , they run into a few problems . for instance , dave ( mark addy ) is worried about his weight , horse ( paul barber ) thinks he may be inadequate , and gerald ( tom wilkinson ) is worried about his reputation and timing . so when the night of the show comes , will the men be able to do the " full monty " ? as i said before this is a fun movie , and not just that its really artistically good . the writing and direction are great . the acting is appealing , all the performances have a human quality to them , so you can relate to at least one of the characters . the full monty received four oscar nominations including best picture . which left me wondering one thing , why didn't trainspotting get a best picture nomination last year ? while the full monty is a great lighthearted comedy , it doesn't carry the social impact of the brilliant trainspotting . still , the full monty is a great film , a must see !

before even seeing a single frame of the film , it would be easy to snicker at deep impact , in which a comet on a collision course with earth threatens the existence of all life on the planet . it is the latest entry in this decade's dubious revival of the '70s disaster film , and the first of two " the sky is falling " flicks to hit screens this year ( the other being this coming july's armageddon , in which a meteor is the threat ) . its tagline , " oceans rise . cities fall . hope survives " is not as cornball as that of the utterly ridiculous collapsing tunnel thriller daylight ( " they came in alone . . . the only way out . . . is together " ) , but it's every bit as treacly . the opening moments of deep impact offer more to snicker at . the cheesiness is not confined to the disaster movie conventions , such as the usual opening " roll call , " in which all the major characters and their personal problems are introduced . the most prominent of the " personal " stories is that of ambitious tv news reporter jenny lerner ( tea leoni ) , who is distraught that her father ( maximilian schell ) left her mother ( vanessa redgrave ) for a younger woman ( rya kihlstedt ) . what is just as snicker-worthy is how this co-venture between paramount and dreamworks skg aggressively pushes another high-profile corporate collaboration , microsoft and nbc's cable news network msnbc , which employs jenny , who is the film's ostensible main character . in the vision of america presented here , msnbc is the television news source of choice in every home , when in reality it only reaches a fraction of the country . the initial signs point toward something along the lines of a volcano or dante's peak , but there's one thing about deep impact i underestimated : the skills of director mimi leder . she won an emmy for her helming work on nbc's smash er , which is essentially a weekly disaster movie , each episode featuring a new set of guest stars with their own personal and medical crises . the challenge presented by this format to the director is twofold : ( 1 ) to make the audience care for these guest characters , regardless of how briefly seen or thinly written they are , and ( 2 ) powerfully tug at the emotions without being heavy-handed or overly melodramatic . having passed the " er challenge " in numerous episodes and showed a flair for creating suspense in the peacemaker , leder could not be a better fit to bring michael tolkin and bruce joel rubin's rather formulaic disaster screenplay to screen . as the countdown to impact progresses , the ominous feeling of doom is palpable , leading the final act to take on a surprisingly convincing and affecting emotional dimension . there's nothing here that will profoundly move anyone , but the fact that anything manages to touch the heart is high achievement in a genre generally more concerned with effects . situations that initially feel contrived , such as jenny's familial crisis and the teenage romance between sarah hotchner ( leelee sobieski ) and comet discoverer leo biederman ( elijah wood ) , achieve some poignance ; and even the more vaguely drawn characters , including u . s . president tom beck ( morgan freeman ) , astronaut spurgeon " fish " tanner ( robert duvall ) , and his rather faceless crew ( ron eldard , jon favreau , mary mccormack , blair underwood , and alexander baluyev ) aboard the comet-bombing spacecraft messiah , have their share of touching moments . the latter fact owes a debt to the actors , who all do a solid job and are well-cast , with the possible exception of leoni ; she delivers a decent performance , but her trademark unconventional speech rhythms and line delivery make her somewhat hard to buy as a star news broadcaster . although its catastrophic theme and impressive special effects work ( the giant ocean waves are particularly spectacular ) place deep impact in the same category as the likes of twister , it is the first of the '90s disaster films to successfully marry the advanced film technology with emotions that ring true--a film that makes a genuine impact , even if it isn't as deep as hoped .

capsule : this super-light situation comedy from sweden tells the story of two close friends with romantic problems . the script involves formerly taboo subjects like erotic toys and sexual enhancers but otherwise the writing is not a lot different from what is shown free on television . the characters are paper-thin and the interesting ideas purely non-existent . this is a decrement-life-by-90-minutes card . , 0 ( -4 to +4 ) jalla ! jalla ! is basically an exuberant tv situation comedy written instead for the wide screen . it tells the story of two park custodians and the problems they are finding on the path to true love . the film is set in sweden where roro and mans ( fares fares and torkel petersson ) are custodians at a public park . roro is from a tightly knit lebanese family who control him very closely , mans is a swede from a much more liberal background . they spend most of the day in the bushes at their park , cleaning up after dogs . roro and mans each have girlfriends , but each has a problem . roro ( nicknamed " jalla " ) is having family problems . it seems that his family wants to arrange a marriage between him and a nice lebanese woman , yasmin ( laleh pourkarim ) , but he is already in love with lisa ( tuva novotny ) . yasmin likes roro , but does not want to get married either . mans on the other hand has been having a problem of sexual impotence . the two friends worry about their problems and discuss the problems with each other . mans thinks the answer to his problem is to purchase sexual enhancers . the one catch is that he is too shy to go in and buy them . roro and yasmin decide to give themselves some time by telling the families that they want to marry each other , but then plan to break up before the wedding . not too surprisingly neither finds that his idea works out the way he quite expected . the plot turns in several places are contrived . one knows fairly quickly that if things are going to work our happily for everybody certain plot contrivances have to happen . lebanese-born josef fares who wrote and directed is perhaps a better director than he is a writer . when things start to get slow , he just adds throws in another story . for example halfway into the film mans innocently antagonizes some local toughs and a long chase is added to the film . characterization is a little better with roro than it is with mans who does not seem to have a whole lot more personality beyond fear for losing a biological function . we do see some of roro's family life and his concerns . that may be because roro's background is a lot like that of the director . while the story was entertaining , i did not feel that i got anything worthwhile from the film . it was just a way to pass about an hour and a half in my life . one does not have to go to the movies to see entertainment like this . i rate it a 4 on the 0 to 10 scale and a 0 on the -4 to +4 scale .

sometimes i find 19th century british costume dramas a little hard to relate to . it's not the time or the distance , it's the rules and conventions of a social class that deserves resentment rather than sympathy . yet somehow , the movies are all well made and i always get caught up in the story . the wings of the dove fits the pattern . kate ( helena bonham carter ) and merton ( linus roache ) are in love . merton , a newspaper writer , would like to marry kate . but kate's " job " , if you will , is to be a member of the british upper class . her father lost all of her family's money , but a wealthy aunt agreed to take care of her until she married a nice rich man . naturally , a newspaper writer's wages don't count as " rich . " kate leads him on , but she always ends up giving him the cold shoulder , ultimately because he's not marriageable . kate's american friend millie ( alison elliot ) stops in for a visit on her way to venice . at a party , millie catches a glimpse of merton and likes what she sees . kate realizes that if merton were introduced to millie , he might forget about her . it appears that she is trying to spare him from the heartbreak of their inevitable breakup . merton sees what kate is doing and resents her for it . he is still in love with kate , and will accept no substitute . the three of them , along with a fourth friend ( elizabeth mcgovern ) end up on holiday in venice together , where their interactions are quite complicated . let's sum up : millie has fallen for merton . merton has no feelings for millie because he is still in love with kate . kate loves him but can't marry him , so on the one hand she's trying to match him up with someone who will make him happy , but on the other hand she's jealous of them as a couple . a clear solution presents itself to kate when she realizes that millie is very sick - dying , in fact . at this point she decides that merton should marry millie until she dies . millie will leave her money to merton , who will then be rich enough to marry kate . she lets merton know of her schemes and , since it will help him win kate , he reluctantly agrees . kate leaves venice so that the two m's can be alone together . merton finds that pretending to love millie is a lot like actually loving her . he's not sure he can separate the two . kate finds that she's not so sure she really wants her merton falling in love with and marrying anyone else . the brilliant scheme proves to be painful to all involved . without revealing the details , suffice it to say that the situation ends badly . the title refers to the object of merton's vain hope that something might lift him from his predicament . one is left with feelings of regret and despair . what started as such a promising relationship was damaged by greed , anger , and jealousy . an interesting thought struck me after the movie was over , and that is that the wings of the dove almost fits the story line of a film noir . a couple conspires to cheat someone out of their money so they can live happily ever after . their involvement in the deception makes each less attractive to the other , and after a few things go wrong , the whole idea seems like an awful life-ruining mistake . i wouldn't call the wings of the dove a film noir , but the comparison is interesting . as i have acknowledged before , i am not a wonderful judge of acting , but i liked the performances from roache and elliot . roache successfully conveyed his character's ambivalence toward millie : near the end , he hugs her , at first staring into space , as if he's thinking about his plan with kate , then giving that up to fully embrace millie . millie's part didn't require as much range , but elliot gave her the necessary bubbly personality that made her irresistible . i will probably file away the wings of the dove in the same low-traffic corner of my mind as sense and sensibility and persuasion . their settings are far removed from my personal experience - geographically , historically , and socially . still , the movies are well made and the stories inevitably win me over .

most movies seem to release a third movie just so it can be called a trilogy . rocky iii seems to kind of fit in that category , but manages to be slightly unique . the rocky formula of " rocky loses fight/rocky trains/rocky wins fight " is carried out to the letter . also the 'tradition' of showing the last five minutes or so from the past rocky film is used as well . this movie begins with a series of clips showing how famous rocky ( sylvester stallone ) has become . . . even showing a brief appearance on sesame street ! ! then it moves on with rocky being in a fixed fight with thunderlips ( hulk hogan ) . a mysterious bad-ass known as clubber lang ( mr . t ) trash-talks to rocky about his stupid decision to retire from boxing and that he " pities the fool " for not coming out and fighting him outright . rocky's trainer ( burgess meredith ) tells rocky not to fight , but the italian stallion doesn't listen . naturally , he gets his ass kicked . somewhere along the line after this several things happen . rocky's longtime trainer dies , causing rocky to train with his former opponent apollo creed . rocky's wife complains to her husband that he should fight . the final fight ensues between clubber and rocky . guess who wins ? the winner's name rhymes with 'smocky' . the movie is entertaning mainly because of clubber lang's over the top performance . the dramatic aspect has been toned down considerably since rocky ii and now action seems to be the strong point of the film . which is good if you like fighting scenes . the last match is quite decent actually . if you liked the previous films , rent this one . it's well worth seeing if you are a fan of the series . but if you can't stand rocky shouting " adrianne ! ! ! " one more time , see something else .

there are times when the success of a particular film depends entirely on one actor's effort . often a single performance can turn what might have been a rather mediocre movie into something worthwhile . when one of these comes along , i usually try to think about how many other people put work into the movie , that there is no way one person could possible carry the entire project on his shoulders . but sometimes there is simply no other explanation , and such is the case with " the hurricane . " this biopic about falsely convicted boxer rubin " hurricane " carter would normally be called " norman jewison's 'the hurricane , ' " as per the tradition of referring to a film " belonging " to a director . but though he does decent work , jewison cannot claim ownership of " the hurricane , " because there is one reason this film works at all , and his name is denzel washington . washington plays carter , a boxer who in 1967 was convicted of a late-night shooting in a bar . jailed for 20 years , he maintained that he had never committed the crimes , but remained in jail after a second trial and countless appeals . the situation changed when a group of canadians moved to washington and worked on freeing carter . through the efforts of that group and carter's lawyers , he was eventually freed when their case was heard in federal court and the judge ruled that rubin carter had been unfairly convicted . the film details carter's childhood , which had him in and out of jail because of the efforts of a racist cop ( dan hedaya ) . when he finally got out of prison for good , carter became a rising star as a middleweight pro boxer , seemingly having his career on track , until the police framed him for multiple homicide . despite the efforts of political activists and celebrities , he remained imprisoned . flash forward to 1983 , when lesra ( vicellous reon shannon ) a young african-american boy , living with a group of canadian tutors , reads the book carter wrote while in prison . the book , entitled " the sixteenth round , " opens young lesra's eyes to the injustice that was carter's life , and he vows to help free the incarcerated boxer . lesra convinces his canadian friends ( deborah unger , liev schreiber , john hannah ) to work with him towards his goal . " the hurricane " leans on denzel washington . he must carry virtually every scene by sheer force of will , and he does so brilliantly . it's probably accurate to say that washington does not embody rubin carter , because he plays a character far stronger and nobler than any real person could hope to be . it would perhaps be more accurate to say that washington embodies the character of rubin carter--a fictional personality invented solely for the film . the actor's work is masterful ; washington throws himself into every moment , refusing to keep the audience at arm's length . we feel everything he feels : the humiliation of having to return to prison after fighting so hard to make something of his life , the pain of having to order his wife to give up the fight , and the utter despair he feels when coming to the conclusion that all hope is lost . washington's is a performance of weight and emotional depth . he doesn't merely play angry , happy , or sad ; he feels it at the deepest level . his work is masterful , and for half of this film i realized that the scene i was watching would not have been nearly as affecting as it was if it had been in the hands of another actor . norman jewison directs the film , doing a reasonably good job of pacing and shot selection . " the hurricane " moves quickly , with no scene drawn out much further than necessary and the narrative galloping along nicely . jewison handles his multiple flashbacks well ; the audience is always aware of just what the time and place of each scene is , and nothing is terribly confusing . his boxing scenes , constructed with clear inspiration from " raging bull , " get inside the action very well , and they are believable as real sports footage . jewison puts together a particularly nice scene by utilizing a pretty cool trick : carter is sent to solitary confinement for 90 days when he refuses to wear a prison uniform , and jewison , assisted by some wonderful acting from a game washington , shows how carter gradually starts to lose his mind during the constant solitude , and eventually we get three rubin carters arguing with each other in one cell . jewison's best achievement in " the hurricane " is succeeding at showing how carter becomes an embittered man during his hard-knock life , and how he is able to break out of that bitterness and learn to trust people again . sadly , though , the film's chief failures lie with the screenplay , as with most of the good-but-not-great efforts to round the pike this winter . there is much to interest a viewer in " the hurricane , " but it seems that every time the film gets a chance to take the most clich ? d route possible , it does . take a look at the supporting characters , for example , who are drawn up as either entirely good or entirely evil . carter and lesra ( played nicely by shannon , who deserves credit ) are the only real people here ; everyone else is a stereotype . the canadians are good . the cops are bad . the canadians spend most of their time dolefully grinning at each other in their lovey-dovey commune ( and it is a commune , despite the film's failure to make that clear ) , while every racist cop ( especially dan hedaya's ) melts in out of the shadows and glowers at every black person that enters the room . much of the dialogue comes off as rather hokey ( " hate put me in prison . love's gonna bust me out . " ) , and the big courtroom climax during which everyone gets to make an impassioned speech could have been lifted from a made-for-tv lifetime special . it's too bad . the cast is game , the director does his job , and the subject matter is interesting , but the script takes the safer , slightly more boring route far too often . i wanted a real reason for the cop to hold a grudge against carter other than " he's a racist pig . " i wanted more evidence that these canadians are real people with faults and virtues instead of a bunch of saintly crusaders looking for justice . in short , i wanted to see the film through a less distorted lens . criticism has been levied against the liberties " the hurricane " takes with the truth of what really happened to carter , and much of it is deserved . for example , the film gives us a boxing scene showing carter pummeling defending champ joey giardello , only to be screwed by the judges , who ruled giardello the winner . most accounts of the fight , however , have carter losing fairly . furthermore , much of carter's criminal past is conveniently left out of the film , and just why he was convicted again in his second trial is never really explained . of course , " the hurricane " works mainly as a fable , so digressions from the truth can be excused at least partially , but even dismissing such issues don't remove one fact : " the hurricane " is a highly flawed film . only one actor could have made a schmaltzy , predictable picture like this work as well as it does , and it's a good thing " the hurricane " has that actor . carter has been quoted as saying , " denzel washington is making me look good , " but he's not the only one . washington makes this film look good . denzel washington's " the hurricane . " sounds pretty good to me .

bad movies described as " a swift descent into sinful pleasure , decay , and debauchery " are hard to watch . bad 2000's movies that resemble bad 1980s films are even harder to watch . shadow hours falls into the latter category , a mish-mashed train wreck of b-movie actors ( including michael dorn , aka star trek's worf ) , an uninteresting plot , vain attempts at capitalizing on the " underground " scenes of seedy los angeles , and really , really bad directing and horrendous music video-esque ballistic editing that was taught to me in film school right before i decided to drop out . the film revolves around the life of michael holloway ( balthazar getty ) who is trying to restart his life with his one-dimensional wife chloe ( rebecca gayheart ) after a nasty bout of drug and alcohol addictions . michael takes a job of working the graveyard shift at the local gas station and is bombarded by the ugliness and weirdness of the nightlife of l . a . one night , he meets a strange gent named stuart ( mr . buckaroo banzai , peter weller ) . he drives a porsche , smokes french cigarettes , and drones on about life , eventually coaxing mike into exploring the " underbelly " of l . a . together , a tour of punk bars , s&m clubs , and bare-knuckle fights . the film then throws in a murder mystery with a cop played peter greene , acting like he wants to get the chance at a reprisal of his role in the mask 2 . the film then simply dissolves into a cheap rip-off of dante's inferno mixed with an old stephen j . cannell television pilot . the pace of the film is jarring and utterly without focus . other horrors include the endless montages of people pumping gas and the charlie sheen , johnny depp , richard grieco-esque acting of balthazar getty . peter weller clearly knows his career is completely gone and doesn't give two shits about it . and after the cheap exploitation of bondage clubs , dance clubs , and brothels - damn , isn't anyone safe any more from the ugly eye of hollywood ! ? way back in 1984 , a great but crazy director named abel ferrara made his worse film and called it fear city . shadow hours reminds me of an almost perfect sequel . director/writer : isaac eaton producers : peter alevey , andrea mia , shon greenblatt , balthazar getty starring : balthazar getty , peter weller , rebecca gayheart , peter greene , frederic forrest , brad douriff , michael dorn

an astonishingly difficult movie to watch , the last temptation of = christ may be scorsese's most important film , and yet his most = impossibly abstract as well . scorsese presents the life of jesus = christ , through nikos kazantzakis' novel , which details the life of = christ from approximately 20 until the day of crucifixtion . jesus of = nazareth ( dafoe ) is a carpenter , who opens the film making crosses , so = that he can escape the fate he is subjected to , his destiny on earth . = yet , he soon learns his evil ways for aiding in the deaths of others , = and subjects himself to a desert in exile , in hopes that he can reach = god . before leaving , he asks for forgiveness from mary magdelene = ( barbara hershey ) , a prostitute who is also a childhood friend of jesus . = =20 after going to the desert , christ learns his true purpose in life , = and what he must do . aided by judas ( keitel ) , he sets off on teaching = the world his message . along the way , he meets john the baptist , the = rest of the prophets , and tries to teach the world his message . christ = is also confronted by internal demons and self-doubt , as he tries to = find his true purpose throughout the entire film . during the story , = judas is the closese ally of jesus : his betrayal , argues the film , was = not out of hate , but out of love , in order to allow christ to die . =20 he is eventually captured , and crucified as per the bibile . = however , as he is about to die on the cross , he is saved by a girl , who = brings him to his marriage with mary magdelene . the girl is a guardian = angel who is from god , and who has saved him from his death . jesus goes = on to live a life as a man , as a carpenter , and does not die on the = cross . on his deathbed , in the final moments of his life , he is visited = by the prophets , and by judas , who denounces his master for " not keeping = his end of the bargain . " judas reveals the angel to truly be the devil , = and the life jesus had lived to be the ultimate selfish act . jesus = escapes from his deathbed , and asks his father for forgiveness , for = succumbing to his last temptation . visually and aurally , the film is absolutely breathtaking . no other = director has even come close to realizing jerusalem during the time of = christ's life to the screen . peter gabriel contributes a score than is = simply astonishing , with pulsing rhythms that capture the viewer . the = performances are simply exquisite , with dafoe leading the way with a = mesmerizing turn as jesus . keitel , although his accent is a problem , is = passionately brilliant , fighting through language to bring the character = to life . the visuals are also amazing . scorsese frames his movie in a = harsh tone , leaving the impression that jesus truly is a man who is = having human frailties . the film , though , has many trouble spots . paul schrader's script is = one . schrader uses modern-day new york english to tell the story , along = with new york words , new york mannerisms , and new york slang speech . = the film also does not focus on the godly aspects of christ . there is = no underlying message behind the man's words . the film fails to capture = the glory and splendor of christ . had it faithfully explored that = aspect , than the dichotomy of jesus' soul , his frailties and doubt mixed = with his unmistakable glory , would have been simply spectacular . the = message of christ is confused between love and violence , and the film = merely tells us jesus is great , instead of showing us his greatness . the film is also overlong . it just drags in the middle , with = nothing truly happening . christ is a confused figure , in the sense that = the audience doesn't know who he really is . schrader forgets to give = jesus a message , to show that he truly is the messiah , to give him the = divinity . without that , he is a rambling prophet , who the audience = themselves do not believe . there are several moments of accidental = hilarity , and most of them occur when jesus is attempting to preach . = there are moments of brief awe and power , followed by moments of = confused hilarity . that said , the controversial temptation sequence is something to = behold . it is a step in an unexpected direction , one that leaves the = audience puzzled , until the arrival of the disciples . it is a simply = breathtaking scene , with jesus about to die as a mortal . it is truly = one of scorsese's finest moments . it is unfortunate that scorsese = couldn't make a film about christ as powerful as that one scene . =20

the rich man's wife is one of those movies like final analysis or body double , where the story and characters are so one-dimensional and contrived that you know you shouldn't be enjoying yourself . but somehow , the movie just tries so hard that you begin to forgive it and get into the swing of things . not that it's bad , it's just that it's been done before ; and better , in my opinion . i realize that this is going to sound pretty bizarre , but it's probably the best analogy that i can come up with right now ; you know how when you see a spider or something in your toilet , striving helplessly to get out , and instead of just flushing him , you end up kind of rooting for the little guy ? that's basically how i felt about this movie . i mean , it's not very good , but it's not completely bad either . the wife of the title is josie potenza ( played nicely by halle berry ) . she is married to tony ( christopher mcdonald . . . you know , the guy who looks like joe piscapo ) , a really stressed-out businessman who drinks way to much and doesn't give josie the attention she deserves ( * cough , cough * ) . thus , she is driven into the arms of another man , jake golden ( clive owen ) . near the beginning of the film , josie decides to try and work things out with tony by dumping jake and going on a vacation to a remote cabin in the woods . once there , however , tony has to leave almost immediately due to business details ( i'm still not quite sure what line of work he's in ) . making the best of her situation , josie stays there and begins making the rounds at the local bars . one night , she meets a stranger named cole ( peter greene , finally getting a meaty role ) . they have dinner together , and eventually , both josie and the audience start to realize that cole is homicidal . after learning that she is not happily married , cole offers to " take care " of the problem . managing to escape from the psychotic maniac , josie returns home and starts a reconciliation with her estranged and very wealthy husband . but then one night , cole shows up . . . and here is where the fun begins . from this point on , it's going to be a no-holds- barred cliche-fest , ripping off every movie from strangers on a train to the usual suspects . this is why most critics panned this movie when it first came out . and for the most part , they're right ; the rich man's wife has nary one original bone in it's body . but who cares ? if you're looking for good ol' dumb suspense movie , you can't do much better than this . and if you suspense buffs aren't already sold , it has a killer of an ending too .

" have you ever heard the one about a movie so bad that it made a guy run out of the theatre screaming ? " obviously the producers at columbia tristar did not think that we suffered enough from the first installment , and so to finish us utterly , they have now released " urban legends : final cut " . this is another " scream " -like feature , consisting merely from the recycled materials of rip-offs from the most pointless movies of all time . amy ( jennifer morrison ) is a film student who is attending a film school filled with uninspired film students who do not have a clue about what to do . but just as she reaches the halfway mark of her final semester at prestigious university's film program -- where each year's best thesis production takes the coveted hitchcock prize , a virtual one-way ticket to hollywood success -- she has a chance encounter with campus security guard reese ( loretta devine ) , whose tale of a series of murders based on urban legends at another university inspires amy to try her hand at a fictional thriller organized along similar lines . soon enough , fake -- and real -- blood starts to flow , and amy is being chased around by scary killer , while her cast and crew get slain , one by one . is the culprit the original urban legends murderer , just some random psycho , ! a member of the faculty , one of her competitors for the hitchcock , or is there something even more stupid going on ? this is another one of those tiring , pointless teen slasher flicks : neither scary , funny , or interesting . it simply lacks the ability and the story to entertain . the body counts and screams continue to grow , as the weak level of intelligence sinks rapidly . in fact watching films like that after having watched " scary movie " is impossible keeping a serious face . several times i tried to prevent myself from laughing , without succeeding . and then i realized that practically the whole theatre was laughing . it's the same thing that has been told and told and told over and over again as if it was the revelation of the century . how many times must we tolerate the same clich ? s that have haunted the slasher genre since its birth ? it has been so many films about masked killers that most of us have developed an allergy for them . they are the most stupid , meaningless , predictable and soulless films in existence . however , director john ottman manages to make " urban legends : final cut " into one of the worst achievements of this godforsaken genre . what was done with a sense of redemption for past failures and irony in " scream " , ottman takes seriously . for that reason alone , it is worth a look , just to realize how bad a movie can be . it's tough to find comparisons for such an achievement , and we have to dig in ancient history to find a movie that would match its intellect . even movies like " lost in space " and " mission to mars " seem spectacular in its shadow . we have not seen such waste of t ! ime and resources since " showgirls " ( 1995 ) . no matter how hard i tried to find positive elements in this so called production , i came up with nothing , except the way the killer was dressed . here i feel that i have to compliment the costume designers trysha bakker and marie-sylvie deveu , that have wisely replaced the well known scream-mask with a very elegant fencing mask . jennifer morrison ( " stir of echoes " ) is all right , and the other actors' best achievement is keeping a straight face when pronouncing the words from the script . in fact the only thing that is terrifying about this film ( with the exception of its screenplay ) is its portray of film schools . if these graduates will be the directors of the future , then hollywood's golden days are over . rumors are already spreading through the internet that columbia tristar is already developing a third installment . let's just hope and pray that it's just an urban legend .

barely scrapping by playing at a nyc piano bar , timothy hutton returns to his massachusetts hometown for a couple of weeks . on the surface , he's coming home for a high school reunion , but since this is a movie , you know that he's really looking for some major life decisions . a fairly " small " film , this sports an impressive ensemble cast including uma thurman , rosie o'donnell and a bunch of actors that you've seen before but can't quite place . commendable jobs all around ; they seem like real people . hutton arrives at his past and is greeted by his spirit-dead father , terminally goony brother and old high school chums . all of his old buddies are engaged in the snow removal business and most are in the midst of a relationship crisis . the perfect stuff for a comedy about people in the twenties angst . he meets and falls for the new next door neighbor : a beautiful intelligent lively girl who is obviously taken with him . the problem is that she is only 13 . unconsummated ( no , it's not _that_ type of movie ) , their relationship builds and neither knows what to do with it . star-crossed lovers with no where to go . so hutton is gaga over a barely-teen , one of his buddies is two-timing his girlfriend with a married old flame , another's girlfriend is sleeping with a meat cutter ( " and she's a vegetarian ! " ) . things are a mess . enter uma thurman . the beautiful stranger in town for a few days is both a delight in the film and one of its minor downfalls . her character is fun to watch . even more entertaining is observing the guys falling over themselves trying to impress her . like the lone ranger , before she leaves , she solves most of the problems and sets everyone onward with their lives . the ending is a bit too pat . everything is tied up with a neat little bow . rosie o'donnell is a stand-out in her limited screen time with her brash personality and " tell it like it is " pronouncements . structured somewhat like a " diner , a few years later " , this feel-good story is a good time , but ends a little too nice .

as far as " mystery men " is concerned , the burning question is less " is it really as bad as it looks from the trailer ? " ( the answer there is an unequivocal " yes " ) and more " how in the name of sweet jesus did first-time director kinka usher get such a first-rate cast to act in this muck ? " " mystery men " features greg kinnear as the heavily-sponsored captain amazing and geoffrey rush as his arch nemesis ( singular ) casanova frankenstein . a veritable police lineup of hot hollywood talent plays the superhero wannabes of the title , who join forces to get c . amazing out of a tight spot when c . frankenstein puts the screws on champion city . there's william h . macy as the mild-mannered shoveler , hank azaria as the cutlery-flinging blue raja ( no knives , but a phony english accent that's just as sharp ) , ben stiller as mr . furious ( whose only power seems to be his ability to get hot under the collar ) , janeane garofalo as a crazed bowler with her father's skull interestingly preserved , wes studi as a rhetoric-spouting cowled avenger , and kel mitchell as the token ( and , adding insult to injury , invisible ! ) black guy . bringing up the rear , so to speak , is paul reubens ( yes , that's pee wee herman paul reubens ) as . . . well , let's just call him the gas man . the production design is overblown , the special effects are overdone , and the script ( based on bob burden's " dark horse " comic book series ) is overbaked . the appealing actors are uniformly good and stiller is even stellar , but they can't begin to save " mystery men " --it's just one big mess . you're better off renting the video and pressing fast-forward to get to the funny bits . i believe i counted three .

