Reviews

Worth Watching Once - A diner waitress (Renee Zellweger) from a small Kansas town is obsessed with a soap opera "A Reason To Love" which helps her escape her less-than-great life. Her husband is obnoxious, controlling, and (unbeknownst to her) cheating on her. He's also gotten himself into trouble with some powerful drug dealers, who have sent hit men (quite an odd pair, Morgan Freeman and Chris Rock) to retrieve stolen drugs. At the end of a terrible birthday, encountering the hit men scares Renee so much that she is sent into shock, and she calmly decides to reunite with her long lost love: The star of her favorite soap opera. Way-too-convenient plot point #1: The drugs are in the back of the car she takes. Way-too-convenient plot points #2 through one million: The hit men are able to successfully track her across the country given the sketchiest of information and using the poorest of tactics. That's really my main gruff with the movie – the logical order of things is ignored in order to leap to whatever next plot point the writer decided should come next. And it's not as if the whole storyline is that extravagant or extreme - it's just really poorly strung together. Add in a few unlikable characters, and the whole movie is pretty much held together by Morgan Freeman's backtalk to his loudmouthed hit man partner, Chris Rock. A whirlwind of unexplained character mood changes and preposterous actions (especially right at the end) combine with a kinda dull story line to form a big lump that covers up what was really quite a good premise that had some charm. Really, it's not terrible, but I certainly won't need to see it a second time.

Would See It Again - A popular romance novelist crashes his car in a blizzard, but is luckily saved by homely nurse Annie Wilkes (Kathy Bates, Waterboy's Mom). She is his self-proclaimed number one fan, which he laughs off at first but soon discovers to be eerily true. As she nurses him back to health in her snowbound house, she discovers that the next book in her beloved Misery series (which he writes) is the last. The pure greatness of this film comes from her shift from caring adoring fan to psychotic captor. Kathy Bates won an extremely deserved Academy award for her role. I mean she's just REALLY CREEPY. But there's a sincerity there that made the character semi-identifiable, as opposed to out-and-out psycho. "You can't possibly understand how scared someone like me is of losing someone like you." James Caan, the trapped author, also does a good job with his role, and though sitting on his ass is his main job, you really felt his pain and torture (both literally and figuratively) in his hellish prison. The ingenuity of his attempted escapes was also pretty cool, though we all assume MacGyver would have been out of there the first night. There was a good bit of comic relief sprinkled in too. As Rob Reiner he is not a horror director, the feel to this movie is focused on the story and the characters, not constantly building up tension with dark and scary camera angles. All together, it's a very well written, very well acted and very well directed movie that is incredibly enjoyable and definitely worth seeing.

Comically Poor - "Satan himself" sends a DVD of cartoons to a young girl. Terror Toon characters Dr. Carnage and his pet gorilla Max Assassin escape into the real world and kill a group of (surprise) teenagers. For crappy horror, this is a pretty unique premise: killing people in cartoony ways. If only they bothered. Most are offed with whatever way shows the most poorly made fake blood. How entertaining would it be to see all the cartoon clichés? Anvils, mallets, cannons, falling safes would have been great. Instead we get to guys in Chuck-E-Cheese outfits running around attacking what appear to be porno actors who don't even die convincingly. A soundtrack of annoying sounds, really bad photo-shopped effects, and a three-room setting give you a headache pretty early on. The dialog isn't much better. Throw in an unexplained visit to hell and a senseless conclusion, and we've got a very weird film. So why 2 stars as opposed to the 1 it's begging for? There really are some parts where it seemed they knew what they were doing, and it wasn't a miserable experience. This is the perfect movie to watch at a party, with plenty of quotable lines and silly moments. Just one warning: the opening fifteen minutes are by far the worst, and seemed tacked on, of a much lower quality than the rest. If you survive those, you'll be fine.

