Dark Knight Reconstructionist Theory. Droves of bats against an ocher sunset, teasing out the infamous Bat Logo on the sky with their swarming bodies; the first five seconds of BATMAN BEGINS are scintillating. Then it just keeps getting better. If there is bedrock truth in the axiom, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it,” then surely the inverse is also … Read More
IDENTITY
Identity Cleft. More than a murder mystery. More than a psychological thriller. More than a horror movie. IDENTITY is its own special slice of crazy. With most viewers being either misled by this movie’s similarities to Agatha Christie’s TEN LITTLE INDIANS, or just pompously broadcasting their knowledge that IDENTITY was inspired by it, they missed the point this was not … Read More
TIMELINE
Space-Time Continuum Saved by Surfer Dude & Community Theatre Actress. To call this movie “silly” would be an insult to silly movies. TIMELINE makes the execrable indecency of THE CORE look like a scientific masterpiece. With costumes borrowed from a traveling Renaissance Festival and actors borrowed from the local community theatre, even the brainless idiocy of FROM JUSTIN TO KELLY … Read More
DRAGON: THE BRUCE LEE STORY
Jeet Kune Don’t. Bruce Lee was an artisan, an innovator, an indomitable warrior, a genius. Inspiring many to create tributes to him. It unfortunately does not follow that those inspired to create these tributes are creative enough or qualified enough to do those tributes justice. Such is the case with DRAGON: THE BRUCE LEE STORY. Not really a story about … Read More
THE STAND
My Favorite Martian versus Garth Brooks. This story should have stayed in our heads. Reading Stephen King‘s daunting 1000+ page The Stand (restored version, of course), nothing “visual” could intercept our imagination driving onto the wastelands of a dead earth, seeing an unseeable being (Flagg) in our mind’s eye, envisioning the disturbing horrors of the Lincoln Tunnel gridlock, the appendix operation, … Read More
THE LORD OF THE RINGS: THE RETURN OF THE KING
deus ex tolkiena. Okay, tattered robes deployed? – check; multiple story lines at the ready to entwine and entangle viewers? – check; sets constructed on a budget which would’ve stamped out hunger in Ethiopia? – check; everyone smeared in poo? – check – let’s roll! Trust me, Gentle Viewer, if you’ve not seen the first two installments of this bloated, … Read More
GANGS OF NEW YORK
An Army Of One – Daniel Day-Lewis. There are three reasons to watch Martin Scorsese’s superlative GANGS OF NEW YORK: Daniel. Day. Lewis. Marlon Brando as Don Vito Corleone, Al Pacino as Tony Montana, Gary Oldman as Sid Vicious, Val Kilmer as Doc Holliday and (to wax more modern) Hugh Jackman as Wolverine: iconic performances, one and all. Daniel Day-Lewis … Read More
THE CABLE GUY
Cable for Nothin’ and your Guilt for Free. “Chip Douglas” (Jim Carrey) is a cable installation guy who gives Steven Kovacs (Matthew Broderick) free cable extras, then psychopathically wields that favor to progress their buddy-ship. An above-average dark comedy, jealously maligned – for the wrong reasons. Incorrectly marketed, burdened by the speculation regarding the largest actor’s salary in the world … Read More
THE SUM OF ALL FEARS
The Dumb of All Fears. Not since Marky Mark replaced Charlton Heston in Tim Burton’s remarkable film about ape-poo, has there been such an inadequate, impotent re-imagining of a well-known filmic character. In THE SUM OF ALL FEARS, Jack Ryan, CIA gadfly, has morphed from Alec Baldwin’s Runway-Model Ryan (equivalent to Roger Moore’s Bond), to Harrison Ford’s Real Man Ryan … 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
EDDIE AND THE CRUISERS II: EDDIE LIVES!
Rock And Roll IS Dead! Morose Eddie’s back! EDDIE AND THE CRUISERS II: EDDIE LIVES! finds the “legendary” (snigger) singer-songwriter of Eddie & The Cruisers, morose Eddie Wilson (Michael Pare), “in disguise” as morose Joe West, assembling another band of hokey bandguy stereotypes and thrilling us with another cache of songs which you might mistake for Macy’s muzak reel, or … Read More
3000 MILES TO GRACELAND
Another Nail In The King’s Coffin. Obvious from the outset that this Clambake would be a shameless Hollywood glam-scam, wise men say only fools rush in – and Kurt Russell, the best Elvis of all time (well, uh, besides the real one…) – gets himself into Double Trouble by donning this cape. A-uh-huh. Poster, slogan and title of 3000 MILES … Read More
THAT THING YOU DO!
That Thing Done Well is a Thing of Beauty Indeed. Snappy and exhilarating, THAT THING YOU DO! focuses on the rise and fall of a one-hit wonder pop group ensconced in British Invasion-era America. Full credit to writer-director Tom Hanks for crafting an entertaining vehicle in which he stars, that he is not the star of – instead making the … Read More
WE WERE SOLDIERS
We Were Soldiers, In A Plotless Movie. Like the Viet Nam war, WE WERE SOLDIERS has no plot. And like the Viet Nam war, the movie drones on incessantly with half of America saluting it and the other half protesting that it should be ended. The number of isolated incidents Hollywood can potentially mine for movies about WWII or Viet … Read More
HANNIBAL
A few nights ago I accidentally watched HANNIBAL on cable. Surfing with the alien, my remote became my god, channeling for high-grade sewage, while I helplessly stood by and made bagels. (Cream cheese, m’dear?) Settling unnervingly on the couch with kippers and chardonnay, I found I had lost my towel. And the movie only made matters worse… Julianne Moore played … Read More
THE LORD OF THE RINGS: THE FELLOWSHIP OF THE RING
The Bling’s The Thing. “Yeh, Woodstock – I was there.” What – as a pair of gametes in two people who were making out while watching Alvin Lee and Ten Years After, you 21 year old peach? Much like Woodstock, John Ronald Reuel Tolkein’s oeuvre has insinuated itself into First World vernacular and most Real Worlders – even if they … Read More
THE LAST CASTLE
Farcical Castle. THE LAST CASTLE was a good movie…until it got stupid. Then it was a stupid movie… until it got pillow-fartingly ridiculous. A military prison. Warden: Tony Soprano. New inmate: highly respected and profusely-decorated 3-star general Robert Redford. Theme: Battle Theorist (Tony, who sports a collection of battle memorabilia, weapons, literature) versus Battle Veteran (Redford, whose field credits include … Read More
ENTERPRISE
First Ship, First Captain, First Mistake. Merchandising: the final frontier. With a title theme song that sounds like Trey Parker ululating a poignant 80’s hair-band power-ballad, ENTERPRISE launches Blacula and his vampire cohorts onto the lids of lunchboxes and into comic book and action figure mayhem across the known geek universe. Their mission: To boldly go where no B-actors have … Read More
PLANET OF THE APES 2001
Monkey Pee, Monkey Poo. It’s Marky Mark’s PLANET OF THE APES! Viewing this Tim Burton 2001 remake of the 1968 Franklin J. Schaffner/Charlton Heston classic is much like visiting any given zoo: that ubiquitous whiff of feces on the air… 1st Scene: Chimpnaut blunders space-vehicle simulation, proving he’s not that smart from the outset. Marky Mark appears in shot without his characteristic … Read More