sydney lumet is the director whose work happens to be of varied quality . he is praised for some of the most important films of the previous decades , like twelve angry men , serpico or the verdict . but , in the same time , almost any of such pearls is followed by stinkers that hamper lumet's reputation . a stranger among us , 1992 rip-off of peter weir's witness , belongs to the latter category . the heroine of this movie is emily eden ( melanie griffith ) , tough lady cop who sometimes shows too much enthusiasm in battling bad guys on the streets of new york . during one of such actions , her partner nick ( jamey sheridan ) got hurt and as a result , she becomes depressed . in order to help her recover , bosses give her rather easy task of locating missing jeweller who belonged to hassidic jew community . emily starts investigation and soon realises that the case involves murder . concluding that the perpetrator belongs to community , she decides to go undercover . that isn't easy , because her modern manners are colliding with traditionalist ways . things get even more complicated when she develops feelings for young cabalistic scholar ariel ( eric thal ) . using peter weir's formula isn't the greatest flaw of this film . even the lame and unispiring crime mystery subplot works to the certain extent . but the worst insult to viewer's audience is terrible miscasting of melanie griffith . the author of this review never liked this actress very much , but she was at least tolerable in some of her roles . role of emily eden , unfortunately , isn't one of them . first of all , she can't pass for tough nypd street fighter , and her attempt to pass for orthodox jewish woman isn't much better . screenplay by robert j . avrech makes things even worse with some formulaic red herring subplots ( scene involving two italian gangsters was almost too painful to watch ) . but , on the other hand , other actors are more convincing ( lee richardson as an old rabbi , thal as ariel and charming mia sara as his intended bride ) , and the photography by andrzej bartkowiak very effectively creates atmosphere of warmth when the scenes take place in hassidic community . also , the film might educate viewers about hassidic culture . that is the only thing that prevents it from turning into total waste of time .

the keen wisdom of an elderly bank robber , the naive ambitions of a sexy hospital nurse , and a partnership that blossoms between the two are the fine components that make up a modest , little caper adventure entitled `where the money is . ' the elderly bank robber is henry ( paul newman ) , a famous criminal that was only recently caught . he has pulled off dozens of successful heists and has probably stashed away a small fortune . always the shrewd thinker , he begins working on a plan to get out of jail . this involves years of studying buddhism and self-hypnosis . when he is prepared to execute his plan , he uses what he has learned to fake a stroke . now a seemingly twitching vegetable , he is temporarily transferred to a state-run home . carol ( linda fiorentino ) is the nurse that cares for him . she's a very bright person with a good heart . yet , her life is a miserable waste of time . the most exciting thing to do in town is to fix cars . her days at the hospital facility are spent leading wheelchair calisthenics . worse , she's in a dead-end relationship with high-school sweetheart wayne ( dylan mcdermott ) . they became a couple because they were king and queen of the prom . to her , this made sense long ago . but now , it's a different story . wayne seems equally bored with his life , but is content enough to stay put . wayne's greatest ambition is to become a night shift supervising foreman . carol feels as lifeless as many of the other hospital patients , but she's never been anywhere else and doesn't see many other opportunities in life . however , when henry falls under her care , her outlook begins to change . the medical reports may state that he suffered a massive stroke . carol , however , begins to grow suspicious that henry may just be faking it after all . maybe she can get through to him , and maybe she can learn something about the money that he has stashed away . the opening 30 minutes are filled with hilarious attempts of carol trying to bring henry ? back to life . ' and what are some of carol's resuscitation techniques ? perhaps an erotic lapdance might stir his senses . if that fails , maybe she'll try a little shock therapy by pushing him off a 20-foot high pier into the cold lake below . when he finally comes out of his state of self-trance , the movie's direction changes , though it remains equally if not more entertaining . carol sees that henry is filled with charisma and self-assuredness . she is invigorated by his commanding presence and refreshed by his vibrancy . this , of course , puts wayne in an odd situation . henry and carol's bond grows stronger when they enter into an agreement to rob an armored car . henry needs this heist because he is unable to retrieve his original stash . meanwhile , this is carol's ticket to a better life . wayne is uncomfortable with the situation , but helps out nonetheless . however , his lack of commitment threatens their success . the heist sequence is suspenseful , well paced , and casts the uneasy feeling that something will horribly go wrong . `where the money is' does more to spotlight newman and fiorentino than it does to showcase a story about a nifty heist . newman is the real joy of the film , adroitly showing that at age 75 , he's still really hot stuff . he possesses a sly smile , displays a dominating attitude , and a projects a demeanor that is undeniably attractive . fiorentino is also a fun presence . you root for her despite her sense of amorality . sure , she wants to commit robbery and has little compunction about pushing a wheelchair-stricken man into a lake , but we can see that to escape her dead-end world , she needs to do something drastic . with two charismatic characters such as these , it's hard to ignore that `where the money is' is where the fun is .

kadosh means sacred in hebrew . amos gitai's fictional work , after spending most of his career doing documentaries , is a grim story about a failed hasidic marriage , even though the marriage is a loving one . the marriage will symbolize the clash of cultures in modern israel between the native israeli's modern viewpoint toward religion and the political savvy hasidic's intolerable one , as both groups are vying for control of the secular government . gitai ( devarim/yom yom ) is a labor party leftist , who believes that if the rigid hasidic ever got control of the government , it would sound the death knell of israel . the emphasis of the film is on how the ultra-orthodox jews of that sect live by the letter of the torah in everything they do and how they subjugate the women to accept their vision of god's law from only the male's view . that if they ever got control of the country , their intolerant attitude would subjugate the country the same way the women are . the story takes place in jerusalem's jewish quarters called mea shearim , where we are taken down sinewy back streets with placards pasted on the walls , and into the crowded apartments and prayer rooms where the protagonists live out their idea of the proper jewish life , which is much different than the way most jews live in israel . this is a controversial film , in that the women are unhappy and the male attitudes are to such an extreme patriarchal ones , that the film is bound to anger most viewers , no matter their belief . it is a slow-moving , meticulous film , that grabs hold of you by the collar and never lets go . the force of what is seen , though filmed in an objective manner , never taking a cheap shot at the hasidim , is nevertheless bound to leave questions about the nature of such a practice of strict observance . the film is meant to be critical of such a rigid people , as it implies how they kill the spirit of everything they touch and with their extreme phobic attitudes , it makes it impossible for them to unite the country when they can't at present live in harmony with their own people , and it would be even more impossible to imagine them living with their arab neighbors in peace . the film opens as meir rises at dawn and goes through his prayer ritual , where every prayer is made to the virtues of god . he even thanks god that he didn't make him a woman . his wife rivka accepts the fate she was born into and looks at him from the next bed where she sleeps separately according to hasidic custom . she looks at him with glistening eyes , not questioning the laws or rebelling against her secondary role and how her religion keeps her from studying the talmud and having all the modern conveniences of life , and from seeing movies and tv . meir is a talmudic scholar . his father ( abu warda ) is a rabbi at the yeshiva . he has been married for ten years and his wife has not been able to give him a child . since the hasidim look upon a woman's role in life being only to conceive children , and cook and clean house for the man , while the man's role is to spend his time in prayer , therefore there is an insurmountable problem in this otherwise loving marriage . she receives an anonymous letter that states " a woman without a child is no better than dead . " meir's response , is that it is written like that in the talmud . meir's father tells him that the marriage contract must be broken : " a man who dies without progeny rips a page from the torah . " all the blame is placed on rivka , who is thought of as unpure as the reason for her being barren . she will go through countless ritual baths to cleanse herself , as her rigid mother ( koenig ) dunks her in the holy water and says a ritual prayer for the 12 times she is dunked as an homage to the 12 tribes of israel . their religion doesn't permit them to be examined extensively by a doctor . rivka goes on the sly and finds out that it is her husband who is sterile , but she cannot tell him that because of their religion . so when meir's father chooses a younger woman for his son , she is exiled to live alone in a cold apartment in the same jewish quarters . rivka's spirited younger sister malka does not want to get married but wants to live a more liberated life . she has a long time romantic relationship with a fellow hasidic yaakov . but , because of the way they were both raised , she is still a virgin . when yaakov joined the israeli army to fight in lebanon , something his sect is not allowed to do , he is thereby banished from the sect even though he is still a believer . he now works as a singer in a nightclub . malka's mother is worried that her daughter won't get married , so she arranges with the rabbi for her to marry yossef , someone whom she doesn't love . yossef is a very stern follower of the order , he is also a political activist who drives around the city in a sound-truck with a bull-horn urging jews to stick together and fight their godless enemies . the two sisters are close and languidly discuss their options , with rivka telling her sister to accept the marriage , it will make her happy ; but , while malka is reluctantly forced into accepting it , she has other plans to ruin this bogus marriage . the harshest scene in the film is on malka's wedding night . yossef prays to god for a child and then robotically gets malka to spread her legs , and without the least bit of affection , only a nervousness shown on his part for the function he supplies , as he goes inside her and rams her hard , thrusting away until the act is completed and then retiring without a word or gesture of love . the sisters have choices , like everyone else in life does . but the choices are obliterated by one's beliefs , circumstances , and inward nature , and how difficult it is to carry out those choices if it goes completely against the way one is brought up . for the sisters , the choices are life or death ones . gitai by closing in on the daily rituals , tight living quarters and close-knit community , has shown how difficult these choices are for those who have never seen another world and have been kept in the dark all their life . the film ends with the forlorn malka walking atop of jerusalem and looking down upon it as an outsider would , and everything seems strange to her , all the things she once thought of as being set in stone are now harsh memories , as she has made her choice , and the price of that choice is very heavy indeed .

what would you do if no one could see you ? well , if you're a super smart bio-molecular research scientist working for the military , you'd grope a co-worker and rough-up your neighbor from across the street . that's right . of all the non-criminal possibilities brought about by rendering oneself invisible , in " hollow man " kevin bacon's character opts to commit sex crimes . er , it's kevin bacon who plays the super smart military bio-molecular research scientist ? something sounds horribly wrong already . but this is a paul verhoeven film , and the sleazepin director of such open-crotch classics as " basic instinct " and the infamous " showgirls " never lets a little credibility get in the way of his voyeuristic tendencies which , when you come right down to it , is all this film is about . " hollow man " features a string of hapless , c-list actors ( among them bacon , elisabeth shue , josh brolin , and kim dickens ) in a grade-z plot with a lot of special effects that , frankly , don't look much better than those used in the 1933 version of " the invisible man . " oh bacon glistens when he gets wet all right and looks like a rather fatty side of cheap flank steak when he's attempting reentry but otherwise it's lots of " thermal " shots and inanimate objects ( elisabeth shue included ) bobbing around without any visible signs of support . since invisibility , once achieved , isn't much of an effect ( the actors spend half their time conversing with nobody and the other half of their time talking to each other--it amounts to much of a muchness ) , the director elects to wardrobe all of his female protagonists in loosely-buttoned sweaters so that the minute bacon's character gets invisible he can head straight for them . it's as if that fascinating concept--what would you do if no one could see you ? --is simply a verhoeven ploy to show some skin . as a horror film , " hollow man " is unsophisticated and disturbing ( in its intent , not its achievements ) and not worth your time or your hard-earned dollars . it's minor verhoeven--and even that's not saying much--and boy is it hollow .

'pleasantville' ( 1998 ) taps into hollywood's lack of integrity with subtle messages that can be easily missed ( www . pleasantville . com ) april 2 , 1999 ( friday ) cast : tobey maguire , reese witherspoon , william h . macy , joan allen , j . t . walsh , jeff daniels mpaa rating : pg-13 for sexual content and thematic elements genre : drama in my opinion : in short : it takes a lot of careful observation to see the true morals and lessons brought out in this film ; one can easily be misled as to what the real message is . review : in a literally colorless world with an almost mechanical population , there is no room for transitioning variety or even the customary happenings of everyday life , such as rain , fire , or emotions . the town of pleasantville has one adjective : pleasant . there is no sadness , no fear , no danger , no discomfort , no love , and no hate . put simply , it's a place alanis morissette could really work wonders for . j one big note however is that it is only a 50's sitcom that airs in reruns on an " oldies " tv station ? or is it ? i had waited months to see this movie and after doing so on opening day i was not disappointed . i found it quite intriguing and delightful and went back 3 more times in the period it endured at the box office . but it wasn't until months later , when i slipped in for a small showing in one of those crummy " dollar theaters " after not having seen it for so long , that my eyes were opened to such a deeper meaning and perspective than i had previously experienced . it is a far too feasible misconception that this is a film which forwards the idea that a world without some " healthy " immorality is not a world at all . instead , the actual message , which so far has not been recognized by many viewers that i know of , is that a world without immorality doesn't give one the ability to discern right and wrong for himself , because everything is automatically right . there is no room for mistakes and growth and learning because there are no mistakes to be made , no space for growth , and never anything new to learn , and that is the key component to the entire purpose of the story . now i'm not saying that's necessarily the way it was intended to be interpreted , but that is hands down the proper way in which it should be . besides a hidden symbolic depth and themes that go beyond what we can absorb from previews , this film has elements of physical wonder and strength that make it just so great to watch . the visual effects are indeed striking and what little color is revealed is impartially favorable . after spending the bulk of the movie staring at black and white , it's hard not to identify and appreciate the fact that our own world allows for all that brilliance and more . a truly intelligent addition to it all , however , is the charming and ardently attainable cast that operates together like clockwork . that said , the plot goes as such . david and jennifer are two very 90's high school twins with the typical " relationship " outline of don't-mess-with-my-life-and-i-won't-mess-with-yours . they demonstrate the well-known teenage qualities of two of the common versions of adolescents today . david is the shyer , subtler twin who would rather watch tv land than mtv , while jennifer is the wild , licentious one who spends her days at the mall and relishes in the pleasures of the offensive world of degradation . but when a freak accident enchantingly plops them smack dab in the middle of pleasantville as two of the main characters , they are forced to depend on each other to make it back home . nevertheless , jennifer works her magic and introduces the town to a more unrestrained approach to life , and while david frantically tries to stop her and get them back home , he realizes that change was exactly what the town needed . and , as said earlier , not to flip the town around into some corrupt society , but rather to give people the choice to decide between good and bad and to reap the results of their decisions and learn from them . not only were difficult choices being brought upon the town , but the simple accepted occurrences of ordinary existence also began to take place . people got hurt . they cried . they became afraid and happy and thoughtful and started to think for themselves , and that's when their physical world turned colors as well . this can be looked upon as quite a controversial movie , but to me the message is finally clear . i hope after reading this people can be more open to the film than they had been in the past , and realize that without choosing how our own lives will be run , we'll never know what we could have done better . until the next great movie i see , i remain sincerely , danielle flynn , imr

i don't expect much from eddie murphy these days . for the past four years , the gods of cinema--or the expansive payrolls of studio conglomerates--have allowed him to make one bad movie after another . such films as metro , doctor dolittle , holy man , life , and bowfinger have reduced a once great comedic persona to a living and breathing washed-up hack performing as a studio puppet for 20th century fox and universal pictures . the biggest shame to fall on his shoulders is his newest film , nutty professor ii : the klumps . the klumps once again revisits the life of sherman klump , an overweight university science professor looking for love in all the wrong places . sherman has just invented a new " youth drink " that enables man or beast to become younger for a short period of time . janet jackson is the love interest who chooses the lovable sherman for a soul mate rather than excel at her career as a university professor ( and for the most ridiculous reasons ) . with love on his mind , sherman is determined to rid himself of his alter ego , buddy love from the first professor , who still resides with vigor inside his psyche and causes sherman to act like a bad imitation of vince vaughn from swingers . with some convoluted mumbo-jumbo about dna extraction , sherman extracts the " buddy love " link in his dna and smartly deposits buddy into a handy-dandy lab beaker . but one night , the beaker is knocked over and buddy love is regenerated . . . because every movie like this needs an unnecessary villain to thwart the good guy . then the klump family , all played by eddie murphy , step in for some comedic relief involving old people having sex , flabby breasts , a slew of fart and dick jokes , and enough fat people jokes that i lost count after the first thirty minutes . and did i mention the part where larry miller gets anally raped by an overgrown hamster ? the movie finally dissolves into a really bad hallmark family special about realizing who you are and what you can be in this world -- with enough soft lighting and people on the verge of tears in every scene . pure and simple , the klumps is a failure . its script was handled by not one but five screenwriters , and it really shows during the awkward transitions between scenes . any sense of story and plot were lost in the rewrite process . it's more discerning to learn that chris weitz and paul weitz , the team behind one of the funniest films of the last decade , american pie , have their names stamped to this trash . hey guys - quick note - keep this movie off of your resumes . the characterization of sherman's family , the klumps , is one of the most ignorant stereotypes of a black family i have ever seen in cinema . everyone member of the family is a large person who wipes the bins clean at a local buffet restaurant like pigs at a trough . the grandma is an oversexed fiend who constantly talks of ways to pleasure her man and her sagging breasts . the father is gruff , is fired from a blue-collar job , is sexually inadequate , and cannot communicate with his family about his feelings . the mother is ignorant of all the negativity around her and seems to hold no opinion about anything or anyone . the brother is silent and brooding and resembles the ice cube gangster character from boyz in the hood . sherman himself is terribly insecure and never conveys anything for the audience to become attached to . but the main problem with the film is its inability to create any type of convincing conversational or situational comedy . the family scenes from the first nutty professor worked so well because their conversations were short and direct . and you got the feeling that these crass people couldn't act like this all the time . the sequel does the reverse and drives the negatives of the klumps right in to the hilt , making the first five minutes of their interaction enjoyable and the last 55 or so unbearable and pathetic . after a while , their conversations just become a barrage of frustrated anger tinged with indecency and overworked premises that end up drawing energy away from any type of empathy one might feel for the central themes of the story . its also a damn shame that the makeup magic of rick baker -- who worked on the original nutty professor and won an academy award for his work on an american werewolf in london -- and amazing digital special effects that enabled murphy to interact with himself in such beautiful motions are built around such a lame story line . even the best effects can't seem to save the most pathetic of movies these days . now that i think about it , the worst thing about this film has to be all the money that it will make . people will be lined up around the block for it . the studios will concoct the a sequel for release in the summer of 2002 . eddie murphy will be signed up to take not just one role or five roles , but he'll play every character in the movie . i just can't wait to see eddie murphy in a love scene with himself .

now , lets first look into the history of shark films . there was the unforgettable jaws . the exciting jaws 2 . the rather flaky jaws 3d and sometime in the late 90s another film of the same genre that i can't seem to recall ( about the son of jaws returning to wreak revenge or something like that ) . now , with the magic of cgi , one shark is simply not enough ; in deep blue sea , there are 3 big , mean and really smart ones ! russell frankiln ( jackson ) visits aquatica ( a sea-bound research center ) , where a research is being conducted on the extraction of a hormone substance found uniquely within the shark brain that can cure and reverse the effects of alzheimer's disease . the substance is small in quantity and because of this , lead researcher dr . susan macalaester genetically alters the shark dna and grows them twice the size with brains as big as humans , naturally producing more of the much treasured hormones . as sure as the sun sets in the west , a shark breaks lose and wreaks havoc within the facility during a hormone extraction procedure . with the flexibility offered by cgi , the sharks get more full-length screen time as their predecessors did in those remote-controlled rubber suit days . gone are the days of people getting pulled under the water with the water turning red right after . this time , we get to see the entire gobbling action , with floating limbs and all . so-so acting , expected in most of your average action film . jackson ( fresh from his jedi master role in the phantom menace ) , takes on the dark-side force of a different kind and fits well with his wise-cracking lines . ll cool j's cook role as preacher , does for this film what steven seagal's cook could only dream to achieve in his two under siege films . deep blue sea does not offer any of the psychological thrills that jaws has to offer . it does however , prove to be a refreshing follow-up within the genre , full of visual thrills , suspense and believe it or not  humour ! its like jurassic park under water . nothing too stressful , pure entertainment . renny harlin , you are forgiven ( for making cutthroat island ) .

i remember hearing about this film when it first appeared at cannes over a year ago , picking up the grand jury prize at the festival . 'holocaust comedy receives standing ovation' , the headlines read . intrigued by this statement , i looked up information on the film and found that , sure enough , life is beautiful is in fact a comedy about the greatest atrocity of the last thousand years . even though the movie was extremely well-received by critics and public alike , i couldn't help but be disgusted at this notion ; human tragedy is not something i feel should be celebrated . only now do i see the error of my ways . after finally viewing the film for myself after avoiding it for some time , it became clear that it is not , as the headlines proclaimed , a " holocaust comedy " ; on the contrary , life is beautiful does not even really depict the graphic events that took place in nazi deathcamps . rather , it focuses on the relationship between a father and his son , who he is trying desperately to shield from the horrors of their situation . roberto benigni ( who also wrote and directed the movie ) stars as guido orefice , a chaplin-inspired clown and all round jolly guy who , as the film opens , is vying for the affections of an attractive school teacher ( nicoletta braschi , benigni real life spouse ) . through the course of the first hour or so , we see guido striving to get the attention of this " beautiful princess " , as he calls her . employing the magic of laughter , the italian comedian wins her heart and together , they raise a young boy named giosue ( child actor giorgio cantarini ) . life treats them well until hitler's minions rise to power , and the family is whisked away to a german camp , where guido becomes convinced that he must upholds his son's innocence no matter what the sacrifice . granted , it contains some uproariously funny moments both in and out of the concentration camp , but it does not pull a " hogan's heros " and make light of the slaughtering of some six million innocent jews . somehow , it achieves hilarity without disrespecting it's gravely serious subject . so , we've established that life is beautiful is not a " holocaust comedy " . but , there is another complete misrepresentation of this material that really disturbs me . the film , despite critic's declarations of it being a " triumph of the human spirit " , is no such thing ; not in my eyes , anyway . some have called the story an " affirmation of the beauty of life " , but i say it is a very dark and bleak statement about man's capability of denial masquerading as an endearing comedy . the film's ending has been recognized as the most entirely uplifting moment of any film released recently , but i found it to be truly discerning and upsetting . essentially , life is beautiful is quite possibly the greatest hoax in the history of film . however , i am not denying the movie's greatness . believe me , it's fantastic . i'm just saying that i think benigni did something different than what most people are interpreting it as . but perhaps i'm reading more into the movie than is really there . maybe the film's brilliance relies on the idea that the viewer can interpret the meaning of it in any way they see fit . in fact , maybe roberto benigni has made a film that is the sole argument for the old saying that you get out of a movie exactly what you put into it .

aspiring broadway composer robert ( aaron williams ) secretly carries a torch for his best friend , struggling actor marc ( michael shawn lucas ) . the problem is , marc only has eyes for " perfect 10s , " which the geeky , insecure robert certainly is not . meanwhile , marc's spoiled ( hetero ) female roommate , cynthia ( mara hobel ) , spends her days lying about their apartment and harrassing magazine editor tina brown . writer-director victor mignatti's " very romantic comedy " ( as the ad campaign states ) is supposed to be ( pardon the pun ) a gay ol' romp , but it's hard to have much fun with these annoying , self-absorbed characters and their shallow personal problems : marc and cynthia have sitcom-level domestic " crises " ( such as trying to kill bugs--how hilarious ) ; robert and marc go to acting class ( how riveting ) ; the zaftig cynthia goes on eating binges ( how original ) . but more than anything else , the three whine . constantly . marc whines about his turbulent romance with an apparent " 10 , " david ( hugh panaro ) , the hunky musician from across the way ; robert whines about not being able to find the right guy ; cynthia whines about having to find a job ( horrors ) . the terrible trio whine their way to a happy ending that is wholly undeserved . add in overly broad performances and some laughable lipsynching by panaro , and you're left with one astonishing piece of cinematic damage .

phew , what a mess ! for his fifth collaboration with director rich- ard donner ( lethal weapon i-iii , maverick ) , mel gibson plays a motormouth , maybe mentally ill new york city cabbie , jerry , whose wild conspiracy theories are all but ignored by alice ( julia roberts , acting all serious ) , the justice department employee that he has a crush on . she not interested , but another person is : a cia psychiatrist ( patrick stewart ) who promptly kidnaps him . is one of jerry's conjectures correct ? * is * the metal strip in the new $100 bill being used to track your movements ? is oliver stone still alive , because he cut a deal with george bush to spread * dis * information ? is this movie really about * any * of the crazed cabbie's theories ? no , no , and no . as it turns out , there's some other nonsense going on here , involving and revolving around jerry's background . ( hint : pay attention to an early scene where jerry blacks out and flashes back , in quick succession , to images of an interrogation room , hypodermic needles , and ms . roberts herself . ) the * initial * premise is pretty good and is played , for a while , at a delightfully dizzying clip . mel is wider-open that we've ever seen him and , if his character's relationship with roberts' initially strains credibility , their combined star power is blissfully intoxicating . ( the highest wattage of the summer , perhaps ? ) even when the plot contrivances begin to intrude , the two remain a randy dandy screen pair . there's a great scene in jerry's fortress , er , apartment , with alice trying to act casual as her hyperactive host tries to remember the combination to a locked coffee bean container . ( which he stores in another locked con- tainer , his fridge . ) other hilarious moments , of which there are many , include a trio of memorable convention-breakers , where alice ditches a tail , jerry cold-cocks someone , and , later , eludes a foot pursuit , each in a uproariously unexpected fashion . ( that's donner's own ladyhawke playing in the theater , btw . ) let's see , other pleasures include . . . a brilliant title sequence , a jazzy score from carter burwell , and the worth-paying-to-see sight of roberts pumping lead into one bad guy and slamming another's head into a wall . oh , pretty woman ! getting to the latter , however , requires slogging through an increasingly overburdened and ultimately unappealing story . the last hour of conspiracy theory devolves from tolerable to torturous to almost unwatchable . more stuff happens of the stupid shit variety than is worth mentioning here , except , perhaps , for a late sequence that has alice locating jerry in an abandoned wing of a mental hospital by hearing his voice carrying through the air ducts . and here i thought it was wabbit season . good god , who rewrites these movies ? and do they arrive in nondescript black vehicles ?

with the abundance of trite , recycled movies in the late '90s , there is a tremendous demand by movie lovers ( never mind movie critics ) for movies that present the wide film audience with something truly original : perhaps audaciously , perhaps purely thematically . for the former , you need look no further than director tom tykwer's incredible german thriller run lola run , a movie that may make some viewers need a cooling off period afterwards . lola , a contemporary goth-girl with blazing red hair receives a desperate phone call from her boyfriend manni one day . it seems that because she was late delivering something he lost a bag containing a hundred thousand marks , and if he doesn't deliver a hundred thousand marks within the next twenty minutes , he will be killed . this gives lola twenty minutes to come up with 100 , 000 marks , or her boyfriend dies . so she runs -- not just jogs , sprints -- in hopes that somehow , someway , she'll be able to obtain the money and save a life . >from there , as critic steve rhodes described it , run lola run plays a bit like " sliding doors on steroids . with a non-stop techno soundtrack , wierd camerawork , all kinds of insane zooms and a truly breakneck pace , anyone that is bored with run lola run has to be smoking something . indeed , the movie is often outrageously exciting , as well as bitterly ironic and subtly serious . very much like titanic , run lola run is an achievement with filmmaking much more than it is an achievement in film . the way the movie is made , for pure visual style , tykwer's movie is breathtaking ( literally , sometimes ) . thematically it does leave something to be desired ; it toys around with some intriguing ideas but does occasionally seem as if there is little substance behind all of the flash . while you are watching , this will not matter . running a breezy 81 minutes , this is one movie i wished was longer because it was so damn good while it lasted . it is the equivalent of a roller-coaster in the amount of thrills and fun that it offers . ? 1999 eugene novikov&#137 ;

this is one of the most funny and entertaining comedies of the year and it just happens to be animated . there are some great voice over commentaries from hollywood's most famous celebrities , some fabulous animation and a compelling story . this is the best we've seen from disney since " beauty and the beast " ( 1996 ) . this film begins an unspecified time following the happily-ever-after conclusion to toy story . in the aftermath of their earlier adventures , buzz ( voice of tim allen ) and woody ( voice of tom hanks ) are now fast friends and all the toys live in perfect harmony , content with their " lives " . one day , andy broke woody's arm off , while playing with him . woody is now officially discarged and worthless , left with his nightmares , where he lies in a trash can with the other discards . later andy's mother decides to have a yard sale , and she collects a few old toys from her son's room . since one of these discards is a member of the moving toy gang , woody goes to the rescue , leaving the safety of the house for the uncertainty of the front lawn in order to bring the toy back . although his mission is successful , he is placed in a serious predicament when a toy collector named al ( voice of wayne knight ) spies woody while hunting through the wares available at the sale . the cowboy toy represents the final collectible needed to complete his collection of merchandise from the old tv series , " woody's roundup . " if he can acquire woody , al can ship everything to a toy museum in japan for a huge profit . so , after andy's mother refuses to sell the wooden cowboy , al steals him , and it's up to the other toys , led by buzz , to go into the city to save their friend . and so , buzz , rex ( voice of wallace shawn ) , hamm ( voice of john ratzenberger ) , mr . potatohead ( voice of don rickles ) , and slinky ( voice of jim varney ) , go out on a dangerous journey to rescue their friend , they find themselves confronting things like busy streets and other buzz lightyear toys . there are car chases , gun fights and finally the confrontation between buzz and his nemesis ( who , by the way , resembles darth vader ) . meanwhile , woody learns that he was once a tv celebrity and has a family - a cowgirl named jessie ( voice of joan cusack ) , a horse named bullseye , and a father figure called the prospector ( voice of kelsey grammar ) . they offer him another life , as a celebrity -- a toy in a museum in japan . he is now forced to choose between being loved intensively by andy for a little while ( before he grows up ) and be forgotten , or be admired by children for generations . the problem is , if woody escapes from al's clutches and returns home , they will end up back in the lonely darkness of storage . a real effort is made in the technical department . the animation is rich and colorful , with lots of wonderful details . the " cinematography " is also extremely improved since toy story ; there are a lot of complicated swings , turns and close-ups that really make an impression . lighting and filters are used to create a mood ( as in a surprisingly emotional moment - jessie's remembrance of her days when she was a beloved toy ) the film contains a lot of in-side jokes ( such as the one about videogames ) , and entertaining parodies on " jurassic park " and " star wars " . the film ends with the " failed takes " , the kind of scenes that we are used to see after comedy shows on tv . these outtakes are some of the funniest scenes in the film . but what in the end makes " toy story 2 " a memorable experience is not the jokes , its multiple parodies or marvelous animation . it is its heart and emotions -- the story about the meaning of friendship , love and even life itself . it is not difficult to predict that " toy story 2 " would be a huge economical success , but its artistic achievement was unexpected . unexpected because the first film wasn't much more than a demonstration of special effects . but mostly it was unexpected because disney hasn't produced anything spectacular in years and is constantly surpassed by companies such as dreamworks and warner brs . but here the director has changed the atmosphere of the film , making it more accessible and interesting for persons older that 9 years . this is a big step-away from the ancient laws of disney-animation . off course , this is not " antz " , it is not as intelligent ; this is not a landmark and no masterpiece , but i promise that you'll find it as funny and enjoyable as i have . whether this is the best animated film of the year , i dare not say . my choice would probably be " the iron giant " , but ( along side with " american pie " ) this is the comedy of the year . i almost lost my hopes for disney , but " toy story 2 " proves that disney hasn't lost their ability to entertain .

