Turning Cities to Salt, and Movies to Shit. Christopher Walken, former angel of death, returns in THE PROPHECY 3: THE ASCENT and does nothing, except walk around with a spectacular mullet, wearing his pants a little too high. Oh, and he’s the Angel Gabriel, mystically powerful villain of two previous films. He’s the guy who could “turn cities to salt” … Read More
UNBREAKABLE
Irresponsible Force meets Unbreakable Object. Quentin Tarantino provided the best logline for M. Night Shyamalan‘s UNBREAKABLE. In his characteristically compelling storytelling way, he puts it – even better than the actual ad campaign – “What if Superman was here on Earth and didn’t know he was Superman?” That’s UNBREAKABLE broken down. If there is, in fact, a “super” gene, it … Read More
28 DAYS
Alco-bollocks Anonymous. Hey, Alcoholics, Do you really want to be portrayed this way? Not only having to go through the physical pain of withdrawal, the humiliation of prostrating yourself in front of snide voyeurs, the loss of income, respect and friendship, now you also have to endure 28 DAYS representing your rehabilitation as kindergarten for grownups with mental disorders. So, … Read More
X-MEN
Mutation Elation. They gave superheroes a new reason to be super. X-MEN is the sometimes brooding, sometimes kick-ass, mostly campy filmic incarnation of a Marvel Comics series that added a new dimension to “super” heroes. It doesn’t quite outline the first generation of Professor Xavier’s “X-Men” but it comes close enough to raise the hairs on our bushy berserker sideburns. … Read More
MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE 2
Highway to the Ambivalent Zone. Exciting? Yes. Stupid? Impossibly. Super spy Ethan Hunt (an incredibly smug Tom Cruise) must stop villain Sean Ambrose (Dougray Scott) from spreading a genetically modified disease in Australia. Taking his cues from every reputable pharm corporation, Ambrose wants to spread the Chimera virus in order to sell the cure, called Bellerophon, buying enough stocks in … Read More
THE BOONDOCK SAINTS
In nomine Peckinpah, et spiritus Tarantino. In the name of the father – Peckinpah – and in the spirit of Tarantino. THE BOONDOCK SAINTS is like Sam and Quentin had a baby that hasn’t learned to walk yet. It’s a cult classic because it’s powerful and visceral: two Irish Boston prettyboys go vigilante vocation on the Russian mob, all broguey … Read More
DRACULA 2000
Bloody Hell! There is one very provocative idea in DRACULA 2000 – all the rest is crap. The crap goes like this: In 2000, Dracula comes to New Orleans seeking the daughter of Van Helsing. Bland action movie ensues. Only redeeming factor is that every chick is groin-achingly hot. The provocative idea is that Dracula is not a warrior impaler … Read More
CHICKEN RUN
Eggs over easy. THE GREAT ESCAPE meets KFC. Creator Nick Park brings his WALLACE AND GROMIT stop-motion skills to the chicken coop, with CHICKEN RUN, a cutesy claymation adventure set in a British farmyard where a group of chickens are trying to escape Tweedy’s Farm, whose owner has just purchased a pie-making machine that makes… chicken pies! The chickens enlist … Read More
DUDE, WHERE’S MY CAR?
