Air Force Dumb. Russians hijack the American President’s plane, AIR FORCE ONE! Oh my! Whatever is going to happen now? Can I have a serving of foregone conclusion with my helping of blockbuster actioner? Two great actors. One dumbass movie. Harrison Ford is American President James Marshall (because the name President Privileged Whiteman was taken), and Gary Oldman is Russian … Read More
SNOW WHITE: A TALE OF TERROR
Once Upon a Terrifying Time… SNOW WHITE: A TALE OF TERROR has the potential to be one of the great revisionist re-tellings of the original Grimm Fairy Tale, but, like BRAM STOKER’S DRACULA, suffers from inauthentic sets, TV production values and bad editing. And big dwarfs. As the title suggests, it’s the age-old German folk tale of Snow White (tabulated … Read More
THE RELIC
Horror Movie Handbook meets Callous Director. Another good scientific story sacrificed to Hollywood’s Lowest Common Denom. THE RELIC finds a field researcher dabbling in tribal drugs on the dark continent shipping a crate containing a strange fungus back to his lab at the Chicago Natural History Museum. Also in the crate is a relic of an ancient god that could … Read More
THE POSTMAN
Going Postal for ‘Pocalypse. Not another apocalypse! This time, Kevin Costner’s to blame. Hey, wasn’t he responsible for the apocalypse in WATERWORLD as well?… I hate the word ‘apocalypse’ – not the word itself, which is very… uh, apocalyptic.. but its misunderstanding and its consequent misuse. It means, literally, a “lifting of the veil” or “revelation” but because ‘Apocalypse’ was … Read More
GROSSE POINTE BLANK
Whackjob Whack Job. It’s the terror of knowing what this world is about Watching some good friends screaming, “Let me out!” — Queen/David Bowie, “Under Pressure.” Even hitmen have high school reunions. Even hitmen have psychiatrists. One could suppose GROSSE POINTE BLANK was a precursor/inspiration for THE SOPRANOS – and one could be whacked for it. When we attend our … Read More
FIRE DOWN BELOW
Fire Nowhere Near. In the unfocused environmental actioner FIRE DOWN BELOW, Steven Seagal (as undercover EPA federal agent Jack Taggart) strides from one fist-fight into the next with that same expressionless expression, and with a startling command of aikido. (I was unaware you needed a 7th dan to investigate spilling of toxic waste.) Into the backwoods of the Kentucky hills, … Read More
ABSOLUTE POWER
Thieves in the Temple. In ABSOLUTE POWER, Clint Eastwood is super thief Luther Whitney, robbing a mansion when he is interrupted by two lovers entering the room. Luther takes cover and witnesses rough foreplay, until the man gets too rough for the woman and she retaliates by trying to stab him. The man, pinned on the floor, cries, “Help! Help!” … Read More
G.I. JANE
FEMper Fi. If she wants to play lumberjack, she’s gonna have to learn to handle her end of the log. — Dirty Harry, THE ENFORCER. Demi Moore tries to prove she’s got a dick. As Jordan O’Neill, Demi goes action figure in G.I. JANE and claws her rambunctious way through man-sized basic training to be a Navy SEAL in this … Read More
LIAR LIAR
Fabrication Retardation. Fletcher Reede (Jim Carrey) is a lawyer aka, ergo, ipso facto, a liar. His little son Max (Justin Cooper) makes no distinction, as Fletcher is a callous dad who is always breaking promises to Max, putting his job first. Max makes a birthday wish that his dad won’t be able to lie for one whole day. It comes … Read More
DANTE’S PEAK
Goldeneye meets Thunderball. If VOLCANO was the fun fun fun volcano movie of 1997, DANTE’S PEAK was its serious big brother. That doesn’t stop it being unintentionally funny. Geological mystery abounds on whether the mountain shadowing bucolic tourist town Dante’s Peak will erupt or not. Yuh think? Yet Pierce Brosnan wastes his overqualified suaveté as geologist Harry Dalton, sniffing for … Read More
JURASSIC PARK THE LOST WORLD