" payback , " brian helgeland's inauspicious directing debut ( coincidentally , he previously penned the award-winning screenplay for 1997's " l . a . confidential " ) , is a wildly uneven and thoroughly unpleasant revenge thriller that takes one idea---a movie with non-stop violence , death , and villains---and runs with it , or should i say , barely manages to crawl away with it . mel gibson , in yet another disappointing picture ( " conspiracy theory " and " lethal weapon 4 , " anyone ? ) , stars as the reprehensible villain/hero , porter , a man who becomes determined to get his 50% share of $140 , 000 , which he stole in a robbery , back when his partner-in-crime ( gregg henry ) and drug-addicted wife ( deborah kara unger ) double-cross him , shoot him , and leave him for dead . porter is not dead , however---not by a long shot---as he quickly rehabilitates and , along with his loyal prositute girlfriend , rosie ( maria bello ) , sets out to make everyone involved in the scam pay . the tagline for " payback " is , " get ready to root for the bad guy , " and sure enough , this is true , as pretty much every significant character who appears is crooked in some way . i wouldn't have a problem with this offbeat detail if the painfully thin story had been of any interest , but it wasn't , and therefore , i found myself having an especially laborious time investing myself into a wide array of character that have absolutely no redeeming qualities whatsoever . no attempt is made to flesh the roles into three-dimensional characters , and there are no vacant signs that anyone has any sort of humanity in them . just because the protagonist , a " bad guy , " is played by mel gibson doesn't mean i will " root for him , " and i didn't . quite the contrary , every person in the movie deserved to die a gory death ( although some of them did , anyway , just to spice up the dull proceedings ) . since none of the respectable actors in " payback " actually have human beings to play , only one performance managed to stand out . lucy alexis liu ( of t . v . 's " ally mcbeal " ) , who plays a spicy s&m dominatrix , brightens up every scene she is in , and has a definite flair for comedy , something i would have liked to have seen more of , since most of the humor fell with a resounding splat . meanwhile , gibson , who is perfectly fine here , sleepwalks through a role that is not the least bit challenging . unger , who made an impression in 1997's " the game , " is surprisingly wasted and it is difficult to see why she took such a part since she disappears ten minutes in , and only has two purproses : ( 1 ) to get high on heroin , and ( 2 ) because she plays a key part in an early flashback . finally , kris kristofferson appears in a throwaway role during the climax , and this unnecessary plot development sticks out like a sore thumb ( tellingly , he didn't appear in the original cut of the film , but was cast when extensive reshoots took place months later ) . like most action movies , the star often takes a licking but keeps on ticking . in the course of the 102-minute running time of " payback , " porter is shot three times in the back , hit by a van , beaten up , and has his feet smashed with a sledgehammer . and guess what ? not only does he survive the whole ordeal , but he is happy-go-lucky in the penultimate sequence ( and can still walk ! ) , even though he looks like he had recently substituted for a punching bag . " payback " is not , in any way , an entertaining film , even though i am sure the makers hoped it would be with all the graphic carnage that goes on , but take away that violence and what you are basically left with is a blank screen . perhaps director helgeland would have been smart to consider this , so he could have at least added a few worthwhile elements , like a fresh storyline and characters whom you could even remotely stand to be around for a few hours .

" some houses are born bad , " goes the haunting's tag line , to which i must add , " some movies , too . " nothing short of hiring a new cast , a more literate screenwriter , and a new director could have saved this tragically misguided adaptation of jackson's meritorious novel . the haunting is late entry summer dreck too slick to be creepy , and its seemingly endless stream of digital trickery and spooky ooky sound effects don't frighten so much as numb the audience into submission-the film is like a rube goldberg contraption rigged to shout " boo . " fragile nell ( taylor ) , bisexual theo ( zeta-jones ) , and smiley luke ( wilson ) are three insomniacs who gather at the reputedly possessed hill house for an extended study on sleep disorders , hosted by professor marrow ( neeson ) . marrow's secretly gathering data on their respective paranoid responses to his recount of hill house's bleak history . he's not prepared for the very real apparitions that terrorize the crew , nell especially , who has some ancestral connection to the manor's previous inhabitants . taylor is thoroughly insufferable in her first big-budget lead . for starters , her consistently dour expression sucks the life out of even the early scenes , when we're introduced to the mansion and all its fun-house trappings . her character is supposed to be depressed , having tended to an unloving mother for too many years , but taylor plays nell as supernaturally lame , alternately grouchy , mopey , wiggy and pathetic , and i kept wondering why the other characters didn't just ditch this bitch . as for the obscenely photogenic zeta-jones , she breezes through her scenes with a wink and a smile and takes the scenery with her . unfortunately , she's saddled with some of the most unlikely dialogue the screenplay has to offer . theo's assessment of the house ? " i love it ! sort of charles foster kane meets the munsters . " who on earth would say that in place of " citizen kane meets the munsters " ? ( furthermore , would you gladly spend a single night in a house befitting that description ? ) both actresses fare better than neeson , who looks embarrassed to be a part of this ensemble ( and for good reason ) , and his character is the most bland . as luke puts it , dr . marrow pulls the old " academic bait and switch " on his subjects , but he breaks down and confesses to this the second he's accused . later , he risks his life by climbing a crumbling stairwell to save nell ( it's amusing to hear neeson shout " nell " repeatedly , given his starring role in the 1994 jodie foster vehicle of the same name ) . why was this nice , helpful , and redemptive researcher so absent of ethics at the start ? the haunting was well designed by eugenio zanetti . his sets are obsessively detailed , and even before the cgi kicks in , they seem alive , never quite still . i do have one beef with this aspect of the production : the real life mansion used in exterior shots , nottinghamshire's harlaxton manor , is so vast that one has trouble believing that nell and company , no matter how much running away they do from ghosts and goblins , always finish up in locations that were established in act one , as if all the action has been confined to one wing of hill house . eighty million dollars was spent on the haunting , and despite a powerhouse box office debut , i doubt it will recoup its costs ( including marketing ) domestically . thank jan de bont for that : proving for the third time that speed was a fluke , in that it was actually enjoyable , de bont has served up another ride , sans thrill . his images , well-lit though they are , have an unmistakable been there-done that quality ; in fact , whole sequences , not to mention the cloaked , airy ghoul who owns the climax , feel lifted from a much smarter and infinitely more enjoyable spectacle from three summers back , peter jackson's the frighteners . i don't mean to suggest de bont is a plagiarist , i mean to suggest that he's a hack , having found no new ways to give us chills .

deserves recognition for : making this relatively youthful critic feel extremely old and crotchety20 capsule review : this is what feel-good family entertainment has morphed into in the 90's : an hour-and-a-half commercial , disguised as an unnecessary remake , in which the defining image is that of a grown man launching a volume of green protoplasmic goo out of his ass . ( between this , rocketman , and george of the jungle , disney has recently eclipsed longtime champion troma as the studio most likely to include a fart joke in a film . ) as the absent-minded professor who invents the titular computer-generated goop , a listless robin williams manages the difficult task of making original lead fred macmurray seem sprightly . the only thing that made this film borderline tolerable for me is my newly-founded but firm belief that writer/producer john hughes is going to spend his eternal afterlife being conked in the noggin by all of the different blunt instruments he's used for comedic effect in films like this and the odious home alone series . take your kids to see boogie nights instead .

susan granger's review of " the closet " ( miramax films ) in this hilarious french farce , a shy , boring accountant ( daniel auteil ) named francois pignon discovers he's going to be fired from his job at a condom factory . lonely and distraught , he contemplates suicide . but then he runs into belone ( michel aumont ) , an elderly homosexual neighbor , who suggests a " sex discrimination " lawsuit to intimidate management . as evidence , belone concocts provocative photographs of pignon locked in a leather-clad embrace with another man and mails them anonymously to pignon's boss . when the racy snapshots start circulating around the factory , not only does pignon get his job back but he suddenly finds himself the focus of attention as an openly gay man . his lusty supervisor ( michele laroque ) is so intrigued that she wonders if , perhaps , she could change his sexual preferences . even his ex-wife ( alexandra vandernoot ) and indifferent teenage son ( stanislas crevillen ) drop their disdain . but not everyone is enchanted . a mucho macho co-worker felix ( gerard depardieu ) , a self-righteous homophobe , is stunned and repulsed when he's forced by the pr director ( thierry lhermite ) to grovel and court pignon's friendship or risk losing his own job . writer/director francis verber artfully milks the farcical comedy as he dissects the hypocrisy of political correctness , veering off-track only occasionally into pedophilia . daniel auteuil ( " the widow of saint-pierre " ) is delightful - particularly with a blown-up condom perched on his head , riding on a float in a gay pride parade - and gerard depardieu delivers one of his most restrained , and effective , performances . on the granger movie gauge of 1 to 10 , " the closet " is a frankly sexual , adult 8 . it's so clever , in fact , that hollywood is already planning to re-make it in english , like " la cage aux folles . "

note : ordinarily , moviereviews . org will not give away any critical plot points of a film that could be interpreted as " spoilers . " however , being that music of the heart is based on a true story and that moviereviews . org feels the film can not be properly credited without such revelations , plot giveaways will appear in the following review . if this bothers you , please note the 3 star rating of the film and stop reading now . " what does it take to play carnegie hall ? practice . " it takes two hours for music of the heart to " play carnegie hall , " both figuratively and literally . like the children it portrays , the movie starts from the dark realms of awful cinema and works its way up to a show-stopping performance at the legendary concert hall . roberta guaspari ( academy award winner meryl streep ) has two kids , a husband who left her and 50 violins she bought from a small shop in the mediterranean . her life desperately needs a jump start and gets one when she meets a man who introduces her to a job as a music teacher at an east harlem elementary school . she soon finds her job is on the rocks as the men in her life continue to rotate through revolving doors . that is the pattern-like plot of this production . ultimately , the film chooses a zero-sum answer to these problems and finds her music career at an all-time high when the men in her life finally vanish . the first hour of music of the heart is rather painful . roberta's character lacks development and consequently seems to be flat . also lacking depth is the film's " bad guy , " a narrow-minded music teacher ( josh pais ) who rejects roberta out of principle ( the movie never explains exactly which principle that is ) and conveniently comes and goes from the plot according to when it might be dramatic to have a villain around . the next 15 minutes of the film are mediocre . they are highlighted by one child's return to roberta's class ( coming after the great old hollywood scene where he explains be can't be around anymore because " my mom said . . . " ) and a glowing concert . not knowing the running time , you may expect the credits to role at this point . but they don't . instead the film uses the next 45 minutes to finish its journey from bad to mediocre to excellent . director wes craven , known for his works of horror , uses some old sentimental tricks to get the audience tearing . one romantic break up scene is highlighted by the classic " but . . . last night . . . " and roberta's two children also have textbook conflicts with their single mother regarding their father's absence . the city of harlem plays a strong role in the movie . roberta's mother is initially reluctant to see her daughter move to that part of town and the film does nothing to combat that stereotype . the noise tracks for these scenes are dominated by sirens ; predictably one of roberta's students is gunned down and killed off screen . one thing the film does lack is subtlety . the fact that a little boy was playing " we shall overcome " on his violin after the aforementioned shooting was a cute and discreet reference . the fact that the entire orchestra begins to play it over and over soon after is an overdone reference that shows how little credit he gives the audience . ( of course , in horror films the foreshadowing and between-the-line moments are meant to be overdone , so perhaps he too is just learning to play the game . ) even with all its flaws , music of the heart is a beautiful film . that is not an excuse for the movie's poor beginning . but as i watched the scenes in carnegie hall , i thought of some of the great acts that have taken that stage . in december of 1979 a comedian named andy kaufman put on a show that will forever be remembered as one of the most original in theatre history . the performance included a dead-on elvis impression , robin williams in disguise and a moment at the end when kaufman announced he would take the whole audience out for milk and cookies . so , how did this comic genius choose to open the show of his life ? he had a character named tony clifton take the stage for the sole purpose of irritating and angering the audience . perhaps it is okay for music of the heart to start off rusty because just as kaufman had santa's favorite food , this movie has an amazing finale .

the plot of big momma's house is martin lawrence in a fat suit and a dress . that's not just the high-concept premise ; it's the fully-realized , all-encompassing plot . such an emphasis is not unheard-of in the world of hollywood summer entertainment . one need merely look back to last summer , when the plot of big daddy was adam sandler being an incompetent surrogate parent . the trap inherent in such an approach is that the high-concept plot idea better be pretty well-realized , or rest on the shoulders of an extremely talented performer , because you can bet there will be nothing else worth a second of your time -- not a developed character , not a provocative theme , not a witty twist . you will get 90-plus minutes of martin lawrence in a fat suit and a dress -- nothing more , nothing less . those who find martin lawrence more than an occasionally amusing screen presence may have a shot at enjoying the one-note dud that is big momma's house . others will simply stare , mouth agape , at its sheer unapologetic laziness . lawrence plays fbi agent malcolm turner , an undercover expert on a stakeout assignment with his partner john ( paul giamatti ) . dangerous convicted bank robber and murderer lester vesco ( terrence howard ) has escaped from prison , and the feds think he's headed for his former girlfriend and presumed-but-never-proved accomplice sherry ( nia long ) . sherry , however , has fled with her son trent ( jascha washington ) , possibly to visit her grandmother hattie mae ( ella mitchell ) , better known as big momma . indeed , sherry appears to be on her way , but big momma is headed out of town without knowing sherry is coming . that leaves master of disguise malcolm to go under very heavy cover as big momma and find out what sherry knows . big momma's house's bloodlines are certainly traceable to mrs . doubtfire -- director raja gosnell edited that film , and the makeup effects were similarly created by greg cannom -- but there's just as strong a whiff of tootsie in the main character's attempt to use his alternate identity to get closer to a woman . unfortunately , big momma's house makes a ridiculous decision neither of those other films made : instead of having the protagonist pose as a completely manufactured character unfamiliar to anyone elses , it places malcolm in the position of playing a friend and family member to several other characters . suspension of disbelief in big momma's house requires you to believe every other person in the film is blind and/or stupid , since no one notices that one big momma looks or sounds absolutely nothing like the other . of course , laughs trumps logic every time , and big momma's house probably still would have worked in spite of its utter disdain for common sense if it had just managed to be funny . and it misses its best possible opportunity for some great farce by ignoring the simple fact that the real big momma is set up as a foul-tempered beast , while malcolm has to be nurturing in order to get the information he wants out of sherry . unfortunately , no one involved appears to have the faintest idea how to deal with the comic gold mine involved in one real person pretending to be another , very different real person , so they fall back on an endless parade of sight gags : malcolm reacting violently to big momma's explosive diarrhea attack ; malcolm-as-momma schooling a pair of cocky teens in basketball ; malcolm trying to avoid detection as various prostheses give way at inopportune moments ; malcolm delivering a baby because big momma is the town midwife ( one of the few sequences that works ) . martin lawrence can be likeable enough at times , but there's no reason to care a whit about his budding romance with sherry because malcolm is never an independently significant character . he's just big momma without the makeup on . i won't waste time commenting on how ineptly the set-up of the escaped convict is employed , since it was clearly a waste of time to the film-makers . there are a few token scenes of lester looming as a threatening figure , but he's ultimately a distraction in a film that's really about its central visual incongruity ( and the accompanying lascivious glances at nia long's posterior ) . i'm never prepared to underestimate how appealing that idea may be to other people -- several million of them apparently found adam sandler as an incompetent surrogate parent appealing -- but i know that when a film-maker tries to throw a concept at me and pretend that it's an entire film , i duck out of the way . the gross implausibility of big momma's house might have been tolerable if it was seasoned with more big , cleverly-constructed laughs . its lack of big laughs might have been tolerable if its characters were at all relevant . big momma's house is ridiculous _and_ not funny . it's just a sad exercise in the jaded presumption that any scene should be considered wacky and hilarious if it involves martin lawrence in a fat suit and a dress .

melvin udall is a heartless man . he spends his days inside of his spacious manhattan apartment writing romance novels . it also seems that melvin will never change . one day he dines ar his favorite restaurant , and is a little too mean to his normal waitress ( the only waittress that will serve him ) , carol ( played to perfection by a lovely and sexy helen hunt . ) she threatens not to serve him if he doesn't shut up about her asthmatic son . he does shut up . to make matters considerably worse , melvin has obsessive compulsive disorder . one day his gay artist neighbor simon ( greg kinear , of talk soup fame , in an oscar-worthy role ) 's dog threatens to dismiss himself at melvon's door . the dog meets the garbage chute . soon simon is sadly beaten by thieveing burglars , and ray ( cuba gooding , jr . ) , simon's agent , takes the dog , verdell , to melvin , so that melvin can dogsit him . and through the dog and a rather heartwrenching car trip that involves simon , carol , and himself , melvin learns to emerge from his cantakerous shell . jack nicholson gives yet another oscar-caliber performance as the film's cynical lead , and is back at work , not playing a goofy u . s . president or a comic book villian , but instead playing jack nicjolson , and playing him full force . all of this adds up to this year's funniest comedy , a creative , witty , and scathing film from james l . brooks , and brooks gets award-worthy performances from the entire cast . a winner in every aspect , and a truly delicious slice of cyncial life .

well arnold has completed the seemingly impossible task . he has made three consecutive unsatisfactory action films . in a domain that he owns , it is very surprising that this goliath of an action star can not tell a good action script from a bad one . eraser , back in 1996 , was a confused film that made no attempt at all to make sense . batman and robin , in 1997 , was the black sheep of the batman series with ridiculous acting , idiotic action scenes , and painfully flashy costumes . now in 1999 , " end of days " ( not " the end of days " ) is the third strike in a tough at bat for arnold . is this the end of a powerful action star's long-lived career ? will arnold ever give us another unforgettable performance in another unforgettable classic like those in the past ( " terminator " , " terminator 2 : judgement day " , " predator " ) ? or an unforgettable performance in a great guilty pleasure like those in the past ( " commando " , " red sonja " , " true lies " ) ? it doesn't look that way . " end of days " begins with the birth of a baby girl in 1979 who inexorably , due to the formation of the stars on that night , will be the carrier of satan's baby the hour before new year's of 2000 . fortunately for the movie's sake , the girl grows up and now resides in manhattan with skyscrapers , subway trains in dark tunnels , and a myriad of inept nypd officers . it's an action film's dream come true when the director is given tons of cool stuff to blow up . imagine if the girl had lived in anytown , usa , where the only thing to destroy is a dairy queen and a post office . arnold schwarzenegger ( jericho cane ) , in a series of boring events finds himself in the middle of a religious battle between the church , who is trying to hide the girl ( or in some cases trying to kill her ) , and satan ( gabriel byrne ) who is trying to make her pregnant . if the devil is successful , the world will no longer exist as we know it . jericho feels it is his duty to protect the girl from everyone because 1 ) he once had faith but no longer does and 2 ) his wife and daughter were killed and he feels responsible for it . jericho cane is your cliched , by-the-numbers hero right up to his name . arnold fittingly plays the character as cliched as he can . he shouts at everyone , from cops to priests , to the devil . in one truly hilarious scene , which was supposed to be the ultimate dramatic high point , jericho screams to the devil ; " you are a @#$^% ! & choir boy ! you are a choir boy ! " those two lines marked the high points of this film . a movie can still be enjoyable when the supporting cast is more effective than the main actor . " end of days " fails to contain any memorable performances with the exception of gabriel byrne . byrne , playing a man who has been made the manifestation of the devil , seems to be the only one who is having fun in this whole movie . he wonderfully plays a manipulative villain with the power to control everyone at any time . the annoying thing about his character , however , is that he has the power to kill any human with a simple punch in the face , yet he finds it impossible to seriously hurt jericho . i can not count the number of times he could have killed jericho and taken the girl from his custody . the other actors in the film give very weak and unconvincing performances . kevin pollak , who plays the partner and close friend of jericho , is the supposedly funny character in the film ( every action movie has one ) . the one problem is that pollak does not deliver one funny line . robin tunney plays the chosen mother of satan's baby with extreme annoyance . she gets no sympathy from any of the characters in the film , except arnold who pretends she is his wife and daughter , or any of the viewers in the audience . in one unnecessary scene , tunney walks out of her room and takes her top off . is this her job in the film ? the actors are not to blame entirely because the script is terrible . you can tell a script is terrible when you are able to predict what will happen minutes before it does . this little prediction game is a very fun exception to trying to sit through this nonsense of a movie . in a last attempt to make this movie good , special effects are used to try to entertain the audience . but without a memorable action scene in the whole film , the director has not done his job successfully . this film would have gotten a c+ if arnold stood in front of a camera and shouted " you are a ! $@^@ * ^ choir boy ! ! " for two hours .

in arguably the most anticipated movie this century , george lucas has achieved a very mixed reaction to a sure blockbuster . despite the fact the script and plot is a bit of a let down , the entire movie on the whole can be considered a milestone in technical excellence , in the sound and special effects department . in terms of characters , by far the most outstanding and interesting is queen amidala ( natalie portman ) , whose mature performance far exceeds her tender 14 years of age . she is one ? hot' babe who defines true ? woman leadership' . she not only has a presence , but knows how to take command of the situation and save her planet from ruination . no thanks to the jedi knights who although led by the force , lack leadership qualities in terms of thinking up a plan to do anything . the young obi-wan kenobi ( ewan mcgregor ) who has a bad hair day in every scene , gets to kill a bad guy in the end , but lacks a love interest to make him a desirable sort of hero . in fact all the jedi knight are a bit asexual - there must be something about the force which makes them all hermits and loners . i mean it would be interesting to see yoda's girlfriend for a change , if he has one . not much better is qui-gon jinn ( liam neeson ) who mostly broods , and has a better hair do than obi-wan , but only to find the young anakin skywalker and make the biggest mistake of his life . also fascinating is george lucas ? metoclorian' theory , which claims that micro-organisms live within our cells and tie us to the fabric of the universe . and it is the high concentrations of these organisms in an individual which make them particularly powerful in the force . more humerous are the claims to the immaculate conception of darth vader , no doubt a concept stolen from the christian faith , except there will be no christmas to celebrate the birth of this dark emissary of the force . overall an experience which is not to be missed because of the very fact that it's predecessor almost command a viewing of this inferior successor . by all means not the pinnacle of the star wars phenomena but an adequate addition to the clan . watch out for the next one , it should be one steamy encounter between queen amidala and anakin skywalker - who i believe should be portrayed by ? leonardo di caprio .

martin scorsese's kundun , which chronicles roughly the first twenty years of the life of the currently exiled dalai lama , has been criticized for its lack of narrative structure . personally , i don't think it needs one : it works perfectly well as a study of tibetan buddhist culture and how communist china . scorsese views the dalai lama the way many tibetans probably do , as a larger-than-life symbol of buddhist spirituality and political leadership : the only glimpses into his head come from several interesting yet oblique dream sequences , but his portrayal is appropriate for a film that concentrates on the political and spiritual rather than the personal . the set design and cinematography are outstanding , and while scorsese occasionally seems to get carried away with the spectacle , it helps to augment the cultural contrast when the dalai lama travels to china to meet chairman mao . political art sometimes succumbs to the temptation to start shouting slogans , kundun does not : it succeeds in delivering its message in an artistically interesting way and without being overly manipulative .

movie concepts are often pitched to producers with mathematical formulas involving successful films of the past . so , undoubtedly one day someone said , " 'evolution ? ' it's 'ghostbusters' plus 'men in black' plus 'tremors . ' " and so it is . sum total none . the alienbusting begins when a meteor lands in glen canyon , arizona . community college science profs ira kane ( david duchovny ) and harry block ( orlando jones ) take some samples from the meteor and discover that one-celled organisms from inside it are evolving rapidly , doing in hours what took millions of years for life on earth . just about the time i was wondering , " hey , doesn't the government usually come in and take over the whole area in these movies , " the government came in and took over the whole area . the leader of the pack , gen . woodman ( ted levine ) , turns out to be an old nemesis of ira's , and ira and harry are blocked from doing further research . meanwhile , the organisms continue to grow until they are large enough to start attacking people . by this time , ira and harry have gained a friend in dr . allison reed ( julianne moore ) of the center for disease control . a country club poolboy , wayne green ( seann william scott ) , has also attached himself to the merry band . but can they find the means to stop the aliens in time ? director ivan reitman seems to be revisiting his biggest hit , 1984's " ghostbusters , " but " evolution " falls miserably short . one reason is readily apparent . " ghostbusters " had three really funny guys as its scientists ( bill murray , dan aykroyd , and harold ramis ) , but " evolution " has one really funny guy ( orlando jones ) who can adlib and milk the comic potential of lines that prove useless in anyone else's hands . for good measure , " ghostbusters " had the comic talents of rick moranis ; " evolution " offers seann william scott , who was much funnier in " american pie " and " road trip " than he is here . scott has one amusing scene where he sings " you are so beautiful to me " to a dragon-like alien to draw it into a trap . other than that , scott seems unable to make much of the thin material the writers gave him . an actor in search of a forte , david duchovny looked for his gritty action hero side in " playing god " and his romantic side in " return to me . " now he wants to find his wacky comedic talent ; what we all find is that he doesn't have any . look for him to be back on tv in five years or so . another sad case is julianne moore , who needs to be more selective about the offers she accepts . she's a talented actress with an impressive list of credits and award nominations , so why is she trying to do slapstick comedy ? her character has a tendency to trip over and bump into things , but the trait comes off as a pathetic plea for laughs . the sole saving grace of the film is jones . he's at the center of the movie's funniest scene -- where an alien bug invades harry's body and has to be pulled out through his ass . jones is the only cast member who can take the comedic ball and run with it , but he can't carry the whole movie by himself . he found himself in a similar situation in " the replacements , " where he was also the only comic talent in an ensemble cast . jones will eventually find the project that will make him a major comedy star , but this isn't it .

in _daylight_ , sylvester stallone breaks no new ground , cinematically speaking , but he covers familiar territory quite well . yesterday , as i was going about my business in the university bookstore , i noticed this stand with these _daylight_ movie posters on it . i had never heard of the movie , so i stopped by to check it out . it turned out that they were giving away free passes to the movie for people who had or applied for the credit card they were offering . so , i shrugged , thought , " hey , they probably won't give me the card anyway , and i could always use a free movie , " so i signed up . all in all , i don't think i got that bad of a deal , either . rob cohen , who has previously brought us such films as _dragon : the bruce lee story_ and , more recently , _dragonheart_ ( gee , i wonder if he likes dragons for some reason ? you think ? ) , now brings us a very nicely executed disaster picture , with fx by industrial light and magic , about the after-effects of an explosion that collapses a busy tunnel between new york and new jersey . sylvester stallone plays kit latura , who is essentially a carbon copy of the character he played in _cliffhanger_ : a paramedic on the outs because he made a mistake that got people killed . when the crisis hits , he is in the right place at the right time and takes it upon himself to go in and get everybody out . there are other similarities to _cliffhanger_ , too ; perhaps the only real difference is that _cliffhanger_ had a villain , where _daylight_'s bad guy is mother nature . in fact , had the two movies been made in hong kong , this might have been titled _cliffhanger ii_--it bears the same relationship to that film that most hk film " sequels " do to their predecessors . the first half-hour of _daylight_ is setup . subplots are woven , and the mechanism of the disaster is assembled . we meet all the important people . . . toxic waste disposal truck drivers ; a young , frustrated , jilted , rejected playwright ; a family struggling to stay together ; an older couple and their dog ; a truckload of prisoners ; an ad agency executive ; a tunnel police officer ; stallone ; and others . we watch the trucks trundle toward their destination ; we watch stallone and so many others driving toward the tunnel for their various reasons . and then , thirty minutes into the film , _boom_ . and it's a big one . >from there on in , it's sly stallone to the rescue . and rescue he does , enduring batterings , beatings , falls , repeated immersion in 34-degree water , explosions , mud , rats , and constant setbacks , before going on to save the day , sly-style . again . . . there's nothing new here . and yet there doesn't need to be . the fun of _daylight_ is not in the story but in the execution . the special-effects are first-rate , thanks to industrial light and magic , and the ensemble cast works well together . once the film hits its stride , it carries the viewer right along to the finish , with very few jars along the way . this review is copyright 1996 by christopher e . meadows . permission granted for distribution through rec . arts . movies . reviews and all associated archival . permission granted for free redistribution via cyberspace as long as this message remains attached . all other rights reserved to the author .

