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Reviews
A Girl Thing (2001)
An excellent insight into women's minds using the considerable skills of Stockard Channing to their fullest.
Most astute U.S. movie viewers have recognized the talents and skills of the excellent Stockard Channing. More gratifying than seeing her quality finally recognized with the rolls she has played in both "A Girl Thing" (TV mini series)and in the White House centered series is the appearance of the former series as an entire movie available in both VHS and DVD in video stores nationwide. As a psychiatrist whose patients are mostly women she serves as the hub through which the four different patient centered episodes revolve.
Although the first three would result in a "good" movie, we are not let off or let down by that being the case. In the forth and final episode Channing (the "doctor") figures not just peripherally as the center but is the main character around which the drama unfolds. Confronted by an intelligent and dangerously angry patient, the doctor fails to establish any healthy connection and terminates the patient. This soon results in a violent confrontation, which puts the doctor, another patient and a few others in an explosively dangerous situation in the psychiatrist's office. Channing herself is challenged to justify all that she has done, is doing and believes in concerning people in general and her professional relationships with them in particular.
Does she make a good showing for herself? Is anyone hurt, and, if so how badly?
Watch the movie and find out.
Instinct (1999)
Why comment when the "reviewing" crew won't print.
Why comment when the "reviewing" crew won't print. Why comment when the "reviewing" crew won't print. Why comment when the "reviewing" crew won't print. Why comment when the "reviewing" crew won't print. Why comment when the "reviewing" crew won't print.
The Jack Bull (1999)
The Cusacks and John Badham turn out an excellent morality study.
It is a treat and a relief to see what can be done with a theme and an era that might seem to have been worked to death already. John Cusack has enacted a milestone in his already impressive acting career with his portrayal of a single mindedley just man in a realistically varied environment. A horse trader/rancher, he butts heads early in the film with local bully and land baron Henry Ballard (L. Q. Jones) over the issue of signing a statehood petition. The rest of the film will have Meryl Redding (Cusack) confronting and hunting Ballard against the backdrop of Wyoming's
struggle to attain statehood. His one man's justice regardless of the consequences attitude leads to his paying a terrible price. Without the depth of "Braveheart" the execution scene nevertheless captures some of the same resonance of a just man paying the price of his visions with admirable composure. John Goodman, in a small part, is commanding and excellent as a good and honest judge doing his duty in the cases of Redding vs. Ballard and the territory of Wyoming vs. Redding even though he knows that Redding is essentially honest, just and innocent. The performance of Miranda Otto and Reddings' wife is
outstanding and I hope to see her in future productions.
Just a very fine film.
Nighthawks (1981)
A real fine watch for Rutger Hauer's performance; not Stallone's.
Career wise, this was a very bad move for Sly Stallone. Sly doesn't have much range and even within it he needs simple things to try to do. Contrasting him with a true actor (Hauer has even got Shakespearean acting background) makes all his shortcomings so painfully apparent that we all but cringe when the camera abandons one excellent scene after another with Hauer in charge to play it's dismal focus on those of Stallone. The Stone hearted bitch who plays Hauer's girl Friday, Persis Khambatta, is a definite credit to the movie. Only some camera artistry foolishness in the last scenes seems glaringly out of place in an otherwise excellent actioner.
Very Bad Things (1998)
Very Bad Things happen and we're ohh so lucky that they do!
Very Bad Things is the first movie directed by the actor Peter Berg and it is to his credit that he took this oddball screenplay and stuck by his vision for it as an extremely black commentary on the ethos and fads of our times. The movie opens with a few scenes to set up one of the dipoles that will contrast with and enervate most of what follows. Jon Favreau (Kyle Fisher) is soon to be married to Cameron Diez (Laura Garrety) but he is being pressured by his buddies, and most especially by his best bud Robert Boyd (played in an excellent upgrading of his role in "Heathers" by Christian Slater), the have a Vegas style bachelor party. Laura "allows" his night with the boys; all she wants is to get married. By the time the party's over the pals have killed two people: one inadvertently and the other basically at the behest of Robert who is determined to get them out of the mess of the first killing at any cost and reveals a pathological penchant for homicide. It's not the last time that he will convince the guys that they will have to kill to be safe.......and as the paranoia intensifies his targets get uncomfortably close to "home". Much of what ensues puts this film amongst the blackest of black comedies but by the movie's end everyone has gotten what is coming to them. Everyone that's left that is. The movie is not for everyone but if you can enjoy an incisive and uncompromisingly clear sighted exploration of the darker side of life, friends and marriage in the 90s this film is probably for you. This is a very funny film and I intend to add it to my collection as soon as it comes to video (just about now).
When the Party's Over (1992)
See below!
This medium depth examination of the lives and inter-relationships of a group of upwardly mobile young friends sharing a house will be of most interest to fans of Rae Dawn Chong and Sandra Bullock although the unattractive Alexander Midnight (played with flair and verve by Fisher Stevens) is by far the scene stealer and a very interesting and complex character.
A worth while watch with a timely message\moral.