Boring Roaring. Unnecessary. That’s the word that comes to mind during Steven Spielberg’s THE LOST WORLD JURASSIC PARK, the insipid followup to his mighty JURASSIC PARK (1993). In a fit of George Lucas-oid storytelling (i.e. Making It Up As He Goes Along), we are reintroduced to Hammond (Richard Attenborough, usually a paragon of filmic integrity, probably filling this pedestrian cameo … Read More
AUSTIN POWERS: INTERNATIONAL MAN OF MYSTERY
Swinging! Like a man, man! He’s the sexiest, swingingest secret agent ever to combat evil – DOCTOR Evil, that is…. mwohahaha ha ha ha….He’s Austin Powers, arguably Mike Myers’s greatest, most memorable, most embraced, most quoted icon – in the film that made it all shagadelic, baby! AUSTIN POWERS: INTERNATIONAL MAN OF MYSTERY is a hip skewering of the spy … Read More
AMISTAD
Re-educating the slaves of perception. AMISTAD, one of the modern hammers to beat Whitey upside the head for his past, present and future racism. No metaphors, no allegories, no analogies – this is straight up, in-ya-face, naked mea culpa racism for all the world to be ashamed of. Director Steven Spielberg‘s powerful, insightful AMISTAD suffers from the usual problem associated with … Read More
AS GOOD AS IT GETS
A man-size Jack in a girl-size film. Saw this movie at the cinema with a male friend. We were two men – men who discovered the wheel and built the Eiffel Tower out of metal and brawn. And AS GOOD AS IT GETS blindsided us. The marketing was smart. Yes, Helen Hunt and Jack Nicholson were probably going to end … Read More
VOLCANO
You Maniacs! You blew it up! VOLCANO is nothing but fun fun fun, seeing the city of my residence – Los Angeles, California – the city that has given me nothing but attitude attitude attitude being blown all to hell. Tommy Lee Jones is the head of the Department for Fixin’ Stuff and Anne Heche is a geologist. In the … Read More
CON AIR
Just Another Con. Nice mullet, Nic! His pooch hairdo effectively takes attention away from his massively-developed arms and Kirk-body-oiled man-chest. A prisoner plane, the CON AIR of the title, transporting the biggest bunch of cliched criminals this side of Blockbuster Screenwriting 101, is overrun by said archetypes, led by an exceptionally-maladjusted Malkovich. Elvis comes to the rescue in the form … Read More
THE FIFTH ELEMENT
Slammin’, Glammin’ and Hammin’. THE FIFTH ELEMENT has spawned so many negative reviews (even whilst admitting to enjoying it) that I get the feeling critics are jealous that Euros can pull off an action blockbuster with as much brainless flair as Americans – with twice the guilty pleasure. In a future society realized in eye-fatiguing detail by writer/director Luc Besson, … Read More
TITANIC
The King Of The World meets The Bitch Of The Sea. Let’s get one thing straight before we embark on this perilous journey into Hollywood History: the only “truth” in this movie is that the RMS Titanic did sink in April 1912 and that Leonardo DiCaprio is prettier than Kate Winslet. Everything else in James Cameron’s TITANIC is marshmallow fancy. … Read More
THE PEACEMAKER
The Cheesemaker. Infuriatingly predictable and wholly uninvolving, THE PEACEMAKER finds George Clooney in classic head-waggling mode (as Army Intelligence Officer Devoe – hey! I bought his record, Whip It!) and Nicole Kidman in severe-skirted secretary mode (as White House Liaison, Julia Kelly), saving White America from nuke-thieving Russkies who intend to blow up Manhattan. In movies of this ilk, the … Read More
CONTACT
Buried within The Message from Vega – The Message from Sagan. CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND needed updating. CONTACT is that update. Though it may never attain the lofty heights of commercialism that CLOSE ENCOUNTERS enjoyed, CONTACT is, in fact, a more intelligent vision of extra-terrestrial communication with our outer-spiral-arm planet. Jodie Foster is SETI maverick, Ellie Arroway, who … Read More
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