i've heard it called " jaws with claws " and that's a fair summation of the plot , though that tag line does little to quantify quality . director stephen hopkins ( blown away , predator 2 ) and screenwriter william goldman ( maverick , misery ) would have you believe that this is an epic historical drama about man against nature , based on what really happened in africa to the railroad workers trying to build a bridge to the 20th century . they've stacked the deck with two big stars ( val kilmer , michael douglas ) , a bigger production design , beautiful photography ( by academy award winner vilmos zsigmond ) , and a score so overblown that it makes the lion king soundtrack sound like chamber music . the movie doesn't make a lick of sense , though , either as an epic or as your basic boo-fest . in fact , some of the bits are so laughably ludicrous that you may think you've stumbled into the sequel to mystery science theater 3000 : the movie . how about the three guys with rifles , who trap a lion and then can't even hit the damned thing ? or the ham-on-wry acting of michael douglas , who chews more scenery than the animals ever do ? ? or , my favorite , lions so agile that they can even climb onto rooftops ? ! ?

my opinion on a film can be easily swayed by the presence of actors i love . i love ralph fiennes . i love uma thurman . i love sean connery . hell , i'm even a big fan of jim broadbent and fiona shaw . i saw the fantastic preview for the avengers nearly eight months ago , and i've been eagerly awaiting the film ever since . a few months into the summer , however , i noticed that its release date had been changed a few times , and that it had ended up in the mid-august dumping ground . then , in this final week before its official release , i learned that it was not to be screened for critics . and that the actors had not been plugging the film on late night programs . and that it was directed by the same man who brought us the remake of diabolique . my expectations fell to pieces when i learned all of these things . the film i saw today didn't even meet those expectations . this is a lousy , incoherent mess . i would slam it harder , if it weren't for the nifty sets and the mere presence of all these fine , lovable actors . but sets are ultimately empty , and the performances are completely uninspired . that's the main problem with the avengers : for all it's hip-hop flash and tidal waves , none of it feels the least bit energetic or inspired . it's like a chore , a bland exercise in superhero film making . it also feels like its been cut to pieces , clocking in at 90 minutes and forgetting to close some of its own subplots . this is just plain depressing . the avengers is a film version of the popular 60s television show . frequent readers of mine will not be surprised to learn that i've never watched an episode . i wasn't alive then . i don't even watch television now . i'm very sorry that i don't have this perspective , but , judging from the reviews i've already read , knowing the tv show just makes matters worse . i didn't know and love john steed and emma peel , and therefore i was not as upset to see how these actors i love have managed to thrash their roles . i also doubt that familiarity with the series would allow me to understand more clearly the chain of events that do take place in this film . based on what the film told me , i gather that steed ( fiennes ) is some kind of british super guy ( somewhat like james bond ) , and that dr . peel ( thurman ) is just a really smart doctor , who also happens to know a lot about weather and about beating people up while limited by tight leather suits . they are to work together , under mother's orders ( mother is played by jolly jim broadbent , while his co-conspirator , father , is played by the equally-talented fiona shaw ) . it seems that there is a man out there controlling the weather . his name is de wynter ( connery ) . he is a crazy scottish guy . our heroes had better stop him , or else . . . the weather will keep getting colder until they " have to go to hell to warm up " ( one of the film's few funny lines ) . along the way there is subplot after subplot , hinged sloppily together by scenes that go nowhere , feel perfunctory , and ultimately make no sense . for example , our heroes are eventually attacked by a swarm of giant mechanical insects with machineguns attached to their torsos . now , killer bugs don't really go with the weather-controlling theme of the film . the purpose of the bugs , other than to annihilate our heroes , is never established . they're never even directly connected to de wynter ( they're controlled by his crazy henchman , played by eddie izzard ) . the special effects aren't bad , but they're loud , obnoxious , and intrusive . like so many scenes in the film , it seems present only to keep your attention from waning . and i guarantee you , it will wane . i stopped thinking about the story when i realized it didn't do any good to think . the avengers has clearly been chopped up and re-assembled so many times that even the people involved couldn't tell us what happens . there are several scenes in the preview that didn't make the final cut . in addition , many of the sequences have irritating , grainy film quality , which makes it feel low-budget ( the last scene is particularly bad ) . the scenes that don't feature action should be electric , thanks to our wonderful cast . they aren't . the action scenes should be electric , because this is an action film . they aren't , either . and what about this wasted cast ? oh , it makes me weep with disappointment . we're talking ralph fiennes here , one of the best actors working today , one of the best actors * ever * . i love the guy . i've loved all his films , until this one . he seems like he wants to understand the film , but he's as lost as we are . and thurman , in all of her spectacular beauty and talent , can't manage to look at home here . ( i don't blame her completely , for there is a strange subplot involving her evil twin that is never explained in any way , and it can't be easy to deal with such terrible screenwriting . ) connery , however , seems the most out of it , totally lacking any kind of focus , or interest , for that matter . who is to blame ? is it the screenwriter , don macpherson ? perhaps , although i can see a shell of a story here that could have been a good superhero movie had it been handled right . is it the actors ? for god's sake , no -- these people clearly lost interest when they saw the inevitable path of destruction on which this film was travelling . i blame director jeremiah chechik , who shouldn't have been given the task to begin with . his best film , benny & joon , is quirky in the same way that this one was supposed to be , but here it mostly seems like a lot of failed attempts at wit and humor . add to that a lack of experience in big-budget action , and you have the worst choice for director this side of james ivory . if the avengers has a saving grace , it's the set design . the sets ( by stuart craig ) are big , colorful , and often pleasing to look at . i like the final set-piece , on de wynter's island , even if none of it makes a bit of sense . i admired the overhead view of the stairs , showing dr . peel running around in circles and never getting anywhere . i also enjoyed michael kamen's music score , particularly in the opening credits . but this stuff is routine -- good sets and music are nice , but there's a lot more that needs to be here . inspiration , for instance , would have been really nice . maybe a little bit of cohesion in the story . or a sense of purpose . most of all , though , i would have liked to see these actors relish in their roles . damn this movie for not giving them the chance .

so what do you get when you mix together plot elements from various successful sci-fi films such as close encounters of the third kind , 2001 : a space odyssey , apollo 13 and contact ? well , whatever it is , you'd sure as hell hope that it would be a thousand times better than this shoddy attempt at such a melange , considering the disastrous results we're left with here . this is a film that takes a little bit of everything , but ultimately adds up to a lot of nothing ! it's like i said . . . this movie sucks . plot : a rescue crew of astronauts is sent down to mars in the year 2020 , after an unknown energy force leads to a loss of contact with the previous gang of space aviators to visit the red planet . critique : extremely underwhelming is the best way to describe this movie . uneven , would be another . the trailer for this movie actually showed some promise , the buzz around it had been so-so , and even the film itself starts off with a decent first twenty minutes , all leading you to believe that it's actually going to go " somewhere " . but it isn't long before the entire movie downshifts into neutral , features more space walks than anything interesting on the cherry-colored planet , tries too hard to get us into the " pain " of some its characters and unsuccessfully tosses some romance into the mix . in a sci-fi movie ? well , i don't know , much of it just seemed like a bunch of nerdies talking techie jargon for about an hour and a half , only to figure out some big secret in the end , a secret which practically had me yawning with excitement . ultimately , this is a movie that starts off with a decent premise , joins the crew in their " misadventures in space " for the main crux of its journey , and eventually settles down for one of the most anti-climactic endings this side of contact . mind you , if you enjoyed that film's shrug-of-the-shoulders ending , you might just enjoy this frivolous ditty as well . of course , i don't remember contact having such obvious and painfully distracting computer generated effects at its end of story . ugh . what a friggin' mess . films like this generally get me wondering about the brass in hollywood again . didn't anybody recognize the crappiness in this script ? didn't they read the bad dialogue , the cheezy lines , the obvious derivative nature of the work ( mind you , with a director like depalma at the helm , that ain't saying much ! ) . of course , you can't really blame the brass for the inclusion of jerry o'connell in this fine crew of thespians . 'nuff said . neither can you blame them for depalma cranking up the juice on the film's musical score during the last fifteen minutes , presumably in order to wake the audience up ( okay , we get it brian , this scene is supposed to be powerful . . . wow . . . yawn . . . my ears hurt ! ) . so is anything salvageable in this movie ? sure . gary sinise does another great job , as does cheadle , the film doesn't completely bore you as much as it just moves along slowly without anything really interesting happening , and yes , the " sand-twister " effect that you see in the commercial is well done . other than that ? i guess i could say that i admire how filmmakers have become so much more devious in their product placement strategies . . . oops , did i say " admire " , i meant " am disgusted " ! all in all , this movie delivers very little in actual substance , offers two-bit dialogue masked in a lot of sci-fi mumbo-jumbo , pretends to be deep when really it's just sappy , and eventually just settles into an ending which , other than presenting us with a pathetic computer graphic as a part of the story , gives us little more to think about than how we might be able to get our money back for sitting through this rehashed dreck . go see the ninth gate . . . now there's a great movie ! and on a personal note , i think it's time for depalma to stop worrying so much about his proverbial 12-minute uninterrupted film sequences , and start worrying more about how crappy his movies are getting .

charlie sheen stars as zane , a radio astronomer who listens for sounds from other lifeforms . when he finally gets one , his boss destroys the tape and fires him . naturally , zane is not ready to give up , and he comes up with an ingenious way to do this himself . he is aided by a young neighborhood kid and they discover that the sound is coming from mexico . so zane goes down there to investigate , and runs into a lady studying why the temperature of the earth has dangerously risen so suddenly . zane is having marital problems at the time , and an offer by her to spend the night with him is very tempting . hearing charlie sheen deliver the line , " i guess there is something to be said for celibacy " is the funniest thing i have ever heard in a movie since matthew broderick discussed asexual reproduction in wargames . this is just the setup , and i don't want to give too much away , because a large part of the movies fun is the surprises . charlie sheen , who has had a rocky career as of late , is in top form here . he is funny , serious , and determined to accomplish his goal . sheen's absolutely terrific performance is another big plus to this movie . the story is ingeniously devised by twohy , who also wrote and directed the equally clever cable movie grand tour : disaster in time . the films major flaw is a very slow pace , and not much happens in the earlygoings . viewers may be growing restless for a while , but trust me if you stick around and keep your head in it , you will have a good time .

in the continuation of warner brother's franchise , joel schumacher has successfully killed this cash cow . what makes this film such a grand disappointment is the tremendous line up of talented people involved with the film . avika goldsman's screenplay is such a cluttered mess that there is no suspense built from one scene to another . this coming on the heals of such a marvelously written project as " the client " is such a shock that it gives rise to thoughts that the latter film was a fluke . situations are developed and executed with no thought of reason other that to get the characters from one point to another . this is most glaringly brought to point by the appearance of alicia silverstone's batgirl , who just happens to be alfred's niece . the story of dr . victor freeze is told almost completely in dialogue as an afterthought . while working on a cure for a tragic decease contracted by his wife , dr . freeze is injured during a cryogenic procedure , and becomes a man who can only survive in a sub zero environment . now of course he has become a terrorist intent on turning the world into a frozen planet where only he can live . now the logic of that little sub-plot escapes me . if mr . freeze wanted to find a cure for his wife and bring her back from the brink of death , why would he want to have her live in a world with no warmth . this is indeed a cold hearted man . the development of poison ivy is no less contradictory . she wants to breed a form of plant life that can defend itself like an animal . she joins with mr . freeze in his plan to start a new ice age , destroying all animal life , therefore giving her plant creations no reason to have the defense mechanism she had been trying to breed into them . the characters have no logic . batman of course is no longer the dark knight of the earlier films . now that he has an adoptive son in burt ward / robin , bruce wayne is trying to be a father figure , constantly spouting out homilies about family and relationships , while at the same time not really having any . george clooney tries in vain to keep from rolling his eyes while reciting the dialogue given him . to say that his performance is workman-like is to be generous . his best performances are still on " e . r . " . bruce wayne has the most unromantic evening with his girlfriend ( played by elle macpherson ) , that it brings into question bruce's latent homosexuality . there is no spark and no passion ( as there was for nicole kidman's psychologist in " batman forever " ) between bruce and anyone other than alfred . and even that relationship is very reserved . robin comes off less charismatic that in the last film in the series . now he's just a spoiled kid . in " batman forever " , burt ward wanted to be batman's partner and friend . now , robin is suffering from ego deficiency . robin's attraction for poison ivy is not believable , except for a boy around the age of 15 . his later flirtation with batgirl smacks of incest , even though they are not related in a traditional sense . chris o'donnell , once considered a rising star , successfully burns up on reentry with this performance . his robin needs nothing more than a good spanking . the less said about alicia silverstone's performance the better . this talented young actress reads her lines with all the aplomb of a dubbing actor for a godzilla film . she was cast strictly for her commercial value and she knew it . this brings us to the villains . arnold scharzenegger walks through his part with all the concern of someone waiting for payday . the most rediculous scene is during mr . freeze's imprisonment . the guards are at least a foot taller that arnold and yet fall at his hand in one of the most unbelievable fights scenes caught on film . it's almost as ludicrous as seeing michael jackson as a gang member . umu thurman struts and coos her way through her part , showing a growing discomfort with her sex symbol status . her poison ivy has all the come hither sex appeal of may west in " sextette " ( 1978 ) . the only performances worthy of notice are pat hingle and michael gough . these two seasoned veterans carry their scenes with a dignity sorely lacking from the rest of the film . without going through the intricacies of the plot , there is one question that always comes to mind with this series ( except for the first " batman " ) , and that is how do these super villains manage to hire so many thugs only to abandon them at the final reel . mr . freeze is introduced with a team of hockey playing hoodlums that seem to have stepped out of an old kiss music video . every villain ( even the minor ones ) have to have a look , no one can be an individual with day glow paint on their face or some sort of elaborate costume . with this film , warner brothers has succeeded in retrograding the series back to it's tv incarnation . the only thing missing from the action scenes are the superimposed titles detailing the pows ! , gwaaaa's , and clang's associated with the old series . you almost wonder if william dozier , producer of the tv series is collecting royalties from this film . the special effects ( by john dykstra ) and production design ( by barbara ling ) are the primary stars of this film . and it is a case of extravagance in the pursuit of nothing . every set , from ivy's lair , the batcave , to freeze's hideout is set with enough neon and fiberglass to keep the epa in paperwork for years to come . there is no one realistic set or set piece in the film . everything is set for maximum exposure . the special effects have that strange cartoon look that most rushed cgi effects have . there are homage thrown in by dykstra and his team to gene warren and his work on " the time machine " ( the growing plant scene ) but these scenes are so wroth with glaring color and art that they are almost obscured . joel schumacher has directed the film with no flair . camera angles are poorly chosen rehashing set ups from the old tv series . master shots pepper the action scenes , destroying any flow of kinetic quality they may have had . mr . schumacher is a good director . one just has to look back on the films " the lost boys " , " cousins " ( an underrated film ) and " the client " to know that . but " batman and robin " comes off as a mated made for tv movie . the film has no style of individuality . it is the cinematic equivalent to jell-o , pretty to look at , but empty . it is unfortunate that this film , even with it's surprisingly strong box office has succeeded in doing what warner's thought tim burton would do with the franchise . kill it . joel schumacher's " batman & robin " is loud , colorful , action packed , and ultimately . . boring . stars .

a couple of criminals ( mario van peebles and loretta devine ) move into a rich family's house in hopes of conning them out of their jewels . however , someone else steals the jewels before they are able to get to them . writer mario van peebles delivers a clever script with several unexpected plot twists , but director mario van peebles undermines his own high points with haphazard camera work , editing and pacing . it felt as though the film should have been wrapping up at the hour mark , but alas there was still 35 more minutes to go . daniel baldwin ( i can't believe i'm about to type this ) gives the best performance in the film , outshining the other talented members of the cast . [r]

kids today , they don't just want to see heartthrob and master thespian freddie prinze jr . loving on the ladies . no , they want to see him doing something that takes a little more in the acting department : namely , playing baseball . through a series of drippy voiceovers , we are informed that there's no better proving ground for major league baseball than the cape cod summer baseball leagues , where college also-rans and hopeful dropouts go to play in the hopes of attracting big league attention . our man freddie has landed a spot as a pitcher on the prestigious chatham a's , where he is hoping for his big break . it's only after he is given ample time to show off his abs and scamper about in a woman's thong ( don't ask ) that we learn what the real story of summer catch will be : that prinze is a poor townie named ryan dunne , struggling to make a name for himself ; that neither his father ( fred ward ) nor brother ( jason gedrick ) pulled themselves out of their blue collar jobs and resent anyone who tries ; and that the local beauty tenley -- tenley ! ( jessica biel ) -- is so far out of his league that he probably shouldn't even bother . . . but of course he makes a play for her . summer catch also makes an abortive stab at another half a dozen subplots -- the jealousy of fellow townie and brazen slut dee dee ( brittany murphy ) , the alienation felt by ryan's non-baseball playing best friend ( gabriel mann ) , or the fat chick fetish of fellow player miles ( marc blucas ) . worst of these is a ludicrous bit involving that '70s show's wilmer valderrama and beverly d'angelo , both of whom appear in the film simply to provide a nutty mrs . robinson-like substory and to remind you of how much better done that was in bull durham . in fact , virtually all of summer catch feels like it's been done better somewhere else . for starters , the film has a major question of identity . it's definitely not a sports movie , and it fails pretty miserably at being a romance . the worst part is the amateurish script ( co-written by an arli$$ writing alumnus and a guy that starred in leprechaun 3 ) , chock-full of phony emotion . by the end , it all becomes a platform for each character to deliver a soliloquy to ryan that he must take to heart . dad is on hand to give fatherly yet drunken advice . coach ( brian dennehy , just loving the fact that he's got some work on the big screen ) is on hand to give the curmudgeonly counterpoint . ryan's catcher ( matthew lillard , playing himself again ) is on hand to tell ryan to " play catch " with him and make fun of the fat fetish guy . ryan's stoner best friend is on hand to give the go-get-'em-tiger-we're-behind-you talk . and the girlfriend is on hand to give heartwarming-nuzzly-follow-your-dreams counsel . before long , you start to wonder : is freddy prinze jr . is capable of having a thought of his own ? don't answer that . the only real joy in the film is found in biel's character , and not just because of the skimpy outfits , which are also usually wet . she's the only one in the movie that is able to do much with her role , taking the rebelling-against-daddy character to at least a passing grade . when she's on screen , the time flies by . when she's not , you realize that for some ungodly reason this movie is almost two hours long . for a pg-13 teen romance ( despite near-constant sexual innuendo ) , one has to ask warner brothers : what were you thinking ? ? ? for her part , biel has fallen so far from her 7th heaven roots that she has almost become denise richards . hollywood is either about to eat her alive . . . or vice versa . either way , good luck , jessica . as for freddie , if he keeps pumping teen romances out at the rate of two a year , prinze's next " summer catch " is liable to be a venereal disease .

it's time to take cover . after a hiatus of about fifteen years , the disaster movie has come back with renewed zest . in early 1997 , there were no less than three movies about volcanoes alone , one on television and two in the theaters , with dante's peak and volcano in heavy competition for the moviegoing dollar . of the two , i had heard that dante's peak was the better film , so i decided to check it out when it was released on video . the film begins with a slow motion scene of people in a third world country trying to evacuate their little town . the town is being covered in ash and sulfuric water from what we presume is a volcanic eruption . flaming rocks of various sizes also fall from the sky , crushing homes and people . we see people panicking , people crying , and even horses rearing . it is a disaster of biblical proportions , signified to us by one person dragging a cross down a road . symbolism doesn't get much more blatant than that . we learn that harry dalton ( pierce brosnan ) , a volcanologist with the u . s . geological survey , was there with his wife when the eruption occurred . harry survived , but his wife did not . a few years later , harry is sent to investigate some unusual seismic activity detected near the small town of dante's peak , washington ( which , we are told , has been voted second most desirable place to live ( under 20 , 000 ) by the readers of money magazine ) . there harry meets rachel wando , a single mother of two who serves as mayor of dante's peak and proprietor of a small coffee shop . although the mayor doesn't seem to be alarmed by the presence of a man sent to determine if the mountain next to their town is going to blow up , a few members of the city council are . they are afraid that harry's presence is going to scare off an investor who has pledged to put millions of dollars into developing dante's peak . they would rather have any news of possible stirrings within the neighboring dormant volcano swept under the rug . however , when an amorous young couple takes a skinny-dip in the local hot springs , they turn up cooked by lava which bubbles up from a small fissure underneath . thus begins a chain of events leading up to the inevitable eruption . this film contains a number of cliches . the amorous couple is one . as soon as they doff their clothes , you know they're going to die . the town busybody and the abrasive mother-in-law make appearances , as does the death-defying dog . countless familiar scenarios only serve to make this film very predictable . watching the movie , i was able to not only anticipate each of the major plot elements , but some of the dialogue as well . unfortunate , since much of the dialog is terrible . for example , harry's boss , paul ( charles hallahan ) , and a team from the u . s . geological survey join harry to assess the situation . paul basically tells the townsfolk that harry's eruption predictions aren't cause for alarm . this causes harry to leave in a fit of rage , only to turn up the next day , ready for work . when paul asks harry why he stayed , he says with grim determination , " cause this town's in trouble and i'm the best man you've got . " even better is when harry is trying to explain the need to jolt the residents into leaving . he likens the situation to how a frog will jump out if dropped into a pot of boiling water . if the frog is in cold water which is gradually heated up , however , the frog won't move and will allow itself to be cooked . " is that your recipe for frog soup ? " asks one of the team members . " it's my recipe for disaster , " responds harry . dante's peak has a singular talent for pointing out the obvious . our heroes are in a boat in the middle of a lake which harry realizes the volcanic activity has turned to acid . mayor wando demonstrates her brilliant powers of deduction by proclaiming , in a very grave tone , " acid eats metal . " thanks for the tip . when we first see the u . s . geological survey building , there's a caption labeling it as such . this wouldn't have been so bad if it weren't for the fact that the caption is right above a sign on the building which reads , in large letters , " u . s . geological survey . " i suppose the caption is for people who can't read signs . although harry and mayor wando become an item by the end of the film , the viewer has no idea why . there is a severe lack of chemistry between the two characters , and the relationship seems rushed because of this . when they get close to kissing , i was asking myself , " why do they want to kiss ? were they even attracted to each other ? " if i were the mayor , i would sure think twice about kissing a guy who doesn't even crack a smile through the whole movie , trying to pull off the rough-yet-debonair act . who does he think he is ? james bond ? the eruption of the volcano feels similarly rushed . there are several " warning signs " prior to the eruption itself , but they are so lackluster and without suspense that we don't feel as if they are leading up to anything . for example , one of the survey team members makes his way down into the crater of the volcano in order to retrieve a remote controlled robot . a tremor occurs . does he plunge headlong to his death ? is he engulfed in lava which shoots up from below ? no , a couple of rocks fall on him and break his leg . the sole purpose of this scene seemed to be to set up the subsequent chopper rescue scene , which i suppose was intended to be dramatic as well . it wasn't . one plot thread left noticeably hanging was the investment in the town of dante's peak . in a disaster movie , there's usually one guy who's greedy enough to cover up the possibility of eruption/fire/earthquake/explosion/tsunami/tornado/meteorite , and usually gets killed by the disaster . it's okay , of course , because we all think he got what he deserved . if you're going to be unoriginal , you might as well go all the way . in dante's peak , the city councilmembers are concerned , but they don't really try hard enough . maybe the mayor's abrasive mother-in-law should have been the one . for no apparent reason , she snaps at harry for even positing that the volcano could erupt . perhaps her ancestors invested in some pompeii real estate . there are a couple of good things about this movie . the first is the scenery . there are panoramic shots of forests , lakes and mountains that are absolutely beautiful . the second is the special effects . they are the closest i've ever seen to a real pyroclastic eruption . but when elements which don't speak are going to be the best parts of your movie , you'd probably better rewrite the script .

don't get me wrong -- i tend to appreciate besson's naive , unashamedly romantic worldview , an artsy european sensibility gone thoroughly hollywood . his 1994 leon is exciting and absurdly moving , thanks mainly to the interplay between jean reno and a young natalie portman , and 1997's the fifth element is a goofy paean to love , l-u-v , that's even more of a hoot on repeated viewings . but his joan of arc is a mess , despite some stirring battle scenes and the mostly knockout presence of a close-cropped milla jovovich as the maiden herself . jovovich , besson's own personal muse through the making of his last two films ( though they've since separated ) , is magnetic and energetic enough to play a credible joan ( as long as you believe joan was not just a warrior , but also a fabulous , supermodel-level babe ) . and besson remains a servicable action film director , though not an especially facile one . leading her army against the seemingly impenetrable fortresses of the english , joan's struggle against great odds is undeniably stirring , and besson helps you understand how the french could believe , fervently , that god is on her side . besson's big mistake , i think , is trying to dramatize the interior life of his subject . yes , joan had visions -- but i guarantee that whatever image a sympathetic audience conjures in its collective mind will be more compelling than the blue-eyed christ figure on display in besson's hallucinatory dream sequences . the whole conceit turns into a disaster right about the time dustin hoffman ( billed as " the conscience " ) shows up , spouting platitudes and sending poor milla running around her cell , babbling like ally mcbeal . that's kind of a shame , since she does quite well up to that point , charging into battle with a banshee wail that suggests the eruption of a sublimated bloodthirstiness . that darkly attractive aspect of her character -- that she's as likely a charismatic madwoman as the vessel of the lord -- is more or less betrayed by the final reels , in which the conscience browbeats her over the killing she's overseen and joan starts to look like little more than a very confused young lady who's about to take a fall . as the story winds down , with joan condemned to a horrible death by fire , besson is aiming for tragedy and psychological significance . trouble is , he's chosen a lurid , often jokey tone for the balance of the picture -- including some blithe cgi bloodshed in the battle scenes -- and it's impossible to shake the feeling that this particular vision of the middle ages is , to a great extent , nothing more than a put-on . this glib , pre-fab version of such a great story makes me all the more grateful for dreyer's the passion of joan of arc ( 1928 ) , a film whose dialogue is drawn from the actual transcripts of joan's trial , and which stands as one of the most harrowing experiences in all of cinema . compared to that film , the messenger plays as a crime against history . -------------------------------------------------------------- directed by luc besson written by besson and andrew birkin cinematography by thierry arbogast music by eric serra starring milla jovovich france/usa , 1999 theatrical aspect ratio : 2 . 35 : 1 --------------------------------------------------------------

capsule : where are you tonight , leni rienfenstal ? starship troopers is an expensive , hateful and unenjoyable piece of violent pornography -- and bad pornography , at that . it is not good cinema , not good storytelling , and not even stupid fun : it's so cynically , calculatedly bone-headed that even the least demanding members of the audience i was with were alternately bored and revulsed . it's one of the worst movies i've seen in a long time . why am i calling this movie pornography ? pornography , in the abstract , is anything which is calculated to appeal to the baser instincts . i remember reading a review of full metal jacket which described the climact moment at the end of the movie , where private joker has to shoot the downed vc sniper , as " a near-pornographic eternity " . i didn't agree with that assessment , but i could see what was being implied : the reviewer felt as if the audience was being incited to stand up and pump their fists and shout " do 'er , man , do 'er ! " that sentiment is echoed ad nauseam throughout starship troopers . it's * literally * like a giant recruitment film that has gone berserk . it tries frantically to enlist our emotions but it winds up only being dull or sickening . the film takes place in our future , when earth has come under attack by some alien species that doesn't appear to have intelligence . to counterattack , humankind does the single stupidest thing imaginable : instead of nuke the planet from orbit , which they're clearly capable of , they send down grunts with m-16 rifles . this isn't heinlein , it's a bad wwii movie , one where all the most obvious points of satire are ever poked and prodded in combat scenes that are noisy , repetitive , and ultimately tiresome . ( one scene has a journalist on a battlefield , filimg soldiers being slaughtered , and ends with groaning predictability : said cameraman gets skewered , too . ) the soldiers and their commanders are consistently idiotic . they do not possess a germ of tactical intelligence or even common sense . they don't even behave like soldiers in a bad * movie * , and therefore we don't care about them . we hated the tom berenger character in platoon , but he * mattered * , and therefore we were curious to learn about his fate . here , we don't even hate the bugs -- what's there to hate ? hating them would be like cursing a hurricaine . if there's anything really hateful there , the movie doesn't know how to give it to us . the screenwriter ( ed neumeier -- perhaps a better appelation would be " screen typist " ) and director ( the increasingly talent-impaired paul verhoeven ) have not found any way to make the characters or the story serve each other . one of the subplots concerns a woman pilot who's great at getting out of tight situations , and does it again and again and again . once or twice is fine . by the fifth or sixth time , it's worn out its welcome . there's never any sense that these people are really thinking their way out of anything , or really being tested to show their mettle . also , the movie is irritatingly selective with how effective the bugs are to earthling weaponry . if a bug has one of the humans screaming in its grasp , then five guys can stand around it and blast away on full auto without doing a damned thing . but if one human gets cornered , he lays waste to whole platoons of bugs with one clip . uh-huh . the very worst feature of the movie is its repulsive quasi-fascist flavor . i say " quasi- " because while the movie uses many of the trappings of fascism ot eroticize its action -- the gear , the uniforms , etc . -- the movie doesn't have the nerve ( or the brains ) to be genuinely fascist , or intelligent about the subject . the bumpers between scenes , which are apparently intended to parody wartime recruitment propaganda are propaganda -- just so clumsy and oafish that they wind up making the bugs look relatively innocuous in comparison . like the rest of the movie . there's more , i suppose , but it's not worth it . the acting is bland , neither arsenic nor gravy ; the music disposable ; the camerawork turgid . the heartbreaking thing is that it makes independence day look like a masterpiece .