Driving Mister Moron. DUDE, WHERE’S MY CAR? is to Ashton Kutcher what BILL AND TED’S EXCELLENT ADVENTURE is to Keanu Reeves – an inauspicious, downright idiotic introduction to the filmic world before taking over said world. (Kutcher’s character name is even phonetically like Theodore Logan Esquire – Jesse Montgomery III.) Numbnut Jesse (Kutcher) wakes after a drunken night with his … Read More
FREQUENCY
Radio Da Da. And we thought BACK TO THE FUTURE covered all the angles of going back in time to change the present! Jim Caviezel is Jesus and Dennis Quaid his Heavenly Father, who speaks to him through a magical ham radio. Actually, Caviezel is a New York cop, his father a fireman who lost his life years ago. A … Read More
REQUIEM FOR A DREAM
Heroes for a Loser Class. If you’ve never done hard drugs before, REQUIEM FOR A DREAM will make sure you don’t. If you’ve puked your guts out over your bed, stayed unwashed for a month straight, and sold your mother’s TV for a fix, well, REQUIEM FOR A DREAM is like last Wednesday. To say Darren Aronofsky‘s unflinching mind-bender is … Read More
DANCER IN THE DARK
A Director Dancing With Himself… Don’t know about you, but I always cringed when Dean Martin would start singing in those old Martin and Lewis comedies; and my flesh would crawl whenever Bing Crosby opened his puling puss during a hilarious Bob Hope movie. Nothing’s changed. It’s not that I don’t like musicals, or even musical numbers – hell, JESUS … Read More
GLADIATOR
Unleashing Helle. Truly GLADIATOR is the stuff of great fiction; a story so well-orchestrated and superbly told, there might well have been in Roman history a general who became a slave, a slave who became a gladiator, a gladiator who won an Oscar. But – as they used to say in ancient Rome – “only in Hollywood…” Russell Crowe is … Read More
RED PLANET
Blue-Skying Salmon Sky. The OTHER Mission to Mars. In March 2000, Gary Sinise and Tim Robbins, under director Brian de Palma, went to Mars ignorantly. In November of that same year, Hollywood synergy (read as plagiarism) sends Val Kilmer, Carrie-Anne Moss and director Antony Hoffman to the same planet just as ignorantly, in RED PLANET. In 2050, Earth is such … Read More
AMERICAN PSYCHO
Exotic Psychotic. About a yuppie serial killer who finds he is slowly going insane, not from killing people, but from the boredom of doing so. This comedy is not just black – it’s black with sprinkles on top and a human head on a spike. From the hilariously disturbing Bret Easton Ellis novel of the same name (screenstoried by Mary … Read More
LOVE AND SEX
Aiming for mediocre – and succeeding. Adam (Jon Favreau) and Kate (Famke Janssen) mix it up as a couple for a while, having the titular LOVE AND SEX. Then they break up. While they each date other people, their feelings for each other resurface almost as much as they keep running into each other in social circles. They end up … Read More
MISSION TO MARS
Mission To Farce. MISSION TO MARS stands every bit as tall as CAPRICORN ONE in the Ignorant Space Movie category, exhibiting so many misdemeanors, misrepresentations, misapplied physics laws, mistaken facts, missteps, mysterious logic, and misapprehension of spacefaring dialect that one wonders which second-grader took three months off school to helm it. Brian de Palma – the dark force behind 1983’s … Read More
CAST AWAY
A Breath Of Fresh Island Air. Chuck Noland (plump Tom Hanks), inextricably married to his time-sensitive, nerve-fraying job as FedEx consultant, instead of to quietly-suffering fiancé Kelly (Helen Hunt), finds himself suddenly and unceremoniously negated from Civilization’s jetstream when a plane crash leaves him Stranded On A Desert Island. CAST AWAY seems to be nothing new: we’ve seen and heard … Read More
SPACE COWBOYS
American Hero Sandwich. There is a rare breed of animal in the world, outside any established morality, divorced from mundane reality, mythically above many of its technically superior kin; that animal is – The Clint Eastwood Movie. Clint Eastwood is an American Hero. And Clint Eastwood Movies deal with the nature of Heroism. SPACE COWBOYS is a Clint Eastwood Movie, … Read More
ME, MYSELF AND IRENE
So Much Effort, So Little Movie. Jim Carrey in another 10-star performance. Alas, for a mere 6-star movie. Where one has come to expect simply another mugging, scenery-chewing turn from Jim Carrey, in ME, MYSELF AND IRENE he surprises elegantly with his controlled portrayal of amiable Charlie Baileygates, a disrespected Rhode Island police officer whose retention of insults, barbs, put-downs … Read More