Change Your Image
MMc-3
Reviews
Signs (2002)
I guess Shyamalan only had one good idea
After signs I'm forced to conclude that M. Night Shyamalan blew it all on Sixth Sense.
This is a bad aliens flick crudely mixed with a really, really bad loss of faith film. It's got a plot that's crudely thrown together, pretty bad acting performances and, worst of all, it's incredibly, unbelievably boring. Not a scare or goosebump throughout this dog.
In the Bedroom (2001)
A tediously slow bait and switch
This one comes on like it's going to be a deep psychological study of grief and turns into a poorly motivated revenge flick.
A sterling performance by Marisa Tomei is wasted as she practically disappears after the first 45 minutes and, instead, we have to watch another two hours of Sissy Spacek doing grief as a poker face. Spacek's complete lack of any sort of emotion combined with the director's incessant 30-second silent scenes that all fade to black (ooh! How arty!) will have you checking your watch at every fade to see how much longer this excruciating thing can continue.
This one seems to be another of those films where the director thinks if he can be artsy-fartsy enough he can make the audience think it's responsible for providing all the emotion and motivation the director is apparently too lazy to work toward providing.
All in all this one was excruciatingly frustrating and the strongest emotion I felt coming out of it was anger at having wasted 2.5 hours of my life on it.
Moulin Rouge! (2001)
Weirdness for weirdness' sake
What were they thinking?
That's what we were thinking as we walked out of this debacle after an hour. With "Pennies from Heaven" and "The Singing Detective" there was some sort of rationale for the mix of fantasy and music tossed into the story. Here there's no rationale, there's precious little story, there's scant acting or singing ability displayed and there's absolutely zero chemistry between the leading actors. Contrary to one reviewer's comment here, I found this one totally self-conscious and completely contrived.
And it's not that I don't like Buhrmann. I thought his Romeo + Juliet was a fascinating variation. But for this one, there's really no excuse.
Wo hu cang long (2000)
Easily the most over-rated film of 2000
With writer's salaries so minuscule in comparison to film budgets, you'd think Ang Lee could have coughed up a little bit extra to find a writer who would have come up with a decent story. But what he put on the screen tries the viewer's patience with a story line that is all over the place, characterizations that are wildly inconsistent, and a sublimely silly climax that veers dangerously close to camp.
Yes, the photography and settings were luscious and the fight choreography amazing. But without a credible story, it's just 2 hours of pretty photography and choreography.
High Fidelity (2000)
Great Movie but DVD Warning
This is a great movie and I was really looking forward to watching it again on DVD. However, when I popped it into my player what came up wasn't your standard DVD menu but the trailer for Mission to Mars.
This was the first trailer I'd seen on a DVD and mildly annoying. But the annoyance changed to outrage when I realized I couldn't skip the trailer, I couldn't fast-forward through it, I couldn't do anything but eject the DVD or watch the stupid thing. But when the trailer to Deuce Bigalow appeared next my patience was lost and I ejected the thing and will be returning it to Amazon for a refund.
I also plan to refuse to purchase or rent another Touchstone DVD until they stop this appalling practice.
Bounce (2000)
Predictable tear-jerker lacks chemistry
Almost from the beginning it's just too obvious where this one's headed and it gets there with absolutely no surprises and without missing a single hackneyed step.
The biggest question for me is why did they cast Affleck and Paltrow as romantic leads? The two of them don't really seem to like each other very much and there was more of a charge in the brief scenes between Affleck and Jennifer Grey than there was between Affleck and Paltrow in the entire movie.
This one is a real disappointment.
Charlie's Angels (2000)
Bad TV Makes Bad Movie
Being a detester of the original televsion series I was dragged into this one. For about 90 seconds I was actually amazed at how funny it looked like it was going to be. But then it dropped all the self-referential joking and turned out to be every bit the turkey I expected.
Major Problems: No plot. An anorexic Cameron Diaz should never be filmed without her pants on. Lucy Liu doesn't work without her Ally McBeal nastiness. Drew Barrymore needs to learn to distinguish between good (Ever After) from bad (this turkey and the hideous "Never Been Kissed"). Bill Murray is wasted.
Fortunately, my father-in-law paid my way into this one or I'd *really* be annoyed with it.<g>
Infinity (1996)
A lovely look at a personal life behind world shaking events
This is one of my all-time favorite films juxtaposing, as it does, world-shaking events with life-changing events. Broderick's take on Feynman gives us a small, loving, understated glimpse of one human story behind the Manhattan Project.
Highly recommended.