you don't look at a ren ? magritte painting and search for a deeper meaning . you likewise don't look at one for 88 minutes straight . surrealist works are notable for their quirks , and they are fun , but looking at one quirk for an hour and a half is exhausting . that was my experience with i woke up early the day i died , a surrealistic , hyperactive comedy with no dialogue . it's not a silent movie ; there is lots of atmospheric music , occasional screams and weird sound effects , but nobody ever utters an audible word . though the film is distinctive , its unique style wore thin after about 20 minutes , and as it progressed , watching became a chore . the only reason the script ever got filmed is because it was written by the pseudo-legendary ed wood , the man behind such " classics " as plan 9 >from outer space and night of the ghouls . the joke , of course , is that his films are so bad , they're good ; so humorous in their inanity that they become hits . i woke up early the day i died , unfortunatly , is so bad that it's really bad . it stars billy zane ( titanic ) as a dangerous lunatic who overpowers a nurse , escapes from a mental hospital and proceeds to wonder around , stealing a car , clothes , and a load of money . our thief reaches a cemetery , where he witnesses a bizarre ritual . he falls asleep and finds himself , literally , in a hole , with his money gone . for whatever reason , he is bent on getting his hard-unearned cash back ( considering how easily he stole it the first time , why didn't he just go steal some more ? ) . he comes upon a list of the people who were at the mysterious ceremony and commences to seek out each of them and kill them if they don't have what he is looking for . i don't think either director aris iliopulos nor ed wood realized that this would have made a glorious 20 minute short . the subject and the style seem to have been made for it . unfortunately , twenty minutes worth of material is stretched out to more than four times that length , and the film simply overstays its already dubious welcome . it grabbed my attention in the beginning and gradually lost it as it went on , up to the point where halfway through i was already weary . it might seem odd that a film as furiously paced as this one can be so tedious ; but the surprise will wear off when you consider how repetitive it is . i woke up early the day i died is a comedy , i guess , though it could have fooled me . unlike most ed wood films , this one tries to be funny and fails , instead of the other way around . there's nothing inherently wrong with that , in fact , i think it would only make sense for someone who has been so " good " at making unintentional comedies to take a stab at a real one . whether wood actually went for comedy in his script we'll never know , but in either case , this is a failure . jonathan taylor thomas , christina ricci , summer phoenix , john ritter and others show up for short and pointless cameos . ricci , for example , plays a prostitute . her role consists of dancing around with zane in his motel room and then being thrown out . thomas is an astonished onlooker as a woman gets thrown off a cliff . was the home improvement teen heartthrob really that desperate for work ? zane , meanwhile , occupies himself by making weird faces at the camera when he is not called upon to run around wildly and beat people up . lack of dialogue makes him the ultimate caricature . the carnival side-show climax manages to demonstrate everything that is wrong with this no-budget production . it's desperately unfunny , but thinks it's the funniest thing since plan 9 ; , it's so spontaneously surrealistic it makes your head spin all while being confusing enough to make your head spin twice as fast in the other direction . i hope another film is made from an ed wood screenplay for i woke up early the day i died is not a fitting send-off . ? 1999 eugene novikov &#137 ;

i know that " funnest " isn't a word . " fun " is a noun , and therefore cannot be conjugated like an adjective . but that's the word that came to me right after viewing " chicken run . " no wonder : this is the kind of movie that reduces you to childish expressions , like " that was the funnest movie i've ever seen ! " so to hell with webster's -- " chicken run " is one of the funnest movies i've seen in a while . i can't remember the last time i've seen anything funner . the chickens at tweedy's farm are up to something . living in a concentration camp-like atmosphere , they are led by one plucky hen called ginger ( voice of julia sawalha ) who continually comes up with plans for escape -- and always gets caught , subsequently spending day after day in the coal box . one night , a brash american rooster flies in over the fence , calling himself rocky ( mel gibson ) , famous flying rooster and circus performer . rocky promises to teach the chickens how to fly , and the situation grows more desperate as the nefarious mrs . tweedy ( miranda richardson ) decides to abandon the farm's egg-selling plan for a pie-selling plan . she orders a huge pie-making machine , cackling , " chickens go in ; pies come out . " what sort of pies ? chicken pies , of course . co-director nick park and his studio , aardman animation , produced three oscar-winning short films : " creature comforts , " " the wrong trousers , " and " a close shave . " the latter two were the second and third installments of a trilogy starring the delightful team wallace & gromit , a man and his dog famous for getting themselves into increasingly peculiar adventures . part of what made the " wallace " films brilliantly entertaining was park's uncanny ability to make an old story seem new . " the wrong trousers , " for example , pulled out a lot of old hitchcockian suspense tricks , and " a close shave " owed a great deal of inspiration to classic detective stories . but in the hands of park and his team , the stories felt fresh and inspired , and not the least bit contrived . now teaming with co-director peter lord , park has created a similar creature in " chicken run . " the plot is largely lifted from " the great escape " ( watch for a quick reference to the ball-bouncing scene ) , with some spielberg-inspired action sequences providing the excitement . thing is , the film doesn't feel like it's been lifted from somewhere else ; " chicken run " feels fresh , alive , like nothing else ever done . part of it is the original idea : who in the world came up with the idea to make a prisoners-of-war movie starring chickens ? park and lord milk the incongruity for all it's worth : the characters treat their situation as if it were dead serious , and to them , it is . but they're * chickens * , so it's funny to us . another thing that helps " chicken run " ( and most of park's films ) succeed is the animators' subtle way of giving nods to the very films they're cribbing . there are references to " the great escape , " obviously , and " stalag 17 . " the chase sequence inside the chicken grinder parodies both " raiders of the lost ark " and " indiana jones and the temple of doom . " there's even a nod to " the blues brothers , " if you can believe it , and the filmmakers even get in a little light-hearted ribbing at the expense of their star voice actor , taking a couple of very subtle jabs at mel gibson's nationality and film history . the " braveheart " reference is a hoot if you catch it . when you consider just how fine a line resides between a funny parody and a redundant one , " chicken run " is downright brilliant in its execution . consider this : since july of last year , i've seen dozens upon dozens of " blair witch project " parodies , on television , on the radio , and online . out of all those , maybe one or two were amusing , the rest tiresome . why ? because once you got past the thought that " they're parodying that 'blair witch' movie , " most of the parodies had nothing to offer -- no insight , no original idea , no greater purpose . they were only funny if you had seen the movie ; otherwise , you got nothing . conversely , " chicken run " doesn't lean on its parodies -- the film references are never the sole focus of any scene . if you've never seen " indiana jones , " the chase sequence is still fun . even if you have no idea who mel gibson is , rocky remains an interesting character . park , lord , and screenwriter karey kirkpatrick realize that an audience does not need a parody shoved in their faces before it's understood , and as a result , " chicken run " is filled with visual and verbal jabs that are never too obvious , but not quite vague either . enjoyment of this movie doesn't require knowledge of film history , but if you've got it , " chicken run " is that much richer . the voice cast turns in uniformly lively performances , and the characters they play are given so many subtle nuances that it's hard not to fall in love with every one of them . ginger is perfect , spunky and opinionated , but with a soft heart that forbids her to leave her companions behind , and julia sawalha ( known as the cute mousy girl on " absolutely fabulous " ) nails it . she has warm , human chemistry with gibson , whose rocky hides his personal doubt under a brash gung-ho veneer . the characters' inevitable romance doesn't feel contrived , but sweet . poor mr . tweedy ( tony haygarth ) suspects the chickens are organizing in some way , but his limited intellect prevents him from figuring things out , and his overbearing wife certainly isn't any help . jane horrocks delivers a lovely voice characterization as tragically optimistic babs ( a hen that runs away with most of the best one-liners , all while perpetually crocheting a sweater ) , and two supply-trading rats that seem to have walked straight out of a monty python sketch nearly steal the show during the lively central swing-dancing sequence . they even come up with an inspired riff on something that's baffled scholars and theologians alike for decades : the chicken vs . egg dilemma . one might have expected this inevitable joke to come off as wearisome , but as with most of " chicken run , " it comes as a delightful surprise . the film manages to cross all barriers ; it should be accessible to both children and adults , brits and yanks , rats and chickens . the animation is first-rate . remember that this was all done the old-fashioned way , with actual humans moving clay figurines around on a tiny set bit by painstaking bit , and you see just how truly remarkable " chicken run " really is . this movie possesses that same quality that makes pixar studios' animation great : precise and unwavering attention to detail . as in such top-notch family fare as " a bug's life " or " toy story 2 , " " chicken run " has something to offer in nearly every frame . certainly a passive viewer can enjoy it as a straightforward story with a worthwhile moral and some surprisingly touching scenes , but a active , attentive viewers will enjoy it even more because they'll catch all the details . anyway , the movie's just a boatload of fun . funnest damn movie i've seen all year .

sometimes a stellar cast can compensate for a lot of things , and " pushing tin " certainly features some name stars who are going places : billy bob thornton , cate blanchett , angelina jolie , and oh yes john cusack who might not realize it at first , but he's actually the * veteran * among this quartet of fine-looking people . sometimes a terrific cast like this can compensate for a lackluster screen treatment of an idea that has " hip comedy " written all over it , compensate for workmanlike but uninspired direction , compensate for an obnoxious score that would have anyone but the tone deaf screaming for the exits , compensate for clich ? d characterizations , compensate for embarrassing " you have to be joking " situations . etc . in " pushing tin , " thornton , blanchett , jolie , and cusack don't have an earthly . from the opening sequence the film is in big trouble : squiggly , " quirky " credits , fake-looking passenger planes circling new york , and anne dudley's in-your-ear music making us wonder how she ever got that best original score nomination for " the full monty , " let alone won it . but i , for one , wasn't ready to walk just yet . so quickly we descend into a tightly-edited air traffic controllers montage which screams to us in large capital letters these people have a difficult job , yes , what with their frantic , mile-a-minute instructional personas , juggling planes and passenger's lives like some huge , real , mid-air video game . hip , cool , demonic auctioneer nick " the zone " falzone ( cusack ) is the best in the biz . of course . until some hipper , cooler , leather-clad flyboy assist in the guise of russell bell ( thornton ) shows up to challenge falzone's finite air space . boys will be boys and some heavy duty testosterone starts exuding , then the macho one-upmanship begins . it doesn't stop with seeing who can juggle three 747s within a cat's whisker of each other . oh no . there are some broken hoop dreams , some wanna-see-how-fast-i-can-drives , and then the ultimate showdown : was that my wife i saw you with last night ? director mike newell ( " four weddings and a funeral " ) must have read a different draft of this script because the one that's being acted out up there between newark , jfk , and la guardia doesn't have an ounce of subtlety , and newell has made some awfully good-and funny-movies before . the antics of these air traffic controllers will make you cringe . they'll make you frown in disbelief . they'll have you constantly looking at your watch . but wait ! there's still 100 minutes to go ! ! the film's only saving grace is blanchett , whose connie falzone is a spunky , brash , long island housewife who wants to better herself by taking art classes . this is a wonderful accomplishment for the fine actress who has previously played a red-headed australian gambler ( " oscar and lucinda " ) and a tempestuous british monarch ( " elizabeth " ) . but she's not enough to save the picture . thornton looks terrific and performs solidly but his character is a joke . jolie ( as russell's knock 'em dead wife ) isn't bad , but the up-and-coming actress disappoints by allowing herself to be displayed like a plaything . cusack cracks gum , dons shades , and acts hip throughout but , like everything else in the film , his performance is forced . in the last ten minutes or so , for some inexplicable reason , things start coming together and you begin to get a sense of how this film might have been , like the trailer teases . but it's too little too late . a fine cast aside , " pushing tin " is nothing more than an embarrassment .

deuce bigalow ( rob schneider ) cleans fish tanks . yeah , i didn't know that was a real job either . one of his customers is antoine leconte ( oded fehr ) , a successful gigolo . when antoine has to go to sweden for three weeks , he lets deuce use his house to look after an ailing $800 fish . fooling around , deuce sets fire to the kitchen and smashes a $6000 fish tank . after taking a try at one of antoine's clients and earning $10 , deuce decides to prostitute himself to raise the money to replace the fish tank before the fiery-tempered antoine returns . enter t . j . ( eddie griffin ) , a pimp for " man-whores , " who arranges for deuce to service an assortment of women whose imperfections keep them from dating . there's an enormous woman ( played by transvestite porn star chi chi la rue ) who hides food in her clothes . there's claire ( gail o'grady ) whose narcolepsy causes her to fall asleep every few minutes . tina ( torsten voges ) is so tall her face doesn't fit on the screen , and ruth ( amy poehler ) has tourette's syndrome and shouts obscenities without warning . finally there's kate ( arija bareikis ) whose sorority sisters secretly paid her fare . she seems perfect , and deuce quickly falls in love with her . ( she does , we discover later , have an imperfection , but deuce decides it isn't important . ) deuce's life is complicated by a bothersome cop ( william forsythe ) looking for information on antoine and by kate's discovery of his man-whoring . however , neither threat generates much suspense . the formula is so familiar that we know how it will end from the start . " deuce bigalow " is the first project from adam sandler's company happy madison , the formation of which assures that we'll be seeing the sandler style of comedy mass-produced at an increasing rate in years to come . be afraid . be very afraid . the good news is that sandler doesn't actually appear in " deuce " and that rob schneider and eddie griffin are funnier than sandler . schneider has a sweetness that makes the clueless but good-hearted deuce believable . griffin's delivery is dead-on , especially in the coining of " technical terms " for t . j . 's profession , as in " don't make me he-bitch man-slap you ! " there's the expected amount of toilet humor in " deuce . " ( for one thing , deuce's dad is a men's room attendant ) . does anyone over the age of eight actually find bowel movements that funny ? for most of us , i think that childhood fascination with bodily functions disappears when we hit the far-side of puberty and discover how funny sex is . i , for one , will be glad when the toilet trend is finally flushed . bottom line : " deuce " doesn't offer anything new but it is intermittently funny .

unfortunately it doesn't get much more formulaic than one tough cop . there's the renegade cop with the loser partner who has to many problems to explain . the renegade has to prove his good name and is trapped between the good guys , the bad guys and some woman who really has nothing to do with the story other than being there for the purpose of providing sex for the hero in the middle of the film . bo dietl ( pronounced deedle , baldwin ) is one tough cop , a guy who is being investigated by hardass fbi agents due to his association with the ny mafia . on top of that problem , he has a drunk , gambling addicted partner ( penn ) who has a penchant for collecting parking tickets ( i guess cops aren't immune ? ) . then , throw into the mix the femme fatale ( gershon ) . right there you have plenty of ammo for a decent cop drama . but right in the middle of the film , they throw in a completely un-related plot point . dietl and his partner duke try to solve a case that they have been warned to stay away from . the film spends over half an hour tracking the case of a nun who was beaten and raped to near death . once the case is solved , the film shifts focus back to the mafia issue . whatever neat mesh the screenwriter wanted to create between the two stories failed miserably . aside from being asked to accept michael mcglone as a mafioso ( an insult if you ask me ) the performances were pretty good . baldwin , though he occasionally slips into an impression of his brother alec , does a fine job as one tough cop . penn , who also slips into an impression of his brother sean , is even better as a loser tough guy cop . what one tough cop lacks is originality . this film offers nothing new . nothing that you can't get from any cop film . it screams sidney lumet all over the place , perhaps because it was produced by marty and michael bregman , producers of lumet's dog day afternoon and serpico . but even the masterful sidney would not have been able to make one tough cop into a good film . too much else is lacking . i also saw the boom mic pop into the top of the frame twice early on in the picture , something that i almost never notice . but once i saw that , i had it in the back of my mind every time i saw a medium or long shot . at times , i was hoping to see it . one tough cop isn't laughable , nor is it a terrible film , but it just isn't unique . it is a classic example of a film that didn't need to be made . but one thing is for sure , it could really use a better title .

for a movie with such deep religious and spiritual undertones , it is surprising to find the messenger : the story of joan of arc such an ungodly mess . in the early to mid 1400's , there was little in the way of spiritual light to be found shining from the heart of a man or woman . the church was a dismally dark and oppressive place . france was involved in " the hundred years war " against england . there was no strong political leadership in the country . morale was low , there being little hope for the future . it was within this setting that a young french girl began hearing " voices " and seeing " visions . " convinced that these were messages from god , she brazenly demanded to see the dauphin in order to deliver the message directly to him . the message : if he would give her an army to command , she would deliver to him the crown . he does . . . and she does . then , once seated on the throne , he abandons her to her english captors . director luc besson ( the fifth element ) may have co-wrote the script but he never appeared to have a proper handle on the material . the inconsistencies of the cast , the confusing blur of the violent battle scenes , the inappropriate musical score , and the lack of a vibrant life force at the center of the film adds up to a largely disappointing end product which is oftentimes unintentionally laughable . his biggest miscue was to cast his wife , milla jovovich ( the fifth element ) in the title role . ms . jovovich , looks spectacular as joan , clad in battle armor , astride a similarly protected horse . if looks were enough to fully convey a character , she would have been brilliant . since it isn't , she tried ( and failed ) to act the part . her joan is unbalanced , " inspiring " the troops merely by screaming stridently and waving her banner or sword over her head like a woman possessed . john malkovich ( being john malkovich ) fares a bit better as the dauphin , who joan would see on the throne as charles vii . an easily manipulated man , his weakness of character foreshadows the betrayal of joan which would lead to her death . faye dunaway ( the thomas crown affair ) gives a strong performance in minimal screen time as the dauphin's mother-in-law and chief advisor . the army under joan's command are comprised of comical figures , more stooges than soldiers . the one exception would be tcheky karyo ( la femme nikita ) as dunois , the man who was leading the attack prior to joan's arrival . trying to plan a systematic campaign , he sees his leadership authority negated by joan's insistence on following her " visions . " dustin hoffman ( sphere ) has a small inhuman role as joan's conscience which begins speaking to her while awaiting trial . dressed like cloaked monk , he leads her to doubt herself and her " revelations . " as well she should . scriptures do speak of revelation . god , via his gift of holy spirit , is able to communicate to men . three of the nine manifestations of holy spirit listed in 1 corinthians 12 deal with receiving revelation . they are : word of knowledge , word of wisdom , and discerning of spirits . even the scriptures themselves are a result of god giving revelation to his " holy men . . . who spake as they were moved by holy spirit ( i . e . by revelation . ) " but the scriptures also caution us : " beloved , believe not every spirit , but try the spirits whether they are of god : because many false prophets are gone out into the world . " 1 john 4 : 1 [kjv] joan's end , ( being burned at the stake at the age of 19 ) , the frenzy ( mob rule ) and blood lust her inspiration wrought , and the death , pain , or suffering which followed her campaign all point to a devilish influence rather than a godly one . while her conviction and intense believing remains an admirable quality , she was , as others have been before and since , misled by the spiritual master of deception . as a messenger , she was quite effective . she was just confused as to whose message she was carrying .

this " dumb " cowboy blondie who thinks he is a `darn' good loverboy , decides to leave his dusty ol' town somewhere in texas and go to new york . he puts on his beloved cowboy attire and off he hops on the next new york coach . when he arrives to new york , he immediately sets out to play mr playboy thinking he is the best `darn' `stud' in the whol'o' new york city . obviously he fails . he meets the 'cripple' rico ( dustin hoffman , who is terrifically good ) in a bar . rico has a leg that is paralysed from the knee down , so he walks in a peculiar way . rico is a thief and wants to get some money off this 'rich' dumb cowboy . he cheats our cowboy out of $20 through a somewhat detailed routine and disappears . soon , our cowboy runs out of money : he gets kicked out of his hotel , and starts getting hungry . walking through the city , with " everybody's talkin' " playing in the background ( oh , and his prided techno transistor radio in hand ) , he spots rico in a cafe . rico , half-scared , pours out all the money in his pocket . 60 filthy cents . our cowboy , hungry , is forgiving . he is glad he found someone he knows . rico offers to make it up for him . and he invites him to his place . and what a filthy , cold place it is . our cowboy falls asleep instantly in the ( junk ) bed . when he finally wakes ( jumps ? ) up , he finds rico looking at him . " you wanna cup'a'coffee ? " rico asks in his friendly , sleazy , somewhat-childish manner while he smokes on a ciggy . " what're you ? a goddamn faggot ? what do you want from me ? where are my shoes ? what did you do to them ? " but all his doubts turn out to be unfounded . rico really has a heart . together , they live in the junk apartment and almost freeze to death . rico is convinced that the best place to be is florida , where the sun shines beautifully and there are lots of coconut trees . but he falls sick and is convinced that his cure is to go to florida . " we will soon be in miami " is the last sentence uttered in this film and what a shocking , moving end of a film it is . the classic theme music : " midnight cowboy " helps bring about the feeling of attachment that most viewers will experience towards the end of the film . whether the attachment is to the two main characters or to their dreams , is probably as debatable as whether it was the acting or the direction that makes this film so memorable .

meteor threat set to blow away all volcanoes & twisters ! summer is here again ! this season could probably be the most ambitious = season this decade with hollywood churning out films like deep impact , = godzilla , the x-files , armageddon , the truman show , all of which has but = one main aim , to rock the box office . leading the pack this summer is = deep impact , one of the first few film releases from the = spielberg-katzenberg-geffen's dreamworks production company . following = the rather dismal showing of their previous two releases ; mousehunt and = amistad , deep impact shines with elements which could just make it one = of the biggest movies of the year . deep impact begins with the discovery of an earth bound comet during a = school astronomy outing by leo beiderman ( elijah wood ) which = subsequently stirred up the political community of the world . keeping = the information under wraps to prevent widespread panic , president beck = ( morgan freeman ) took it upon himself and his subordinates to execute a = highly secretive space project to destroy the comet before it hits = earth . while pursuing a sex-scandal story amongst the presidential = ranks , ambitious up and coming reporter , jenny lerner ( tea leoni ) = unfolds the wool that president beck has pulled over the citizens of the = world . as if the knowledge of the imminent annihilation of mankind is = not enough , jenny has to come to terms with her father ( maximillian = schell ) leaving the mother for a younger woman . =20 president beck announces the discovery and preparations to destroy the = comet exactly one-year later , with so much confidence that it left no = trace of panic within the american community . achieving fame from = announcement of the comet wolf-beiderman en-route to earth ( the name of = its discoverers ) , leo beiderman continues life in his small town as a = young celebrity . a team of astronauts , led by the ageing veteran = astronaut spurgeon tanner ( robert duvall ) , was secretly trained to carry = out the mission to land on the comet and create and explosion with a = nuclear device , with the hope of blowing it out of its current path = towards earth . despite him being the most experienced in the team , the = younger generation of astronauts in the team doubts tanner's ability due = to his age . but these are just problems of individuals . life on earth = goes on as any other day , confident that the comet will be destroyed . when the attempt to avert wolf-beiderman's path failed and caused the = comet to split into two : comet wolf and comet beiderman , the president = unfolds his contingency plan to evacuate part of the population , leaving = the rest to die . citizens are randomly chosen to live underground for 2 = years prior to impact , when the dust due to the impact around earth have = settled , by then all life on the surface would have died . jenny and leo = were picked but many of their loved ones were not , only a handful of = earth's population will be saved from destruction . =20 deep impact's moving moments occur in the least special-effect laced = scenes . while the effects are fantastic , they only form a small part of = the film , which indulges itself in the development of its main = characters ; leo , lerner and tanner . leo's struggle when he learns that = his girlfriend is not part of the population to be saved , lerner's = dwindling relationship with her father and her pain for the mother's = loneliness , tanner's strive to gain the respect he deserves from his = crew and his ultimate sacrifice , all form the backbone of deep impact's = moving moments . deep impact smells suspiciously like the previous year = release contact despite vivid differences . i think its probably because = they both delve in a story of global proportions and indulges in the = premise of hope , faith and life itself . both do not depend heavily on = eye-candy in the form of cgi effects . director mimi leder ( who won = numerous awards directing television series , and made her debut with = peacekeeper last year ) is definitely a director to watch . =20 despite this being the first of the two meteor movies this summer ( the = other being armageddon ) , i think there will be stark differences in the = approach to the subject matter . while the premise of both may be the = same , execution and focus of the films will in fact show that deep = impact has more focus on human elements than armageddon , which is done = by the team which brought us bad boys , crimson tide and the rock . =20 deep impact should be able to satisfy a variety of audiences ; from the = most action-craving to those who just want to immerse into its = manipulative but nonetheless dramatic premise .

the ads make " hanging up " seem like an upbeat comedy about a rascally father and his three daughters . anyone who went to the movie expecting that left disappointed . all of the movie's funny scenes were included in the ad . so what do we get ? eve marks ( meg ryan ) just put her father lou mozell ( walter matthau ) into a hospital . once upon a time , lou was a hollywood screenwriter who collaborated with his now-estranged wife . his one great moment in life was writing a film for john wayne , who gave him a giant bullet-shaped trophy . now lou is senile and deteriorating rapidly . eve tries to convince her sisters georgia ( diane keaton ) and maddy ( lisa kudrow ) that their father is dying and needs them . both are slow to show concern . so devoted eve stands vigil over her father , who constantly asks for his favorite daughter georgia , while running her own business ( planning special events ) and caring for her son ( jesse james ) . ( some comic relief comes when maddy also drops off her ailing st . bernard for eve to care for . ) the tension builds until all three sisters are finally in one room at one of eve's events where georgia is the keynote speaker . there's a superficial resemblance to shakespeare's " king lear " ( senile king with three daughters : one devoted saint and two selfish bitches ) , but the material is apparently drawn from life . sister screenwriters delia and nora ephron had parents who were a successful hollywood writing team . henry and phoebe ephron collaborated on 17 screenplays , including " desk set " and " there's no business like show business . " ( delia's novel , the basis for the film , is dedicated to henry ) . surprisingly , the script is as thin as an anorexic's wet dream . the virtue of a semi-autobiographical project would seem to be the wealth of material available . yet , the ephrons provide only the barest minimum of information about their characters . also , the spaces they inhabit seem artificial . eve lives in a house that looks like a magazine layout ; no matter how put-upon she is , we can't feel sorry for anyone whose house is so pristine on any given day . georgia is a famous magazine editor , and in her brief scenes while she chats on a cell phone with eve seem like the photo spread for a profile . when we first meet maddy , she's fishing at a picturesque mountain stream . i expected to see the credit " cinematography by 'vanity fair . ' " and , yes , diane keaton is literally old enough to be lisa kudrow's mother . to her credit , though , she looks young enough to pull it off . the one redeeming aspect of " hanging up " is that , at its core , is a truth about siblings . there's always one on which everyone else in the family relies , freeing the others to be selfish and emotionally distant . my wife is the reliable child in her family ; for better or worse , my brother has the role in mine . ( being selfish and emotionally distant may not be fulfilling , but it is a lot less work ) . if you have nothing better to do than watch this movie , look for a powerful cameo by cloris leachman as the sisters' mother pat . in a devastating scene , eve discovers that her mother doesn't love her . although leachman is best known for comedies like " young frankenstein " and " the mary tyler moore show , " her performance here reminded me of the considerable dramatic talent she displayed in " the last picture show . " bottom line : everyone involved has lived in hollywood so long they don't recognize real life anymore .

jack nicholson has a funny way of playing characters with very few redeeming qualities , but whom you end up liking anyway . in as good as it gets , the character in question is melvin udall , a successful novelist with obsessive-compulsive disorder who seems bent on having as little contact with people around him as possible , except when he feels like being a royal pain in the you-know-where . he's mean . i mean really mean . the opening scene shows him shoving a little dog down the trash chute of his manhattan condominium . every day , melvin eats at the same cafe , sits at the same table , and gets served by the same waitress . you can tell that this is his favorite place to be a vicious nuisance , when his waitress carol ( helen hunt ) tells him he can just go sit in another section , and all the other waitresses just cringe . one day , melvin makes a comment that goes to far , and carol , genuinely hurt , comes down on him like a ton of bricks . at that point we find that she is not only the only person who can put up with him as a matter of course , but is also the only person who can get to him , too . another person who often crosses melvin's sights is simon ( greg kinnear ) , an artist who lives on melvin's floor . aside from the fact that he lives near the terror of the city , simon has the added benefit of being gay , making him a prime target . simon's friend frank ( cuba gooding , jr . ) , also gay , does not fare much better . when simon walks in on a pair of men robbing his apartment , he is brutally beaten and sent to the hospital , and frank , who has grown tired of seeing his friend take the verbal abuse dished out by his neighbor , intimidates melvin into watching after simon's dog while he convalesces . this is the same dog melvin had earlier shoved down the garbage . an interesting thing happens when melvin takes this dog in : melvin gets to like the dog , and the two develop an attachment which is the catalyst to melvin's softening up to the world around him . it doesn't happen overnight , but throughout the film , he bites his tongue here , cares a little there , and most miraculously , falls in love . one of the best elements of this film is watching melvin try to express feelings which are not the usual negative ones he so often shares with others . he's traveling terra incognita here , and it shows . good performances are turned in by all principal players in this film , especially by nicholson and hunt . they play well off of each other and have a genuine chemistry which makes it a pleasure to watch them on screen . greg kinnear , who is becoming known for his supporting film roles , is also very good at playing the vulnerable simon . he gives a short monologue about what it means for him to be an artist , and delivers it with such inspiration and conviction that you actually get to feel some of what he feels . cuba gooding jr . performs with a hyped-up level of energy which contrasts nicely with that of kinnear , and comes through with a near constant comic performance . the screenplay , by mark andrus and james l . brooks , is clever , touching , and funny . the best part about it , however , is that it is filled with characters we care about because they are actually interesting . melvin is a man we can't quite figure out , but whose mannerisms and quirky qualities capture our attention . carol is a working woman living with her mother , trying to take care of a child with a debilitating respiratory problem . simon is a man who is a success in his circle of peers , but who is still not accepted by much of society . combined with the talent of the actors , these characters make the film . the one noticeable area where the film is lacking , however , is the absence of cuba gooding , jr . through the second half . his character makes an exit which is supposed to be temporary , but the film ends before his return , leaving his relationship with simon and melvin unresolved . i would have liked to have seen more of his character in general , in addition to a part in the film's conclusion . there's one actor , who will probably not be recognized by any awards , but who contributes greatly to many of the movie's best scenes and who deserves mention . this is that little dog . he plays such a pivotal role to melvin's character development , actually serves to forward the plot , and has some absolutely scene-stealing moments , that it is hard to believe he is simply an animal . award or no , however , when even the dog puts in a good performance , you know you've got an outstanding movie .

" american pie " alums jason biggs and mena suvari star in this summer's attempt to capitalize on the youth market looking for a comedy about young people they can relate to that combines generic hollywood cute couple-ness and zany comedy . it's about an a+ student ( biggs as " paul " ) who gets a scholarship to some college in new york city who sticks out like a sore thumb and falls for dora ( suvari ) a ditzy heroin-chic goth chick who has no ambition or self-respect whatsoever and allows herself to be pushed around just like " hick-boy " paul is . so we've got a fish-out-water formula mixed with meet-cute romantic comedy which ideally should make for a good movie . unfortunately the atrocious screenplay and boring direction by " clueless " auteur amy heckerling successfully manages to screw up everything about the film . these characters are totally unrealistic and unbelievable - it's as if everyone under age 30 is a stoned raver . there's no background or details to anyone or anything , it's just a bunch of cartoon characters running into each other . not to mention the story itself which is virtually non-existant and contains so many plotholes it's like swiss cheese . even the basic editing is bad . if you're looking for a romantic comedy stay far away from this one because it is neither romantic nor funny . i saw this in a packed cinema on opening night and the audience barely laughed at all . if you've seen the commericials you've seen all the " funny " parts ( which are all from the first five minutes ) .

robocop is an intelligent science fiction thriller and social satire , one with class and style . the film , set in old detroit in the year 1991 , stars peter weller as murphy , a lieutenant on the city's police force . 1991's detroit suffers from rampant crime and a police department run by a private contractor ( security concepts inc . ) whose employees ( the cops ) are threatening to strike . to make matters worse , a savage group of cop-killers has been terrorizing the city . on murphy's first day of duty , after his transfer from another precinct , these cop-killers brutally murder him by shooting off his limbs one by one . ( orion pictures had to edit this extremely graphic scene in order to get an r rating from the m . p . a . a . ) after the emergency room staff at the hospital cannot save murphy and declare him clinically dead , s . c . i . recruits his remains for their new " robocop " program . using the remains of murphy's body as a foundation , their scientists build a cyborg , made of both flesh and metal . the cyborg ( robocop ) is half human ( murphy ) and half robot ; the s . c . i . engineers have erased murphy's memory and replaced it with a computer program ( or so they think ) . with his lightning quick reflexes , immense strength , and impenetrable armor , s . c . i . envisions robocop as an indestructible super-cop : the solution to detroit's problems . the remainder of the plot follows robocop's crime-foiling and vengeance on his murderers . as a science fiction action-thriller , robocop is extremely effective . dutch director paul verhoeven combines gritty action with suspense , shocking gore , and spectacular special effects . several sequences in the film , such as the one in which robocop employs his extremely precise aim to stop a rapist , are destined to become cult-classics . because robocop is so visually and emotionally rousing , it demands to be seen on a large screen with an audience--in other words , in a movie theater . although the special effects and action are exciting , they do not by themselves set robocop apart from other films in the genre . rather , robocop stands out for its accurate and biting satire of american society . the movie makes a mockery of the star wars defense initiative , terrorism , board games , and television news broadcasts with air-headed anchors . these news broadcasts , which are exceptionally clever , recur periodically throughout the movie and help to provide comic relief from the intense action and gore . the satire in robocop , however , is almost as frightening in its own way as the suspense and blood . 1990's america , as portrayed in the film , may seem far fetched but is in actuality ( i think ) only a slight exaggeration of the current state of american society . the humorous satire in robocop is simultaneously credible and absurd . verhoeven adroitly balances the satirical comedy with the gory action to create an entertaining and enlightening piece of science fiction/social commentary . unfortunately , robocop possesses several flaws which prevent it from qualifying as a classic within the genre . the movie lacks the lasting impact of such films as the road warrior , the terminator , and aliens . robocop's main problem , aside from its dumb title , is that it does not sufficiently develop murphy's character . we never learn the degree to which murphy ( as robocop ) is human and the degree to which he is a robot . does murphy have any human spirit or free will left , or is he merely a computer following a program ? the script halfheartedly raises these issues but then abandons them in its climactic flurry of gory action . moreover , it almost completely ignores the question ( and tragedy ) of denying a man his right to die in favor of turning him into a machine . robocop also contains several bothersome loose-ends . as you watch robocop , you experience deja vu ; you feel as if you have seen the film before . in many respects , robocop is reminiscent of several other films , including the terminator , return of the jedi , and even death wish . however , to its credit , robocop easily has enough originality and unique personality to avoid becoming a cheap rip-off .

ripe with explosions , mass death and really weird hairdos , tsui hark's " double team " must be the result of a tipsy hollywood power lunch that decided jean-claude van damme needs another notch on his bad movie-bedpost and nba superstar dennis rodman should have an acting career . actually , in " double team , " neither's performance is all that bad . i've always been the one critic to defend van damme -- he possesses a high charisma level that some genre stars ( namely steven seagal ) never aim for ; it's just that he's never made a movie so exuberantly witty since 1994's " timecop . " and rodman . . . well , he's pretty much rodman . he's extremely colorful , and therefore he pretty much fits his role to a t , even if the role is that of an ex-cia weapons expert . it's the story that needs some major work . van damme plays counter-terrorist operative jack quinn , who teams up with arms dealer yaz ( rodman ) to rub out deadly gangster stavros ( mickey rourke , all beefy and weird-looking ) in an antwerp amusement park . the job is botched when stavros' son gets killed in the gunfire , and quinn is taken off to an island known as " the colony " -- a think tank for soldiers " too valuable to kill " but " too dangerous to set free . " quinn escapes and tries to make it back home to his pregnant wife ( natacha lindinger ) , but stavros is out for revenge and kidnaps her . so , what's a kickboxing mercenary to do ? quinn looks up yaz and the two travel to rome so they can rescue the woman , kill stavros , save the world and do whatever else the screenplay requires them to do . with crazy , often eye-popping camera work by peter pau and rodman's lite brite locks , " double team " should be a mildly enjoyable guilty pleasure . but too much tries to happen in each frame , and the result is a movie that leaves you exhausted rather than exhilarated . the numerous action scenes are loud and headache-inducing and the frenetic pacing never slows down enough for us to care about what's going on in the movie . and much of what's going on is just wacky . there's a whole segment devoted to net-surfing monks that i have yet to figure out . and the climax finds quinn going head-to-head with a tiger in the roman coliseum while yaz circles them on a motorcycle , trying to avoid running over land mines and hold on to quinn's baby boy ( who's in a bomb equipped basket ) -- all this while stavros watches shirtless from the bleachers . did i mention " double team " is strange ? when it all comes down , this is just another rarely entertaining formula killathon , albeit one that feels no need to indulge in gratuitous profanity . rodman juices things up with his blatantly vibrant screen persona , though , leading up to a stunt where he kicks an opponent between the legs . but we didn't need " double team " to tell us he could do that , did we ?

i think the first thing this reviewer should mention is wether or not i am a fan of the x-files . first , let me assure you that no prior experience with the series is required to fully enjoy this movie . the producers are not stupid , making a movie just for fans of the series is not profitable . you have to reach for a larger audience . therefore , the movie is quite user-friendly . altough , non-fans will only fail to understand certain emotions behind the looks many characters exchange . but fear not , duchovny and another man later on provide more than adequate background info on what is going on . you will never feel as if you just walked in on the third act of some great opera . in any case , the answer is no . i am not a fan of the x-files , i only watch it when nothing else is on and i prefer millennium . however , since the fox network as been so kind as to air several key episodes for several weeks before the movie's opening weekend i took that opportunity to test the movie . i taped all of these episodes and watched them only after seing the movie , i am glad to report that i learned nothing new . everything you need to know is explained to the viewer by duchovny and others . i know i am going maybe a bit too far to make my point but everybody should get the chance to experience this movie . warning : major spoilers follow ! please do not read to fully enjoy this movie , you must not be able know what is coming , what exactly is over that hill and what that weird " hummm " sound is all about . you have been warned . the x-files is what a summer should be . exciting , scary , great special effects ( unlike other summer movies the effects do not take over the movie and are only there when it is really necessary ) and good performances . this is coming from a guy who thinks david duchovny is the human equivalent of a wooden plank . from start to finish , this movie does not let go of you . when i compare it with last summer's movies the best way to describe it would be : take the excitement and great score from face/off and the deadly use of sound from event horizon . this flick is scary , not in a b movie kind of way where you always know where and when the critter will jump at our heroes . in fact , the first time the critter in this movie makes an apperance it is totally out of the blue . you might as well bring ear plugs because this thing is louuuudd ! the last time a monster scared me that much was when i first saw aliens as a six year old kid . you know , when you are affraid to put your feet on the floor because the creature might be under the chair , or when you keep trying to cover your throat with your shirt ? so yeah , the x-files is scary . and guess what ? you never even have to see the monster but your imagination works overtime and it sure beats having to watch a flawed , computer generated , babyzilla , it looks like you could walk right through it not even scarier than your grandma in undies type of monster . do not think that the x-files is a monster movie . in fact , the creature is there for maybe three minutes total . no , the x-files is definately a mulder episode of the series . scully is at his side , of course , but gillian anderson gets maybe half the screen time . she has a couple of good scenes with duchovny , but she gets kidnapped during the last half hour of the movie so she does not get to do much . no , this is mulder's time in the spotlight . by now , you have heard of the scene where mulder " showers " independence day . if you have not then i will not spoil it for you , let's just say that due to recent events mulder should be " showering " godzilla instead . to those of you wondering if mulder discovers that the truth is indeed out there . . . who cares ! ? if he did find it the series would over anyway so what are you complaining about ? the dialogue in interesting and the director is marvelous . the camera is almost always looking over the shoulder of our heroes so we feel as if we are right there with them when they open a door or climb a hill . the script is spotless , every thing that happens happens for a purpose . if you are confused by something , do not worry because it will all become clear later on but , and i cannot stress this enough , pay attention ! ! ! unlike most summer movies , the dialogue is twice as important as the effects . miss one vital piece of information and , like most people who talk during movies , you will go home and tell all your friends how this movie made no sense . also , to those people who need to go to the bathroom during movies . . . don't ! the person who watched the movie with me had to go twice and twice she missed an important conversation . there is no time to take a breather between scenes because , again unlike most summer movies ( godzilla anybody ? ) the x-files does not need to fill scenes between the suspense and the action with useless subplots , every scene is crucial and serves a purpose . who needs to see the blond chiouaoua have a " big emotional scene " between godzilla attacks ? so far this summer i have seen only one movie who ranks higher on my list of movies i'd recommend and that is the truman show but it only wins by a nose . but the truman show is not what i would call a summer movie , the x-files is . what more do you ask from a summer movie other than the chance to be excited ? cool effects ? it's got some . pulse pounding ? hell yes ! strangely enough , i think that fans of the series will hate this movie while non-fans will have a good time . it does not provide answers to the show's many questions , the status quo remains nearly the same and , no , mulder and scully do not get together . rating : four and a half out of five stars for the best movie yet this summer , several jump right out of your seat thrills , many " whoah , i never saw that one coming ! " moments , four " holy shit , where the hell did that come from " and one heck of an ending . you may wonder where this movie lost half a star . well , i swore never to give a movie the full five stars so i had to find something about the in his ice truck , the tracks it leaves in the snow behind him go on for several miles but then they just stop . it's pretty obvious the film's makers drove the truck for several miles to give the appearance that mulder had been driving for a long time , but in the end it looks like mulder just dropped from the sky and started driving .

we all know the fate of " child's play , " which is the same for almost any film these days that does marginally well financially : sequel hell . with the newest installment in the quasi-popular series currently out ( that would be " bride of chucky " - and it grossed 11 million in its opening weekend , which i think is the sign of the apocalypse number five ) , it's kinda fun to go back and see how it all began rougly ten years ago with the original , a task which is a retread for some , and for others ( namely myself ) a chance to see what all the fuss was about . alas , the original " child's play " actually isn't that bad . even seeing it in the tiny , claustrophobic , and mechanically-challenged theatre at my college wasn't the horribly dull experience i thought it would be , not just because of the nicely rowdy crowd ( which you almost need to watch a film like this - and if you don't believe me , try and watch this flick by yourself one day ) , but because as a whole , this isn't a bad movie . it's not great , but it does have two things that many horror films like this one don't have : 1 ) a rather nifty premise , and 2 ) a sense of humor , both which save this from horror hell , which is precisely where , say , " i know what you did last summer " has recently gone . the premise of " child's play " is that a serial killer named charles lee ray ( brad douriff ) is shot and almost killed by a chicago hard-boiled detective ( chris surrandon - see what happens to some oscar nominees ? ) , and before he dies , utters a voodoo chant that sends his soul directly into a kid's doll called chucky , a doll which has got to be the scariest-looking kid's doll i've ever seen . the next day , a bum who's stolen it sells it to single-mother karen barclay ( catherine hicks ) , who then gives it to her young son andy ( alex vincent ) for his birthday . of course chucky begins talking to the kid and trying to find a way to get out of the doll , but certain twists come up . like the guy he learned voodoo from reveals to him that the only way to break the curse is to take over the body of the first person he told he was inside the doll , that being andy . and soon enough , chucky is killing people either for revenge or for what seems like fun , and people are discovering that chucky isn't just a kiddie doll one by one . the idea is a neat one , ripe for lots of comic terror , and luckily it utlizes a lot of that . it plays with an idea stolen from a classic looney toons short that when someone knows that chucky is alive , they tell people about it , but when he tries to prove themselves , chucky does nothing , and everyone thinks they're crazy . it plays with this , as well as the whole child-like thought that dolls and toys come to life , and even manages to cram in a couple really frightening moments . even if there's an entire sequence devoted to cliches ( a woman alone in a house hears a noise , goes to investigate it , and finds nothing , but wait for the kicker a second later ! ) , there's also a harrowing car ride with chucky trying to knife the detective from the back seat , and then trying to attack him when the car finally crashes , leaving the viewer with at least rather visceral exprience . the ending is rather fun , as well , albeit a tad too drawn-out ( about four different endings , maybe five ) , and the characters are more intelligent than the average horror film line-up , making them easier to sympathize with . if there's one horrible thing about many horror films , it's that the protagonists are morons who you can't help but shout obscenities at , and for the most part , " child's play " steers away from that . and most of all , the chucky character is a good one , not just because he provides instant comic relief ( look ! that doll's moving on its own ! ) , but because he's a generally scary character . if there's anything really wrong with " child's play , " it's that it's too trite and has too less self esteem . at almost 90 minutes , " child's play " features way too less to be a real classic of horror . it throws itself into a simple three act set-up that renders it quick and almost forgettable if it weren't for the fact that the film deals with a psychotic doll . if the film had more confidence in what it was presenting , it would really push the envelope and become even more than just a short bit of horror escapism , which is precisely why this kind of film is only memorable as a cheap little horor film . . . which isn't necessarily a bad thing . as such , " child's play " is content to be just the short , typical horror film , but saves itself via a sense of humor and a nice quasi-campy feel that makes it much more enjoyable than the average short , typical horror film .

>from writer and director darren stein comes jawbreaker , the poorly told tale of what can happen when an innocent birthday prank goes wrong . at reagan high , four girls are sitting on top of the world . courtney shane , played by rose mcgowan , holds the title of meanest , most disrespectful soul in the school . everyone hates her , but everyone envies her due to her popularity . courtney is the " leader " of her clique , which also includes julie , played by rebecca gayheart , liz purr , played by charlotte roldan , and marcie , played by julie benz are the other three in the group . it is liz's seventeenth birthday , and julie , courtney , and marcie concur that they will play a seemingly innocent prank on her , but the prank results in the death of liz . just like stupid teens in any teen directed film such as this one , the foursome decide to cover up the death to make it look like a murder committed by someone else . and also just like in other teen directed movies , one of the four don't agree with hiding it , this time that character being julie . and finally , just like in other teen movies , there is a witness outside the group trying to hide the truth . this time that character being fern mayo ( judy greer ) , who is subject to many cracks from courtney's group , as well as the entire school . >from here , jawbreaker turns into a predictable tale of revenge , bad morals , and at least trying to do the right thing . not only is the script weak , on a whole the acting is horrid thanks to a large amount of the main cast . judy greer is undeniably awful as her one dimensional , annoying character , as she overacts every line she has . also on the bad side of acting is julie benz , almost falling to the annoying factor that greer delivers . on the positive side of acting , rose mcgowan performs well here , but doesn't match her wickedly clever performance as " tatum " , in 1996's scream . mcgowan's role is annoying , but this only adds to the film . she is wickedly mean , and even though she a well-written character , you downright hate her . faring even better than mcgowan is rebecca gayheart , who is always exceptionally believable as her roles . when the script feeds her a one or two dimensional character , she turns it into three , always putting strong emotion and power into her roles . gayheart isn't given as much to do here as she was in 1998's urban legend , but you can still get a strong taste of her acting skills in jawbreaker . jawbreaker drifts and mianders different sub plots throughout , hardly throwing anything for the viewer to get absorbed in . we get way off of the topic of the jawbreaker incident , and get into things that don't have anything to do with the actual film . the beginning and ending are strong , it's just the middle that needs a lot of help . during the body of the movie , it is undeniably repetitive , never progressing towards a conclusion . nothing to grab the viewer's interest is around , and the same , extremely annoying song plays over and over again . jawbreaker tries to get off on the same time of humor used in the 1995 film clueless , but falls flat . the few gags that actually work die off quickly and die off with a bang . all in all , a horrible disappointment . the bottom line : the tagline reads , " even the sweetest candies are sour as death inside . " yes , that is too true . no matter how good this film may have looked , it fails to deliver .

roger ebert asks in his review of sexy beast , " who would have guessed that the most savage mad-dog frothing gangster in recent movies would be played by . . . ben kingsley ? " my response would be that anyone who has seen alan arkin in wait until dark , henry fonda in once upon a time in the west , or anthony hopkins in the silence of the lambs should have guessed it . they should know that the way for a film to create a really creepy sociopath is cast someone who generally plays mild , sympathetic , or even ineffectual character roles . the same characteristics that make an actor seem gentle in most of his roles can work in his favor when a role calls for him to be fierce and vicious . that is the principle that works for kingsley in sexy beast . gary " gal " dove ( played by ray winstone ) has retired from a london career of crime and is living on a luxurious villa in spain . life has become a routine of sunning himself and relaxing . but his paradise is about to be shattered by a one-two-punch . the first punch is a boulder that comes rolling down the hill next to the villa . the second punch comes from gal's past . back in london gang boss teddy bass ( ian mcshane , tv's lovejoy ) is planning to break into a safety deposit room in a bank and he wants gal . he sends his most rabid henchman don logan ( ben kingsley ) to fetch gal . don will accept any decision gal makes from " yes " to " certainly . " however , if gal says " no " don will do whatever it takes to turn it into a yes including threatening guy's ex-porn- star wife deedee ( amanda redman ) . in the meantime don knows just how to get under everybody's skin . kingsley makes don a compact package of fury and nastiness . there are some serious problems in louis mellis's and david scinto's script that should have been caught before filming . when we see the actual crime we have no idea why gal was so important to its success . beyond an ability to use skin-diving gear , no special talents are required of him . any local hood could have done what gal is needed for . additionally the crime involves digging from a swimming pool to the bank vault , flooding the vault . no only could they have let the water out of the pool and avoided the complication altogether , but there is by far too much water to be accounted for by what was in the pool . in spite of the provocative title , the story is cliched and overly familiar . i know i have seen all the plot elements of sexy beast in old westerns like the law and jake wade . the story is usually of the reformed outlaw , a robert taylor type , who has hung up his guns and is trying for a life of peaceful respectability . the old gang , however , wants to do one more job with their old buddy and sends a rabid richard widmark type to go and git ? im . it is not a great plot . in sexy beast even the plot twists have gray beards . perhaps the film has a little more respectability because it was made not as a western but as a stylish british gangster film . it is an old plot dressed up to look new . if the plot is old , at least the style is creative . this is director jonathan glazer's first film , but he has reputedly done some notable tv ads for guinness stout . his style does have some unexpected touches including some very odd dream sequences . cinematographer ivan bird uses a lot of half lit scenes . we see one side of a person's faces . but the other side fades into the darkness , a sort of metaphor for the half-world these characters in-habit . half of everything that is happening is also kept hidden . us yanks will have a hard time with some of the dialog . at least in my theater it was difficult to make out the words with the quiet speaking , the heavy accents , and the cockney language . sexy beast is a very and familiar minor plot lent respectability in the us by being done in what is here a still somewhat novel genre , the london crime film . the plot may be new to british crime films , but it would be overly familiar as a western . further respectability comes from ben kingsley's high-powered performance . i give it a 4 on the 0 to 10 scale and a 0 on the -4 to +4 scale .

richard linklater's " slacker , " made in 1991 for a budget of only $23 , 000 , immerses itself in the twentysomething , college-town culture of austin , texas . most of these characters are either unemployed or work jobs that are apparently too menial to be worth mentioning . their lifestyle is a sort of passive resistance to the idea that people should go out and actively pursue a career after graduation ; they seem content to sit around spouting off about the inadequacy of american democracy , the pervasiveness of slave morality , the subtle messages in pop culture , and such . ask them what they've been doing lately , and they'll more likely than not reply , " oh , you know , just hanging out . " linklater uses an interesting technique to examine these characters : the camera follows one person for a few minutes , then someone else walks by and the camera follows that person , who walks into a diner just as another person is walking out the door . . . . it's certainly a lot of fun listening to these characters talk : some of them are clearly very intelligent and have some genuinely insightful ideas , some of them are just plain weird , and some of them think their ideas are a lot more profound than they really are . the opening monologue , delivered by linklater himself to a taxi driver , tosses around ideas about alternate realities that nicely set up the meandering structure of the film . other characters along the way offer observations about everything from dating relationships to the history of anarchist philosophy , while groups of pseudo-intellectuals kick around ideas about the nobility of sitting around and doing nothing or the subtle bribery-based morality in " scooby-doo . " for the most part , however , the best moments are the ones involving the slightly unhinged types . near the beginning , a paranoid man follows a pedestrian for several blocks , warning him about government conspiracies involving everything from global warming to secret colonization of mars . another man seems to be collecting televisions , keeping at least fifteen sets running at the same time and playing tapes of a graduate student who recorded himself having a nervous breakdown and destroying the camera . and in a scene that drew a big laugh from everyone present when i saw the film , a man tries to achieve closure after a failed relationship by reciting poetry on a bridge and then throwing a typewriter into the creek below . the only problem with " slacker " is that it starts to run out of steam towards the end . since linklater only spends a few minutes with each character , the introduction of the new characters gets repetitive after a while . there are only so many times you can hear , " hey , what's going on ? " " not much , what are you up to ? " " nothing really , just hanging around , " before it gets on your nerves ; the film might well have benefited from a slightly slower pace and a little bit more characterization . and the dialogue in the second half of the film is by and large not quite as interesting as that in the first half ; a jfk buff , for example , seems like a pale imitation of the previous conspiracy theorist , and many of the characters just generally aren't as weird or unique . instead of depicting a city populated by mostly normal people and then showing us the strangeness that we might not have noticed at first , linklater shows us the oddballs first , then stops and reminds us that ordinary people live there too . " slacker " is a good film and a wonderfully offbeat and entertaining comedy , whatever its flaws , and its status as a cult classic is well-deserved . i just can't help but think it might have been even better if linklater had slowed down a little bit and filmed these scenes in reverse order .

when quentin tarantino made " pulp fiction " , he was not only making the greatest film of the 90s ; he was also making what i believe to be the most influential movie of all time . but before you send me hate-mail for not giving that title to " citizen kane " , hear me out . much like " citizen kane " , " pulp fiction " has changed movie making forever . but i think the latter has had a tad more impact . " pulp fiction " has actually ushered in a new era of film making . it has altered the way films will be viewed . " fiction " has spawned so many imitations , i've lost count . sure , some have been excellent ( " bound " and " the usual suspects " spring immediately to mind ) , but any serious movie-goer recognizes " pulp fiction " as the original neo-noir of the 90s . in this review , i hope to change all the people's minds who have criticized it for it's excessive profanity and violence ( which , by the way , isn't really that graphic ) . the most brilliant aspect of tarantino's masterpiece is the screenplay . it is filled with so much classic dialogue ( the " quarter pounder with cheese " speech will go down in history ) , it should be required reading for any film student , if it isn't already . the story ( told in unorthodox non-linear format ) centers around three main episodes , all of which eventually intertwine . the first , titled " vincent vega and marcellus wallace's wife " , deals with a very loaded john travolta ( i forgot to mention the cool heroin shoot-up sequence ) taking mia wallace ( a star-making performance by uma thurman ) , his bosses wife , out on a date to a cool 50s restaurant called jack rabbit slim's . they talk for a while ( with the occasional " uncomfortable silence " ) , mostly about a guy called tony rocky horror . after giving marcellus' new bride a foot massage , he was thrown off a building and into a greenhouse , giving him a " speech impediment " . they also partake in a cool dance contest and end up twisting to the chuck berry classic " you never can tell " . i won't reveal the rest of the story , but i'll definitely say that it turns out to be a real bummer of a night , despite the cool trophy they win . the second story ( the least of the three but still four stars ) stars bruce willis ( proving he can play someone other than john mcclain in the " die hard " flicks ) as boxer butch coolidge . previously in the film ( like i said , it's told in non-linear form ) , he had made a deal with marcellus wallace that he would take a fall in a match . as it turns out , he not only doesn't take the fall , but he ends up actually killing his opponent . he takes a cab to his half-witted girlfriend's apartment , and to make a long story short , ends up going back to his own place to retrieve a gold watch , sort of a family heirloom explained by christopher walken in a hilarious flash-back sequence . on his way home , he bumps into ( literally ) marcellus . the two winde up prisoner to two hillbilly sex murderers , which results in the infamous " gimp " scene , which is very reminicent of the " squeal like a pig ! " scene from " deliverance " . the last ( and best , in my opinion ) of the episodes features john travolta ( again ) and samuel l . jackson ( in the best performance of any supporting actor ever ) as two slightly off-kilter hitmen trying to rid themselves of a bloody car . they seek help with a friend of jackson's ( played by the q-man himself ) , desperately in need of a stress ball . they end up calling a " cleaner " of sorts , played by the god among men harvey keitel , to help them out . in the end , the story brilliantly loops around itself , actually ending where it began . if you haven't already seen the film ( or even if you have , for that matter ) , i suggest you invest your money in a copy of the letterbox collectors edition . it features two previously unreleased scenes and the original film restored how it was originally meant to be seen . earlier today , i bought this version and watched it a few hours ago . what the pan-and-scan did to this movie is inexcusable . that version cut out , like , half the movie . what i have missed in the past years of viewing this flick is amazing . for instance , when travolta and jackson are in the apartment near the end , the widescreen version allows you to see that several things on the walls make crosses . this might help explain the divine intervention that takes place . just a theory . . . one of the things that pisses people off so much about this movie is that tarantino borrowed alot of scenes from other movies ( i . e . " psycho " " kiss me deadly " , " deliverance " , etc . ) . but why shouldn't he ? it's not like he out-right and blatantly stole . give the guy a break . in case you haven't already noticed , i believe " pulp fiction " is a supremely excellent film and one of the best of all time ( up there with such greats as " casablanca " and " the godfather " ) . trust me , you will not see a better film come out of the 90s . and besides , it's one hell of a ride . note : if anyone knows how i could get a " bad motherfucker " wallet , please e-mail me . any help would be greatly appreciated .

this film is based on the campy tv show from the 1960's under the same appellation . mind you , most people ( including yours truly ) who will see this movie will not have seen any episodes from the original series . the movie is really a stand alone in that regard . the family robinson . . . lost in space . plot : set in the year 2058 , the family robinson is chosen to sail out into space in search of other planets that might contain the natural resources earth needs in order to survive its future . a colonization process , if you will . they are joined by able pilot west ( leblanc ) , and evil uninvited stowaway ( oldman ) , who does not want to see the trip conclude on a successful tip . eventually , their trek goes awry , and all are " lost in space " . " how do get back to earth ? " is the question that infests the rest of this sci-fi epic . critique : this film reminded me a lot of the fifth element ( 6 . 5/10 ) from the summer of 1997 . it's a film with a lot of flash , but very little actual substance . admittedly , there isn't an annoying character like chris tucker from the other film , but this film does run a little too long , and did lose me in regards to its complex time-travel / multi-dimensional story line . having said that , the special effects in this movie were amazing , and the overall look and feel were also way above average . you really felt like you were in the future , and riding through space with these poor souls . unfortunately for this chosen family , their 10-year old son is the smartest one in the group , and the father is too wrapped up in his work to notice the rest of his family ( ever heard that one before ? yawn ! ) . the acting is ok , and i was especially surprised at the solid performance by tv friend's matt leblanc who shows us all that he's definitely more than just a pretty face . on the down side , the family riff-raff that cuts through most of the picture is lame and time-consuming ( even though we gotta give them credit for " trying " to develop characters in a sci-fi pic ) , the story line is hard to follow , the evil character in the movie actually tells people that he's " evil " , and the movie goes on for about 20 minutes too long . on the slick side , many of the special effects are really cool ( the sequence in which the family is " paralyzed " during the hyper-drive is awesome , and the animated monkey that joins the family halfway through the flic is mucho cool ) , the credit presentation at the end of the film is slamming , and the adventures that they fall into are somewhat thrilling ( i will also admit that " somehow " they got me to semi-tear up near the conclusion of this picture . . . . very odd . . . . . ) . overall , if you're a big sci-fi fan , check this movie out for the special effects and challenging narrative , and if you're not , i would still suggest seeing this movie , but then you could probably wait until it comes out on video so that you forward past some of the boring parts . little known facts : this film will always be remembered as the movie that knocked titanic ( 7/10 ) out of the top spot at the box-office after 15 straight weeks at number one . garry oldman is british , and was once married to uma thurman for about six months . mimi rogers was tom cruise's first wife .

harmless , silly and fun comedy about dim-witted wrestling fans gordie and sean ( david arquette and scott caan ) who idolize current world championship wrestling heavyweight champion jimmy king ( oliver platt ) . when king is screwed out of his title by a corrupt promoter ( joe pantoliano ) , gordie and sean take it upon themselves to find their fallen hero and restore his glory . my biggest fear about ready to rumble was dispatched early on , as the filmmakers are quick to show that wresting is indeed choreographed ( but not fake , mind you ) . the hook of the movie is that gordie and sean are just too stupid to realize that . arquette and caan are suitably over the top with their performances , which is exactly what a movie like this requires , and oliver platt ( one of my favorite actors ) is a riot as the drunken washed-up ex-champion . many have scoffed at the idea that platt should be playing a heavyweight champion wrestler with an unbeaten record , but for me it just added to the " silly factor " of the film , thereby increasing my enjoyment of it . one casting complaint however : rose mcgowan as a sexy dancer ? please . . . if rose mcgowan is sexy then i'm marilyn manson . given the current state of the actual wcw , if oliver platt were appearing as jimmy king right now on wcw programming , he'd be the most popular guy they have . on a similar note , the " plot line " of the wresting portions of the film are more entertaining than anything the wcw writers have been able to come up with in the last two years . although one does have to ask . . . why would any wrestling promoter fire the head wrestler of a company who is both unbeaten and extremely popular with the fans ? director brian robbins ( you'll remember him as eric from tv's " head of the class " ) just knows how to make good dumb movies . this movie fits in nicely with his previous efforts good burger and varsity blues . and screenwriter steven brill ( the epic mighty ducks trilogy , late last night ) manages to keep things both sophomoric and clever at the same time , with almost all the jokes of the film getting a laugh out of me . the only exceptions to that were : 1 ) a scene involving a van full of singing nuns and 2 ) any scene involving the old woman wrestling fan . those moments made me cringe and/or groan . as an added bonus though , the audience is treated to outtakes from the film as the final credits roll . [pg-13]

i was fortunate enough to attend an advance screening for the upcoming thriller conspiracy theory . this was , of course , a big deal for me because reviewing movies is basically just a hobby for me and i never get a chance at something like this . not only did i get to see an advance screening , i was able to see an advance screening of a * very good * movie . the very fast-paced film stars mel gibson as jerry fletcher , a fast-talking , witty , comical taxi driver in new york city . gibson's performance is terrific , and his character is similar to that of martin riggs in the lethal weapon films . gibson again teams up with richard donner , as he did in the lethal weapon films and maverick , and this time around , the combination works even better . the character of jerry fletcher is indeed unique . try to imagine a toned-downed version of travis bickle who , this time around , is a jittery guy with knowledge of government conspiracy cover-ups . if you can imagine that , then you've basically got jerry fletcher . in many ways , i was surprised by this movie . to begin with , i was surprised at how good it was . don't get me wrong , it's not going to be accepting any gold trophies next spring , but it was a very enjoyable movie . secondly , i was surprised at mel gibson's performance . he provided a fantastic performance . the previews of this film led me to believe it was an all-out action flick , which after viewing , it was almost the opposite in a certain sense . gibson's character has an almost uncountable number of one-liners , hilarious situations , and his character is one that the audience tends to side with throughout the film . for instance , jerry's apartment ( and especially his security ) is memorable . and last , i was surprised at how good the plot is . writer brian helgeland has created a terrific story , and when watching this film , you are left to wonder if all of jerry fletcher's far-fetched ( or so they seem at first ) conspiracy theories are helgeland's own opinions . mel gibson isn't the only stand-out in the film . julia roberts is very good in her performance as alice sutton , the department of justice employee who can't seem to stay away from jerry fletcher , who continually visits alice in hopes that she will do something about his theories . he also seems obsessed and in love with her . but whenever he approaches her with another one of his theories , she shrugs him and his beliefs off , continually noting that one day she is going to slap a restraining order on him . jerry , obviously determined to continually seek out the truth , continues to research information for his next conspiracy theory , which will be printed in his newsletter ( same title as the movie ) . although he only has five subscribers , he puts a large amount of time and effort into his work , and publishes his next edition . very soon after he does so , he is abducted and tortured by a sinister man who refers to himself as dr . jonas ( patrick stewart ) . after barely escaping alive , jerry is forced to turn to the only person he can trust : alice sutton . the remainder of the film is almost always fast-paced and full of action and suspense , with jerry's life being constantly put into jeopardy . and more along the way , the audience ( and alice ) learn more and more about jerry's life . many things are explained throughout this film , both to the characters and to the audience . for instance , the meaning of the book " the catcher in the rye " and its ties to assassins , the reason lone gunmen have three names ( e . g . lee harvey oswald and james earl ray ) , and the real truth behind the grateful dead . make sure listen closely throughout the film , as jerry is constantly throwing out interesting tidbits such as the above . definitely , when conspiracy theory hits theaters august 8th , make sure you are standing in line to see it . i am nearly positive everyone should enjoy this film , especially if you are into an action-thriller with witty dialogue and numerous suspenseful situations . and even if you aren't , you should still like this film .

plot : two sister witches have to live with a curse placed upon their family , which prevents them from ever enjoying a full life with a lover . the hex invokes the eventual demise of their loved one . when one of their past loves comes back to haunt them , they have to figure a way out of their eternal dilemma . critique : i've been waiting for a good witch movie for a while now , but hold on to your brooms and incantations , cause this puppy is far from being it ! for a film that has the word " magic " in its title , this movie contains very few moments of magic . . . or humor for that matter , drama , suspense , or romance . well actually , there is some manufactured romance within a plot that is so muddled , it never lets you in on whether it's a comedy , a drama , a horror show , or a murder mystery . or maybe it's a romance , eh ? it doesn't really matter , cause the characters in the film are so boring and uninteresting , that you have absolutely no basis on which to care for them , or the film as a whole . if only the filmmakers had spent as much time on the plot as they did the sinfully obvious soundtrack , this film might've had a chance to be more than what it is now . which is an unentertaining , crappy film that uses the witch angle as a diversionary tactic to weave us away from its grab-bag of stupid voice-overs , overdone songs , melodramatic romance , undeveloped story and uneven acting . i only wish that i could make that one hour and forty-five minutes of my life re-appear , but alas , it is lost in the spiritual world of " interesting ideas gone wildly awry " . little known facts about this film and its stars : this film is based on the novel written by alice hoffman . co-screenwriter akiva goldsman also wrote the screenplay for 1997's batman & robin . director griffin dunne is known mainly as an actor in such films as an american werewolf in london and after hours .

tempe mills cinema , az--this movie had us in non-stop stitches from beginning to end . all those promotional clips that have been on tv for the past month came from the first five minutes of the movie . if you thought they were funny , see the rest of the movie . it's hilarious . how does one go about making a movie about a couple guys whose only claim to fame is synchronized head-bopping on snl to exactly one song ? easy . write an interesting script around tried-and-true ideas , add some good lines and satire , and voil ? , you end up with an excellent , well-done , very entertaining flick . will and chris are idiot brothers forced by their father to work begrudgingly in the family flower business during the day . at night they pursue their life-long ambition to loose their virginity in failed attempts to get into the roxbury in beverly hills , ca , the only disco act worth going to . the only problem , the place is so popular and the waiting line so long that by the time the brothers make it to the front door , the roxbury closes , all the while bearing witness to guys with one-hundred-dollar bills and movie stars like richard grieco who get past the doorman without fuss . the script authors ( steve koren , will ferrell and chris kattan ) cleverly devised a way for our boys to get into the roxbury . their flower-shop van is rear-ended by richard grieco , who fears a law-suit and is surprised to see the idiots are too star-struck to think about the car accident they just had , but not about getting into the roxbury . grieco happily takes them in , even introduces them to the owner , which has the added benefit of enhancing the financial appearance of the idiot brothers in the eyes of a couple of gold diggers ( elisa donovan and gigi rice ) who bet their time and bodies on will and chris . what follows are some of the best slap-stick dancing routines ever . the music is superb , and could have only been made better had the producers added patrick hernandez's born to be alive . the choreography at times was a parody of an era gone by , for example , the bee gees and their stayin' alive . it is nostalgic for those of us who remember that far back , and the technique is a clever adaptation that worked well in forest gump . one of the funniest scenes is when the gold diggers discover that will and chris don't have any mone y , and dump both on the spot , even expressing violence and anger that they gave sex away . an art-imitates-life poke at shallow women . it's a scene that's an approximate parody of the vinegar's own rolf luedeke's editorial this week national organization for men ( nom ) replaces now . ted " unabomber " kaczynski , himself rejected for not having money , will identify well with this scene , if he ever watches the movie . of course , the script wouldn't be complicated enough without adding molly shannon , the girl next door who has had a crush on will since they were kids , and who will has had an aversion to in quest of good-looking disco blondes ( proof that men will turn down perfectly good women when there are bay watch babes always lurking nearby ) . nevertheless , will's father wants him to marry molly anyway , but thinks idiot chris is standing in the way and sends him into guest-quarter exile . during the wedding ceremony , will's heart isn't exactly into getting married , and when his brother appears on the balcony with a ghetto blaster and more head-bopping music , will thinks worse of the knot-tieing idea and runs to chris . definitely an snl parody of the graduate where katharine ross changed her mind for the screaming dustin hoffman in the church balcony . i found this scene a riot , however , it went over brandi's head -- she was born seven years after the graduate first appeared . the scene has a good punch line when molly shannon marries , instead , the step-in buddy/weight-lifter ( who looks like he could pass for the son of gary busy ) and who has been lusting for a good-looker for a long time , but ready now to take anyone . more art-imitates-life stuff -- not even muscles can substitute for money in the real world . the idiots' mother is played by loni anderson , whose barbie-doll looks don't play well anymore ( she's a bit old ) , and whose cleavage looks like someone botched a tracheotomy too low down . i recommend this movie for anyone who wants to have a lot of fun or in need of a lot of laughs . go with a date . brandi laughed non-stop , as i did , and a deaf-mute might have concluded i was tickling her continuously for 105 minutes .

can a horror movie truly be called a horror movie if it has no scares , suspense , or even eerie elements ? i think not , but that's what children of the corn 666 : issac's return wants us to believe . the sixth installment in the horrible , worn out series is by far the worst to date . unlike the other five chapters , children of the corn 666 is a confusing , brainless thriller that takes the psychological horror route rather than slasher horror , but either way , none of these movies are the least bit scary . the film follows hannah ( natalie ramsey ) a teen looking for her mother in gatlin , nebraska , on the eve of her 21st birthday . what starts out as a daughter in desperate search of her long lost mother turns into the story of hannah being the first daughter of the children of the corn , who roam the cornfields looking for adults to murder . that's about all that's understandable in the film , as after we learn this much , issac ( john franklin ) who led the children of the corn in a previous chapter , now an older , strange man , is looking for hannah to fulfill his prophecy . and this is supposed to make sense . really . from the start the film is unclear of where its going , not developing any characters or throwing any concrete plot details across the table , constantly introducing new characters without personalities or the slightest hint of an individuality , and sub plots that have nothing to do with what seems to the main focus of the film . the film runs at a short 78 minutes , but it seems to be more in the vicinity of two hours , as the bleak , slow pacing makes children of the corn 666 : issac's return excruciatingly boring . plot holes are everywhere in tim sulka and john franklin's unbelievably horrible script , as nothing is accomplished or clear when the film reaches its conclusion . everyone and everything involved with children of the corn 666 : issac's return , namely writers john franklin and tim sulka , along with director kari skogland , should crawl under a rock , and hope no one sees their horrible work of trash . the bottom line : horrible , horrible , horrible . another attempt to revive this worn out genre falls flat . and what's with that title ? the devil has nothing to do whatsoever with this film . let's pray that this is the finale in one of the worst current film series . one of the worst horror films in years .

writer/director lawrence kasdan had a hand in penning some of the biggest film successes of the 1980s . yes , that's right , he co-wrote raiders of the lost ark ( 9/10 ) , the empire strikes back ( 8 . 5/10 ) and return of the jedi ( 8/10 ) . now with this film , it looks as though he has decided to test his skills at mediocre screenwriting and bland directing . and guess what ? he succeeds once again ! plot : a man with a shady and regrettable past decides to run away and into a small american town , where he pretends to be a licensed psychologist to an open-armed swarm of people with problems . it isn't long before he befriends the small-town billionaire , folks become suspicious and he falls for one of his own patients . critique : this film is not a comedy ! it is a drama . i say this right up front because from the looks of the trailer , you would think that this film secures its base in humor , but unfortunately for us , it does not . it is a serious film ( seriously flawed if you ask me , but i digress ) which offers a couple of witty quips to keep you awake , but overall , just sits there . now on to my review . this movie sucks because it was slow and boring , starred an uninteresting protagonist with an unbelievable past , included extremely dull patients whose problems left me indifferent at best and pissed at worst , and certified it all with many a predictable ending . i have no idea what lawrence kasdan was trying to accomplish with this picture , but whatever it was . . . he missed ! anyone without his name could never have made this film because it is an extremely generic puff-piece , which on a good day , might be described as predictably digestible . it's no wonder that the studio is trying to sell it as a comedy ! it sucks as a drama , and bored my movie cohort right to sleep . i've given it four points on four extremely shallow yet distinguishable marks . first of all , i couldn't help but think about how much the lead actor , loren dean , looked like a young charles grodin . he even acted like him , save for the dry , sardonic wit . this kept me interested in watching him at least . number two , and this one is really shallow ( seemed to be geared that way as well ) , there were quite a few " titshots " , as they would say back in high school . and god help me if i can't get enough of those in an aimless drama . and three , and this one surprised me the most , actor ted danson's cameo ( yes , he will always be sam malone to us real fans ! ) was the best part about this movie and actually made me see him as a different person . a different asshole , but a different person nonetheless . if ever you rent this movie one day ( promise you won't throw away your hard-earned money at the theaters ? ! ) , wait for his scene because it's actually pretty good . other than that , drab , drab , drab and drab . even jason lee , a personal favorite of mine , was left out to dry with lame dialogue and one of the phoniest romances to hit the big screen in a while . well , at least he finally " came out " and did some real skateboarding in this movie ! oh yeah , and i guess that's the fourth point in my rating . anyway , if you enjoy watching boring patients babble on about their boring problems to an uninteresting psychologist . . . this film's your bag ! otherwise , skip it and see analyze this ( 8/10 ) again . . . now there's a great shrink movie ! little known facts about this film and its stars : " three's company " fans alert ! ! ! terri from the tv show , also known as actress priscilla barnes , plays a small but pivotal part as the landlady in this film . the scene is actually a fantasy sequence and does feature cleavage , so stay tuned , kids ! also , it is to note that the actress was once named " penthouse pet of the month " in march of 1976 . she was known as one joann witty back then . she's originally from jersey . who the hell is loren dean , the dude who plays mumford in this film ? you got me , but all i know is that he was born in las vegas in 1969 and played the character of billy bathgate in the 1991 film of the same name . jason lee was born in the state of california in the year of 1971 . he was a professional skateboarder before his acting career took off after mallrats ( 6/10 ) , and even owns his own skateboarding company called stereo manufacturing corp . he's been in every kevin smith film except for clerks ( 8 . 5/10 ) . listen closely and you will hear the pharmacist in this film ( the ballooning actor formerly known as pruit taylor vince ) make a reference to the " lost ark " , which is obviously an in-joke , considering that it is the writer/director of this film , lawrence kasdan , who co-wrote raiders of the lost ark ( 9/10 ) . kasdan also played the part of dr . green in 1997's as good as it gets ( 8/10 ) . ted danson also played the role of lawyer peter lowenstein in kasdan's 1981 directorial debut body heat starring a sexy kathleen turner and william hurt .

so much for sweet returns . after smart horror films were starting to be made again after the exploitative 80's slasher movies , starting with 1996's " scream , " and followed by " scream 2 , " " urban legend , " and the original , " i know what you did last summer , " a film like , " i still know what you did last summer , " was bound to be made sooner or late . it is a perfect example of the exact reason why horror films temporarily burned out , and that is because they reached for the lowest-common-denominator in filmmaking , favoring non-stop deaths and gore for suspense , and trading in fleshed out , likable characters for one-dimensional nitwits . it has been exactly one year since julie james ( jennifer love hewitt ) suffered through the ordeal of being terrorized by ben willis , a psychopathic fisherman whom her friends and she accidentally hit in the middle of the road , and then , thinking he was dead , dumped him into the ocean . since then , julie has relocated to boston university , and although often paranoid and haunted by bad dreams , she has been able to put her life back together . when julie's friend , karla ( brandy ) , is called up by a radio station and answers correctly what the capital of brazil is , she wins a vacation to the bahamas for four people , which also includes karla's horny boyfriend , tyrell ( mekhi phifer ) , and will ( matthew settle ) , who karla sets julie up with after her own boyfriend , ray ( freddie prinze jr . , also returning from the original ) , doesn't show up . when they reach the secluded island , they discover it is the last day of the open season , and will be stranded there for the 4th of july weekend with a few employees to fend off a violent storm headed for them . of course , julie , her friends , and the workers aren't the only ones there , as the murderous ben willis , dressed in fisherman garb , returns to seek revenge on julie once and for all . it is a sad state of affairs when a movie like , " i still know what you did last summer , " is made . i am a very big fan of horror movies , and so it is especially disheartening to find out that this sequel to " ikwydls , " which i am a fan of , is almost an exact replica of a " friday the 13th " movie . while the original focused more on the story and characters , as well as genuinely suspenseful moments , thanks to the screenplay by kevin williamson ( who didn't return to write the sequel , and it shows ) , " i still know . . . " has no story to speak of , and is so vacuous of ideas , that the filmmakers , were forced to have a murder occur every five minutes just to keep the audience interested . also gone are any signs of character development , and since every single character died before i got to know them , all i was left with was to stare at the screen , indifferent to what was going on . while i cared about the fates of the characters in the original , it made no difference to me in this sequel who lived and died . they were all paper-thin and pointless , except to become victims to the lethal hook of the fisherman . another element that made the original so memorable were some superbly crafted set-pieces , like the store sequence with sarah michelle gellar , but there are none to speak of in this sequel ( although they do come close at one moment with brandy ) . since so many people were killed every couple minutes , the suspense and scares evaporated faster than salt in water . also of note is the mystery of the second killer , and accomplice to ben , but it is obvious from the first frame who it is , and so i couldn't even have fun at that , like i did in the " scream " movies and , " urban legend . " it figures that just as slasher films were starting to get some recognition again , a film would come along and ruin it for everyone else . maybe the people who made , " i still know what you did last summer , " should have realized that in order to make a good movie , you must have a screenplay---or at least one that isn't such a black hole for thoughts and ideas . the ending of the film inevitably leaves the door wide open for a third part , but judging from this amazingly lackluster first sequel , everyone involved should have quit while they were still ahead .

the andromeda strain is the greatest science fiction film ever made . i know that is very sweeping statement , so i'll qualify it by adding that the andromeda strain is one of the few films made that genuinely deserve the label of " science fiction , " stories in which speculative science is at the core of the plot . 2001 : a space odyssey is probably a better film , but it really only qualifies as science fiction if you consider metaphysics to be a science . most all other films we normally classify as science fiction , or sf , are really just fantasy , action or horror stories set in a futuristic setting . the andromeda strain starts out with two soldiers in a high-tech ( for 1970 ) van looking for a crashed satellite in a tiny new mexico town . something bad happens to them . pictures from a reconnaissance plane show a shocking sight . apparently everyone in the town is dead . the authorities call a " wildfire alert , " summoning four scientists , all but one of them somewhat reluctant , to a super-secret underground germ warfare laboratory in nevada . two of scientists , stone and hall , fly directly to the town in space suits and find a town where almost every single resident literally dropped in their tracks , their blood turned to powder in their veins . some went insane before they died and two of them , a baby and an old wino , are miraculously still alive . they take the survivors and the satellite back to the lab , where stone pressures the white house to call up a " directive 712 , " an executive order to cauterize the area around the town with a nuclear bomb . what they find on the satellite when they get back to the lab is andromeda , an organism that defies all the normal rules of earth-like life and mutates as it grows . their only hope to cure it is to find out what a perfectly healthy baby boy has in common with an old derelict . what they find out is that organism feeds directly on energy and that detonating the a-bomb over the town would only spread it across the entire planet . they barely call off the bombing in time . but then the organism mutates into something that threatens to eat through the labs defenses and break out . this triggers the lab's last-ditch defense mechanism , an atomic bomb . to those raised on the brainless action fare that pollutes movie theaters these days , the andromeda strain will probably seem interminably slow . much of the film is a lot of people standing around looking at video screens and computer readouts . but what the characters see on those screens ratchets up the tension with every turn of the screw . the performances are universally fine , with the actors keeping things low-key and restrained , just like scientists . to me , the real appeal of this film is the fact that it shows scientists acting like scientists and makes it seem exciting . we follow the logic of their deduction step by methodical step , puzzling like they do every time andromeda behaves in a way we don't expect . this film is only available on wide screen on dvd and that is the way to see it . it was originally rated g when first released but it now carries the pg rating , mostly for very mild nudity and one scene in which a body's wrist is slashed , spilling its powdered blood .

writers : dennis feldman and jonathan hensleigh ( based on the comic book by chuck pfarrer ) starring : jamie lee curtis , william baldwin , donald sutherland , joanna pacula , sherman augustus , marshall bell , cliff curtis , julio oscar mechoso i suppose i'm not extremely surprised that " virus " comes to us from a deciple of james cameron ( john bruno ) , and if i strain real hard , i could even say that it's an obvious given , particuarly looking from the standpoint of mr . cameron's early works . in fact , " virus " is yet another in the long line of action/horror/paranoia thrillers from the " aliens " vein : a group of people are dropped into a mysterious situation only to find a mortally-threatening entity is out to get them , a textbook example hailing all the way back to the early talkies , and maybe even to the first pictures , albeit redeveloped by cameron in his 1986 blockbuster that earned him esteem and bigger budgets to come in his future . no such thing will happen to bruno , whom i believe worked in some capacity on that quasi-landmark feature ; while bruno may have studied under cameron's wing for years and years , i'm beginning to wonder at what capacity , and what exactly did he learn from him . in fact , " virus " should at least be mediocre ; the fact that bruno could have worked under a man like cameron - a director who , if anything , just knows how to make a movie - and then make a film like " virus " is just another detraction fairly aimed at this z-grade schlockfest of a film , albeit a z-grade schlockfest with a respectable budget . the film seems to not only borrow it's plot from last year's similarly-fated " deep rising , " but also from a clunkish b-movie from the '80s called " leviathan , " an underwater thriller starring peter weller , richard crenna , hector elizando , and daniel stern about a group of miners who stumble upon an alien lifeform that was part " alien , " part john carpenter's twisted remake of " the thing . " " virus , " again , has a similar , uh , selling point : a group of sailors on a boat stumble upon a russian cruiser that is dead in the water . they get on . they break up into pairs and investigate . and they find an alien lifeform on board that comes in the form of energy , has taken over all the machines on board , have meshed the machines with parts from corpses , and have deemed humankind their enemy because of a misquote in the dictionary ( ha ha ) . not that any of this is for a second scary or the least bit involving ; not only does this film start off with a chintzy bond-ian opening ( the destruction of the cruiser via a satellite transmission from mir ) , destroying any of the suspense in what could happen , but it also fails to bring us any interesting chracters . of its motley crew , it only choses as its potentially eccentric cast of characters a lead woman skipper , a masculine potential-romantic-interest , a drunken captain , a black technician , a tatooed aborigine , a manic russian survivor , and a couple other candidates for alien food , none whom are the least bit interesting or more dimensional than a thin , plain piece of writing paper . and it's not the traditional argument for films like these , where you may in fact want them all to be eaten ( even " aliens " played with the karma of the arrogant soldiers , but this was more of a plus-side for the film as a whole than the opposite ) ; instead , as another cliche goes , you just don't give a damn . i almost don't even have to say that the acting from everyone ranges from sub-par to horrific , the former being jamie lee curtis in the lead showing off what a strong female lead she is ( and she is , just not really here ) and the latter being - and it pains me to say this as he's a particular favorite of mine - donald sutherland , who plays the captain so poorly and without a second of credibility that this will go down as the performance-of-which-he-should-be-ashamed . like anthony hopkins for " legends of the fall " ( the line " scrooooooo 'em " has been thus embroidered upon my membrance ) . or peter o'toole in " caligula . " great actor , horrific performance . it happens every now and then , and it only helps sutherland's career that no one , except for an elite few , even bothered to see this film . though it has sat on the shelves of universal studios for about two years , waiting until it can be released and make as much money as it possibly can ( read : early january , when everyone's still trying to catch up on the potential oscar-nominees ) , it does show that universal shelled out a pretty penny to make this film : it's laden with complex machinery , boasts respectable production design , and it may even feature believable special effects . . . if , of course , i , or anyone else , could see them . " virus " mostly takes place on a large , abandoned cruiser , and mostly at night until the dawn , and mostly without the use of lights , not so much for the productivity of the alien creatures in their pursuit of their human prey , but more so because , as the hollywood cliche seems to go , " if it's dark enough , then the special effects will be more believable . " and if you don't believe me , go back and rent " godzilla , " and tell me if there's even one shot where we see godzilla either a ) in his entirety in one wide shot , or b ) n the light so that we can at least see him ( well , you don't really have to sit through it again ; just take my word for it ) . but all of this doesn't matter since " virus " is basically just one loud , cluttered mess of a movie . the action scenes are muddled and as difficult to follow as any action movie i've ever seen ( my , um , favorite part was the scene where a trio of them end up somehow on the outside of the ship , during a five minute bouillabaisse of tidal waves , rain , and any other ocean-extremeties the film can cook up , then end up back in the ship when one of them is revealed to have apparently drowned - well , i must say , thanks for telling me afterwards because i sure couldn't figure it out when i saw it ) . imagine the first attack of the aliens in " aliens , " shot from the pov of the soldiers and then the authorities in the battle car if it was all hard to follow and done without any dramatic intensity , and that's basically the whole of " virus " : one horribly-directed action scene after the other , capping it off with a proposterous gadget that saves the day and at least a couple of the original cast members . and my god , it's a long damn sit . with no interesting characters , no dramatic urgency , no tension , not one good moment of action , and no mesmerizing visuals , it's a wonder that it even got made . we already know that big movie studios' mentality is shallow at best , and movies like " out of sight " and " saving private ryan " give you more faith in them , but movies like " virus " manage to drain a little more out of the pool . i almost wish that instead of making this movie , john bruno had gone cinema verite and captured the meetings with universal heads when they gave this film a green light . they read the script , they knew they were entrusting millions upon millions of dollars into a director who might have very well been a cameron hack ( and he is ) , and they still went ahead with the project , only to have bruno and company shit back in their face . even though i hold universal in contempt for making this horrible movie , i'd say even more contempt should be aimed at mr . bruno for making a movie that could be this bad . in fact , shouts of " egad , man , what were you doing when you worked for cameron anyway ? " are not only justifiable , but encouraged .

several days after having seen this movie , i'm still trying to determine what director christopher guest , a man whose sense of humor i usually appreciate , found funny in either the concept or the execution of almost heroes . this is a dreadful motion picture ? a lowbrow example of period piece comedy with terrible production values and an exceptionally poor laughs-to-jokes ratio . there's a kind of desperation in the movie's approach to humor that reveals the film makers' uncertainty about how entertaining the material is ; the manic style betrays itself as a last-ditch attempt to hide the flaws of a failed script . the premise doesn't sound especially amusing to begin with ? almost heroes tells the tale of two explorers , the effeminate leslie edwards ( matthew perry ) and the uncouth bartholomew hunt ( chris farley ) , who are racing lewis and clark on the trip to the american northwest . edwards and hunt are accompanied by the kinds of weirdoes we find in road movies ( albeit of the early-19th century variety ) , including a frenchman named guy fontenot who claims to speak hundreds of languages ( none of which prove to be useful ) , a pretty indian maiden who turns into the obligatory love interest , and a bizarre man who suffers a series of debilitating injuries . along the way , the intrepid explorers encounter bears , bald eagles , aging native american warriors , and a conquistador named hildago ( kevin dunn ) who raves about his beautiful hair . the explorers' trek takes them through forests , across the snow-capped rocky mountains , and over a waterfall . this setup leads to a lot of shouting , a great deal of lunacy , and very few laughs . farley engages in his usual shtick of falling down and bellowing , but , aside from an momentarily diverting confrontation with an eagle , his heart doesn't seem to be in it . matthew perry , one of the stars of tv's friends ( who had some modest success in the romantic comedy , fools rush in ) is badly miscast . as a foil for farley and an antidote to his runaway energy , perry lacks the necessary edge of the proverbial straight man . i'm not a big fan of david spade , and i didn't like tommy boy , but at least he and farley worked well together . as far as the supporting players go , none of them makes more than a fleeting impression . eugene levy is wasted , and kevin dunn is about as interesting here as he is in godzilla . frankly , it's a disappointment to see something this dumb and ugly come from christopher guest , the brilliant comic force behind such films as this is spinal tap , the big picture , and waiting for guffman . although guest gets the costumes right , this nearly-inconsequential success is no substitute for the weak script and unfunny execution . the special effects , such as they are , are execrable . for an example of some really poor blue screen work , look at the scenes where the characters are shooting the rapids ( they're obviously getting buckets of water thrown on them ) and where farley is being carried off by an eagle . even though farley didn't have the most stellar of acting careers , he doesn't deserve the kind of unfortunate epitaph offered by almost heroes . while some of the more outrageous attempts at humor may coax a few guffaws from 12-year old boys , the level of comedy in almost heroes falls far below the level of sophomoric . farley fans who see this film as a way to say goodbye should be commended for their loyalty , since it takes real stamina to stay seated for the full running length of this cinematic torture session .

it was with great trepidation that i approached +mary+ , the farrelly brothers+ latest film . i knew the film would be funny--the trailer alone had me laugh harder than the actual comedy i went to see . but i also knew the film would be an equal-opportunity offender , attacking the sensibilities of the politically correct with reckless abandon . i figured the film would be raunchy , maybe another lucky escapee from nc-17 hell . i may laugh , but would i feel better in the morning ? i needn+t have worried . +mary+ is the sweetest , warmest , all-out laugh-and-grossfest this side of _animal house_ . surprisingly , the farrelly brothers have walked that very tight line of making a touching romantic comedy on the side , and filling the details with five or six outrageous howlers . they make laughter , the toughest job for a filmmaker to do , look easy . the plot is typical . thirteen years ago , geeky ted ( ben stiller ) lucked out in having dazzling mary ( cameron diaz ) go with him to the senior prom . as luck would have it , on that very day , he was hospitalized . why , i shall not tell , but i assure you , it isn+t pretty . he hires a private investigator to find her : pat healy ( matt dillon ) . he becomes one of the great comic villains . upon finding her , he too is lovestruck , and so pursues her , lying about his occupation and getting his teeth capped . it is only a matter of time before ted finds out that he had been double-crossed , and goes to get her for himself . would the geek get the girl ? puh-lease . the ending is pure hollywood ; no surprises there . but the absolute joy in this film is how this simple premise allows for humor in zippers , hair gel , the mentally disabled , the physically handicapped , interracial marriages , homosexuals , skin conditions , serial killers , tanning , and drugged-up dogs . the dog on speed sequence alone is worth the price of admission , and belongs in the film comedy hall of fame . and yet , for all the targets that are hit , the film maintains its sweet tone . mary , playing the straight role , is as sweet and caring as she is beautiful . she is totally devoted to caring for her mentally handicapped brother , warren ( w . earl brown--miles away from the cameraman in _scream_ ) . mary+s sunniness carries the film here--it compliments the below-belt gags that come at you . cameron diaz makes her totally charming , and the audience respects her , even though women in general do not usually undress before an open window . ben stiller also fares very well , totally changing his image from his _reality bites_ and _flirting with disaster_ straight men to being a , ( how to say it ? ) , a complete loser . braces , greasy long hair , not too bright , and very very funny . dillon is exceptionally creepy , especially with his capped teeth . and rounding out the cast is ted+s friend dom ( chris elliot ) , tanning addict magda ( lin shaye ) , modern troubador/greek chorus ron lichman , and mary+s sweet mom , markie post ( where has she been ? ! ) . not everything works . chris elliot+s role , skin blemishes and all , becomes merely tasteless and boring . there+s lousy dialogue about eight-minute vs . seven minute exercise tapes . and there are long stretches without much going on . but the wait is worth it . when those extraordinary sequences hit , the entire theater erupted with howls , tears . belly-aches , that in some sequences carried over to the following scene . the farrelly brothers have finally done it . yes , there are some raunchy bits , but when it is all over , it+s not nearly as bad as it could have been . while tasteless , it didn+t cross any lines , at least not with me . while raunchy , it wasn+t nearly as bad as _porky+s_ or _boogie nights_ . and it is sweet enough to be considered a date flick . after the funny but sour _kingpin_ left a negative aftertaste in my palate , comes the funniest sex farce since _a fish called wanda_ . approach this with an open mind , and you will reap the benefits hugely .

a hotshot lawyer gets an obviously guilty child molester acquitted , and shortly after during the victory celebration gets offered an opportunity to show his prowess in new york city . the lawyer , kevin lomax ( keanu reeves ) is not offered a job yet , he is asked to simply pick a jury . he accepts . the jury he selects work out well and before long he is offered a job with the firm . making his decision easy is the fact that not only is he offered big money , but a gorgeous apartment . he convinces his wife , mary ann ( charlize theron ) to make the move to new york . the first case given to him is a big test ; a " winless " case concerning a man who sacrifices animals in his basement . the charge was health code violations and kevin once again shows his skill and earns an acquittal . his new boss and partner in the firm , john milton ( al pacino ) is quite impressed and takes kevin under his wing , explaining many of his philosophies on law , women and sex , and angles the promise of a blissful , wealthy life . kevin's next case is a dream case , given to him by milton himself ( much to the chagrin to his colleagues ) , defending a triple murder suspect who has had a history of problems with the law . although kevin's career is taking off , his home life is not doing very well . mary ann is starting to have numerous problems . she is experiencing severe depression over kevin's long hours , and before long is having horrible dreams and hallucinations of people turning into ghouls , their faces becoming horribly disfigured . kevin does not help matters by dismissing his wife . he does not spend more time with her as he explains to milton that he needs to spend as much time on the case as possible to get it over with , then focus all of his attention on his wife . not helping matters is the fact that kevin is having ideas about a possible affair with a sexy lawyer ( connie nielson ) also working with the firm . mary ann falls deeper into her madness as kevin spends more time away from home . kevin eventually looses control of his life and has to institutionalize his wife , and gets disturbing news from his mother ( judith ivey ) about the mystery concerning the identity of his father . he also starts to lose control of his case . kevin learns that all of his problems have been caused by the work of one man . that man is his boss , mr . milton , a truly evil character who just may be the devil himself . kevin must somehow confront milton and thwart whatever diabolical plan he has in store . but how do you defeat the devil ? why is it that most courtroom scenes in the movies are absurd ? do filmmakers really believe that " normal " courtroom drama doesn't fit the bill and they have to juice them up ? the courtroom scenes in this movie would never happen in a real courtroom , which wouldn't have been too bad if it weren't keanu reeves trying to pull it off . i give reeves credit for trying hard , but throughout the movie i never saw the kevin lomax character , just an actor trying very hard to play kevin lomax and coming up short . charlize theron defines the term " over-the-top " in her performance as mary ann lomax , a disappointment in contrast to her good performance in " 2 days in the valley " . the only good performance in the movie is by al pacino , but i kept asking myself what the heck he was doing in this mess ? maybe he felt it would be interesting playing the devil , and you can tell he is having fun doing so , but his skill as an actor cannot save the poor performances and lackluster script that surround him . it's pretty standard stuff , including the fact that the hotshot lawyer appears to be the only competent person on the planet who can do anything right in the courtroom . please read no further if you do not want the ending spoiled , but i have to get something off of my chest . in 1986 i remember watching a movie called " wisdom " with emilio estevez and demi moore , and the ending of that film did the worst possible thing that a movie could do . what i like to call " guess what , it was all a dream " scenario . in " wisdom " the two lead characters are killed at the end , only to have one of the characters " wake up " from an apparent and say " gosh , i'm glad that didn't really happen ! " . i considered it inexcusable the way the audience was toyed with . well , the same thing happens in " the devils advocate " , and although arguments could be made surrounding whether it was actually a dream ( perhaps milton went back in time to try a different route for his plan , since it failed and he is the devil ) , but the point is that the last 90% of the film didn't happen . i know it's a stretch , after all it is a movie and nothing really happened , but i just get annoyed to get toyed with like that . of course , the dream ending could almost be forgiven if the story that precedes it was at least an interesting one . as i recall , " wisdom " was a decent film . " the devil's advocate " is not . the devils advocate directed by taylor hackford john milton . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . al pacino kevin lomax . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . keanu reeves mary ann lomax . . . . . . . . . . . charlize theron mrs . lomax . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . judith ivey eddie barzoon . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . jeffrey jones christabella . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . connie nielson written by randy turgeon , march 18 , 1998 .

it's tough to really say something nice about a type of person who's so ethnocentric that any humanity they once had is now gone , but by god , " american history x " does it , and for that , i commend it . it not only takes balls but intelligence to make a human being out of a neo-nazi skinhead , a kind of person who dedicates their lives to hating anyone who's not what they are , and this film wisely and miracurously pulls it off . the subject of this film is one of them , but he is worse than one of the blind followers that make up most skinhead members since he is the leader of the pack . he's the one who instigates them to take a firm grip onto their rage , and then in another brilliant stroke , justifies it with political propoganda that makes eerie sense when he speaks . he's so utterly convincing as a public speaker and so firm in his convictions that it comes as a shock when he actually goes through the rehabilitation process . his name is derek vinyard , and he's played by edward norton with so much fire and intensity that when he speaks he's almost as convincing and arresting a public speaker as , say , malcom x . when we first see him , he's clean shaven , with a jet black swastica emrboidered on his left breast , a devlish goatee , and he's attacking the black carjackers outside of his house dressed in nothing but his white boxers and carrying a handgun in his hand that never seems to run out of bullets , at least when he doesn't need them . he so believes in his convictions that he's willing to put his beliefs to the test , even if he knows it will mean a stop in prison , if only for a couple years . " american history x " is about derek , how he became a neo-nazi skinhead , how he rose to power , how he was rehabilitated in prison after murdering two black men in a fit of rage that was less to do with the stealing of his car and more to do with proving himself , and how he tried to save others , namely his younger brother , from making the same mistake . we see him at all of these stages - as a smart teenager , a vicious hate monger , a man having an epiphany , and the man who tries to correct what he's done before - and in all of these , we get a portrait of a man from all sides . or at least , that's the intention . the film's framing device is his brother , danny ( edward furlong , perpetually looking about 13 ) , also now a skinhead , and how his principal , bob sweeney ( avery brooks , who i just found out was or is the captain on star trek's deep space 9 ) , is trying to " correct " him . when the film opens , danny has just written a book report on " mein kampf , " landing him in trouble with sweeney , which causes him to make him write a paper on derek's life and how it has gotten him nowhere . coincidentally , this day is the day derek is released from prison , and when we see him , he's cleaned-up , not as buff , and has a full head of hair . he's just as intelligent , but still very rough along the edges , but he's wisened up . he's no longer controlled by his anger at blacks and jews , and tries to persuade danny , who's becoming what derek was before , to give up his lifestyle . but danny won't . he goes to a large skinhead beer bash , meets with the skinhead leader ( stacy keach ) , and then discovers that derek is as opposed to neo-nazi-dom as he was for it a couple of years ago . the film circles around this , then spins off into non-linear flashbacks , all done in black and white . we mostly see derek at his prime as a skinhead , living in venice beach , organizing vicious and quasi-sadistic raids on local stores that no longer hire the white , middle-class teenagers since they can easily get cheaper illegal immigrants to do the same work , and mouthing off his theories on affirmative action and how illegal immigrants and blacks have destroyed the fundamentals this country was built on . to them , the white man is the one who has gotten the fuzzy end of the lolipop , and he not only speaks elloquently , forcefully , and intelligently , but he backs everything up with political reasons , justifying their rage at least to them . and frighteningly enough , much of what he says sounds true . " american history x " is a collection of really great scenes and moments , rather than a cohesive , great film that flows effortlessly from one moment to the next . in it , there are some of the best scenes i've seen all year . one scene features a dinner between derek's family , and his mother's newest boyfriend ( played with reserve by eliott gould ) , a jewish liberal who quietly disagrees with derek's rightist views , launching the scene into a fit of rage and anger that builds unparalled emotions in the audience ( gould's reaction to derek's final summation is unnerrving ) . another scene uses humor and traditional macho sex talk to build a friendship and a nice connection between derek and a black co-worker ( guy torry ) while folding laundry in prison . and another soon-to-be-classic is actually divided in two : the murder of the two black men that winds derek in jail , which contains a final murder so nasty that it may be the most revoltingly shocking all year . there's much more to appreciate , like the acting , which is uniformly good , with stand-outs coming from avery brooks , beverly d'angelo ( as the long-suffering mother ) , and gould ( who has one horrible line , but other than that , comes off with the best performance he's given in what seems like a really long time ) . norton walks off with the film , though , coming off with such intensity that he reduces anyone not doing an adequate job to rubble . in only the fifth movie of his career , norton has invented himself as one of the most reliable and intense actors of his generation , and maybe the best . there's nothing like it when norton really gets rolling in this movie , spewing out lines with such authority that he commands all attention from the audience , coming off with power similar to that of a young maron brando . that he allows the little emotions to seep through is amazing . sadly enough , this isn't going to be the great portrait of racism that it perhaps hopes to be . it's too unambitious and even a little contrived to really take off as either a powerful statement or an emotional masterpiece . the ending , especially , is pencilled in from other movies , tossed in just so the emotional keyboard can be trounced upon . some of the skinheads are reduced to mere cliches ( kevin smith regular ethan suplee fairs rather annoyingly as the " fat skinhead , " whose lines consist without fail of expressing his desire to eat more ) , and even the dramatic arc isn't as well travelled . furlong's danny never seems to really be learning a lesson , since the flashbacks refuse to show his point of view , and when he decides to make a change by the end ( which was inevitable ) , it doesn't seem like it has actually arrived there . even derek's descent into skinhead-dom doesn't seem justified . though his fireman father ( william russ , the dad from " boy meets world , " and don't ask me how i know that ) is killed by a black junkie , and even before he spoke against affirmative action intelligently , there never seems to be any real back story why derek became so intense about his beliefs . as such , one can see why the director , tony kaye , wanted to have his name removed . sorta . " american history x " is a very good movie , and i was very moved by it , but it could be a lot better , and the problem seems to be that the cut as it is is not up to what he claims to be his potential . somewhere , he claims , there lies a tony kaye cut , and that was to be the true cut until it was viewed by norton , who then ordered another cut , and that is thus . although he aimed for the directing credit to go to " alan smithee , " the resident name for any film that is to be disowned by its director , it wasn't allowed to him , under the grounds that once you disown a film , you can not badmouth it ( but really , that's the macguffin - no one really wanted a film this good to be given the alan smithee sign of disapproval ) . kaye's right in that it's not up to par , even if he's not referring to normal par but rather his own personal par . this will not be a " do the right thing " for the late 90s . yet it still gets its point across intelligently , and backs it up with its story ( its message , that one cannot be so enwrapped in one's own beliefs or pain and suffering will occur , is literally said over the narration , unfortunately ) . and even if it isn't perfect , at least when avery brooks turns to norton after he has been beaten and raped in prison , and asks him if anything he's done has made his life any better , it realy hits a nerve , not only in derek , but also in the audience .

isn't it the ultimate sign of a movie's cinematic ineptitude when you can't think of much to say about it other than " it sucks " ? one of the first official year 2000 releases , supernova is such a movie . i can't seem to get past one-word adjectives with this one , although " boring , " " stupid " and " absurd " doesn't amount to much of a review . a shame . i would have been able to save myself the chore of desperately trying to elaborate . but c'est la vie . here goes nothing . i'll keep it short . i suppose the first bad omen for supernova came when director walter hill ( 48 hours ) removed his name from the movie , requesting that it be replaced with the pseudonym thomas lee . the film's fate was sealed in many minds when struggling studio mgm declined to screen it for the press , an event usually signifying a studio's lack of confidence in a particular movie . hill's and mgm's actions were prudent . when the captain of medical space vessel nightingale dies in a tragic hyperjump accident , a reformed drug addict who is also the first officer , for some reason ( james spader ) is forced to take command . the ship picks up a distress call from a nearby planet and , on arrival , picks up one survivor from an apparent accident in an abandoned mining colony . one of the crew members ( angela bassett ) knows this passenger , who is played by peter facinelli , and has some bad feelings about it -- and we all know what that means . this intergalactic hitchhiker is carrying some mysterious cargo -- a jellylike substance the purpose of which is unknown , though it seems to bring some form of pleasure to whoever touches it . another one of the crew members experiences this first hand ; after spending a few minutes partially inside this glob of goo , he does some impressive handstand pushups . evidently , touching this enigmatic egg-shaped thingie makes you younger and stronger . how ? why ? the movie never bothers to explain . soon enough though , spader and bassett are running around the ship like mad , being chased by the all-of-a-sudden-superhuman facinelli . to be honest , i don't even remember exactly why . i just remember that i didn't care . supernova's plot suggested some more or less interesting ideas , such as the ball of goo being an intergalactic time bomb , but they are all dropped before they have a chance to develop into anything truly intriguing . in fact , everything is dropped just so the actors can have some fun running around what looks like an elaborate set . well , the effects are good , though there's hardly a studio movie with bad special effects these days so i'm not sure whether that's so remarkable an accomplishment . the performances are hardly worth talking about . i'm not even sure i can call what's here " performances , " though angela bassett sure is good at giving people the finger . james spader is not a bad actor , but he proves to be one of the blandest action stars i've seen in a while , mostly because he isn't given a character with a personality . the action scenes are just as bland , since they're pretty much just rehashes of action elements that weren't particularly entertaining the first time around . and since the action scenes are everything to this movie , it's pretty much dead in the water . and for the life of me , i can't figure out why it's called supernova .

david schwimmer ( from the television series " friends " ) stars as a sensitive ( and slightly neurotic ) single guy who gets more than he expected from the grieving mother ( barbara hershey ) of a classmate he can't remember . hello mrs . robinson ! though quite cute as a romantic comedy , the pallbearer is paced like a funeral march . the characters act , react , and interact at half-speed , making for one * excruciatingly * long sit . ( and what's with the dreary lighting ? ) co-writer/director matt reeves brings some snap to the story's midsection ; the film briefly comes to life when our hero attempts to resolve his feelings for * another * classmate ( a very appealing gwyneth paltrow ) . by this time , though , most viewers will have either fled or fallen asleep . those tough souls who stay with it can marvel at the sleepy-eyed schwimmer , a hound dog with a head cold , who can go for over an hour without ever changing his expression .

a miracle of filmmaking , " some like it hot " is a brilliant film , and maybe the foremost example of slapstick comedy brought to screen with clever sight gags and plot twists . it is the pinnacle of writer-director billy wilder's career , a stunning feat considering the vast catalogue of films he had helped make . jerry ( lemmon ) and joe ( curtis ) are two stage musicians who go from gig to gig , trying to earn enough money to feed themselves . one night , as they're playing at a banned prohibition speakeasy , the place is raided . as it turns out , the owner , spats columbo ( george raft ) was ratted out by toothpick charlie ( george e . stone ) . several weeks later , on valentine's day , jerry and joe go to a garage to pick up a car and end up witnessing a gangland murder of charlie by columbo in a parking garage . eager to escape , the duo are forced to take a job in florida with all expenses paid . the only catch . . its a girls band . so josephine ( curtis ) and daphne ( lemmon ) , make their way onto the train and go to florida . on the way there , they meet sugar kane ( monroe ) , a bombshell singer who is looking for love . jerry and joe immediately fall for the singer , but there's two problems : 1 ) they're in drag , and 2 ) millionaire osgood fielding ( joe e . brown ) falls madly in love with daphne . what follows in pure hysteria , still complicated further by the arrival of spats columbo to florida for the " italian opera lovers festival " . tony curtis is hysterical as joe/josephine , especially in his preposterous attempts to woo sugar . marilyn monroe , in a wonderfully comic performance , is sugar , providing incredible timing and sex appeal , along with true sincerity . the scenes , however , are all stolen by either brown or lemmon . lemmon is hysterical as daphne . cast as the less rational one , lemmon's performance is ridiculously crazy , it is disorder in the style all billy wilder's . brown is particularly hilarious as osgood , as we are treated to the finest kind of comedic irony . he manages to use lemmon's ingenious performance as a springboard for an even loonier performance as a completely eccentric millionaire . every set-piece is flawless , as wilder brilliantly changes settings constantly , and uses every comic trick in the book to make his picture . wilder's script is stunning , as he carefully combines gangsters , cross-dressing , romance , sex , music , gender roles , and social taboos in a riotous blend of wit and oddball craziness . wilder manages to create scenes of utter hysteria , so pitch-perfect that the audience is dying of laughter with the last comic piece , the final line of this absolutely incredible film . wilder's is dead wrong when he says nobody's perfect : billy wilder is , especially when he makes something this disastrously funny . nobody's perfect but billy wilder .

the characters in jonathan lynn's " the whole nine yards , " yet another in an endless recent string of mob comedies ( 1999's " analyze this " and " mickey blue eyes , " 2000's " gun shy " ) , are rarely ever written as real people , but merely as one-dimensional caricatures . when an added layer to one of their personalities is revealed , it is not to service the character development , or to naturally offer up instinctive characterizations , but to accommodate the convoluted plot . in a lightweight comedy , you might say , it is not required to have perfectly realized figures , just as long as they get the job done . unfortunately , for a comedy to work , it has to at least succeed at being funny , and if there was a laugh-o-meter available , i'd guess that it briefly ascended around 2 . 5% of the time for me . suffice to say , the comedy in " the whole nine yards " works about as well as the broken-down lawnmower in my backyard , and when a giggle surprisingly arises every twenty to thirty minutes , it is by sheer luck . nicholas " oz " oseransky ( matthew perry ) is an amateur dentist living in the quiet suburbs of quebec . trapped in a hateful marriage with the conniving sophie ( rosanna arquette , delightfully hamming it up with a clearly artificial french-canadian accent ) , one day oz sees that someone is moving into the house next-door . walking over to greet him , he is horrified to discover it is jimmy " the tulip " tudeski ( bruce willis ) , a former contract killer for the mafia who has just been released from prison . once getting to know him and becoming his friend , oz is more comfortable with his identity , but for sophie , it means a possible hitman to do away with oz . in her scheme , sophie sends oz to chicago to cash in by informing his old mob boss ( kevin pollak ) about jimmy's whereabouts , but in the process , he falls in love with jimmy's wife , cynthia ( natasha henstridge ) , who is being held hostage . upon return to quebec , and with one contrivance after the next , oz's dental assistant , jill ( amanda peet ) , is overjoyed to discover that he lives beside " the tulip , " and forces him to set up a meeting , since jill's dream in life turns out being a contract killer herself . have you got all that ? because there is more . much , much more . and this is a movie that , without credits , is little over 90 minutes and feels only like an hour . " the whole nine yards " is an ultimately unsatisfying and empty-headed excursion into well-worn terrain already set by far superior pictures . how the cast , most of which are respectable actors , got caught up in such a cliched , deficient film remains a mystery , unless they thought it might aspire to match the congenial screwball zaniness of director lynn's 1985 comedy classic , " clue : the movie . " going into the theater , preliminary comparisons between the two movies were unavoidable , but by the twenty-minute mark , when i had chuckled once and laughed nary a single time , it was clear this production was in serious trouble . since the entire running time depends on the mechanisms of the plot , and the screenplay , inauspiciously written by mitchell kapner , collapses with every failing " comedy " bit , the film is an inevitable dead zone in the way of substance and , frequently , entertainment value . " the whole nine yards " is neither facetious nor , aside from the subplot about jill's shocking eagerness to become a professional hitwoman , inventive , and more often than not , just lies there , the film spinning drearily around and around in the projector , but never igniting any sort of spark . a few select actors do what they can with the material , while others make no impact at all . on the mediocre side are actually those playing the two central characters : matthew perry and bruce willis . perry , innocuously enjoyable on tv's " friends , " plays the same exact sitcom-style character in all of his movies ( from 1997's " fools rush in " to 1999's " three to tango " ) , and it has become a crushing bore . meanwhile , willis makes next to no impression , and because of the limited guise of his jimmy " the tulip " tudeski , oftentimes disappears into the background . their three female counterparts fare noticeably better . best of all is natasha henstridge , far more radiant than in the exploitative " species " movies , who adds unanticipated depth and emotion to cynthia . henstridge has the talent , for sure , to break out of these countless throwaway roles , but first she must fire her agent . amanda peet has a lot of fun as the quirkily straightforward and giddy jill , and seems to know more about the art of comedic payoff than even perry who , thus far , has strived on a career based solely on comedy . it is too bad , then , that peet is unnecessarily asked to disrobe in a climactic scene , with the obvious sole purpose being to show off her breasts . finally , rosanna arquette is awful as sophie , but something tells me that was her purpose , and her clear overacting only aids in brightening up her limited screen time . also popping up is michael clarke duncan , fresh off an oscar nomination for his role in " the green mile , " as jimmy's largely built friend and fellow killer , frankie figs . when " the whole nine yards " eventually sputters to its underwhelming conclusion , one is left pondering how such a film ever got greenlit . a great deal of movies of this type have been made in the past , and this one is nothing but a duplication of better films , so what was the point ? without a passable screenplay or any notable technical accomplishments , " the whole nine yards " rests solely on the presumed charm of the cast , and half of the actors are not charming at all . now , what does that tell you ?

a thriller set in modern day seattle , that marked marky mark's migration from the " good vibrations " and " calvin klein undie ad " guy , to mark wahlberg , thespian-at-large , and a mighty good one at that . plot : boy ( wahlberg ) meets girl ( witherspoon ) . boy likes girl . girl likes boy . boy and girl begin dating . parents of girl aren't crazy about the boy . girl steps to boy's defense . family problems occur . girl learns more about the boy . boy goes nuts . fun ensues . critique : ever wonder what would happen if your better half turned out to be someone other than the person that you had come to cherish and love ? well , if you ever have , then this film is definitely for you . it isn't the most original premise in the world , but it is handled pretty well here , and pretty quickly for that matter ( a speedy 90 minutes ) . i think one of the main reasons this film worked for me is the groundbreaking performance by mark wahlberg ( of boogie nights infamy ( 7 . 5/10 ) . he completely captured all the goodness , and badness , of the main character of this film , and always kept me wanting to see more and more of him ( his performance scored him a solid nomination from his core target audience , as " best villain " at the 1997 mtv movie awards ) . the soundtrack is also very effective in this setting , and of course , the slutty performance by alyssa milano is something we could all indulge in ( look for the nice bikini and butt shots . . . if you're into that kind of thing , that is : ) . i didn't much care for the father/david relationship which seemed to be a little too contrived , but for the most part , i was really into this movie . then again , daddy dearest did have one of the coolest lines in the movie when his wife is asking him what the " big deal " was about his daughter dating david . his reply : " the big deal is that the guy gives me the creeps , and the girl is my daughter . " good point . all in all , the movie kicked some fun ass , mindless as it was , and effectively demonstrated every parent's worst nightmare . mind you , i still can't tell if reese witherspoon is good looking or a douchebag , but hey , life goes on . and on a personal note , we finally decided to add some taco meat onto our nacho fiesta of usual , and let me tell you all . . . it was a flaming success ! ! another firm recommendation by joe schmoe ! little known facts : director james foley was the man responsible for the critically acclaimed glengarry glenross ( 8/10 ) back in 1992 , at close range ( 7 . 5/10 ) in 1986 , and even directed an episode of twin peaks in 1990 . mark wahlberg stands 5 " 9 , is born in massachusetts , dropped out of highschool ( later got his ged ) , and was convicted of several minor felonies before starting his career as the lead singer of marky mark and the funky bunch . his brother is donnie wahlberg of new kids on the block fame . he is also testing the waters on the acting front .

metro i've seen san francisco in movies many times . there was 1994's interview with the vampire and most recently the rock . now , yet again , san francisco is the setting for this movie . eddie murphy stars as inspector scott roper of the sfpd . he is their top hostage negotiator , and the very best at what he does . when his best friend on the force is killed by joe ( michael wincott , in a terrific performance ) , a psychotic , demented jewel thief , roger makes it his mission to capture the guy before he strikes again . meanwhile , roper tries to rekindle a relationship with his british ex-girlfriend veronica , while helping to rear a new up and comer from swat who's an expert sniper and marksman ( michael rappaport ) . despite the obligatory cop movie scenes ( does every cop/new partner movie have to start the same way ? ) where the sgt . assigns roper a partner , roper confronts the sarge , etc . , this film is still one heck of an explosive ride . a scene involving a cable car has to be seen to be believed , and boasts some amazing car stunts . eddie murphy shines in this tailor-made role , and for once , his character shows depth and concern . when confronting joe in prison , you can feel the anger drip from every word . michael rappaport is basically throwaway . he serves no purpose , except to be buddy to murphy and get disabled in the final reel so that eddie can save the day . typical action escapist fare . michael wincott offers the best performance as the crazed killer and jewel thief joe . never before have i seen such a villian written like this where i could actually believe that he was serious and take him seriously . maybe i just thought that this role was different due to wincott's perfectly raspy voice . i don't know . what i do know , though , is that although metro is basically a typical action retread , it manages to cover new ground and shed new light on tired old cliches' . the film is a triumph , and an entertaining one at that . it doesn't meander or trail off from its main character . an enjoyable two hours , metro is enjoyable , witty , action-packed , and fun , and makes for a great action movie that's perfect for all of us that need an escape from reality .