Worth Watching Once - Disappointing. After hearing so much about how fantastic this was supposed to be, it was just so mediocre. Absolutely everything is stereotypical "drama movie" setup, drilling into our heads how "sad" we should be. Secondly, Paul (the main character) is not a hero. He does the absolute least he can all through the movie unless his wife yells at him to do more. He is a coward and I felt completely unsympathetic to him. The only good parts about the movie are the pure truth moments (usually when Paul isn't talking) informing us of the horrors of the actual situation. That alone makes it worth watching, just be warned of the other clutter.

Would Watch It Again - This is basically why I hate movies from the seventies. There is no point to this movie, no structure, no plot. It was designed to be carried by the "shock" of the happenings. In today's life and cinema, that usually adds up to bupkis (like The French Connection - one of the worst movies ever). However, Badlands takes it's pointlessness to interesting areas. It kept surprising me (to a point) and Martin Sheen was FABULOUS as a disturbed disillusioned hick youth. I honestly would have given this a 2 or 1 were it not for Sheen's remarkable performance (and this is coming from someone who usually doesn't really care/notice acting - especially not someone like Sheen). Overall, it was intriguing enough beginning to end to keep me interested, once I got past saying "What the Hell?" every couple of minutes.

Would See It Again - A gateway that transports you instantaneously across the galaxy makes for an okay sci-fi movie. Add a revolutionary discovery about the true history of the world on the other end of the trip, and you've got the makings of a great movie. Then cast it horribly and dwell too long on stupid action, and you've got a headache. Overall, I love the premise of this just-average movie so darn much that it ends up being an enjoyable watch. Then again my love for the superb TV Series based loosely on the movie might be making me biased.

Similar Movie: It's similar to any 90s action movie with a sci-fi twist. Which isn't saying much. However, I will defend it by saying it would have to go down a notch before Jean Claude Van Damme could star in it.

Worth Watching Once - It's weird and poorly made. All throughout, you're making fun of their silly lines and production values. Yet somewhere, you begin to quiet down as everyone watching starts to piece together everything they're seeing. It's surprising, given my first impressions, that there actually is a decent underlying plot that's twisty and clever (if not overly gory and sex-ridden). Yet, though it does make you think, it's still only a so-so movie because of the bad acting and low budget.

Special Features: Absolutely fantastically silly pretentious "behind the scenes" doc where they tout this as practically the best movie ever. Don't miss an interview with Alice Cooper about his 5 second cameo in the movie. They talk with him for at least 5 minutes, where he doesn't seem to know what the movie is about.

Similar Movie: It has the same "avant-garde" and overly edgy feeling of May, though this was much lower budget and not as good. For another movie that appears bad yet actually has a decent underlying script/idea try Ghost Rig.

Worth Repeated Viewings - Wow... This is an infuriating and enlightening little doc. It's ultra-dramatic, some comedy, but mostly allows the sheer terrible facts take your emotions for a swing. The funny thing is that the doc is all about how terrible corporations are, and how life is drastically affected by them... but make no hints as to any course of action. So when you're all riled up after watching it you... don't really know what to do about it. Still, absolutely recommended as a "need to see".

Special Features: Some deleted scenes (the movie is freaking long as-is), a few interviews which are interesting (especially the Janeane Garofalo one).

Similar Movie: Michael Moore's stuff, though this isn't aiming at being funny. I guess that makes it more like Super Size Me.

Comically Poor - I'm going to claim ignorance on this one: I really don't know if it's the original Shakespeare play or just they way this adaptation was written that made it so horrible. This was a non-story. The overall "theme" is a great one - the beautiful younger daughter can't get married until the older "shrew" is, which leads to all sorts of misadventures by the suitors interested in courting the young one. Great. It's used will in 10 Things I Hate About You, Kiss Me Kate, and many others. However, in this film version, we instead follow the shrew and the suitor who wants her just for her dowry. These two terrible people clearly hate each other and gallivant around for two hours doing terrible things to each other, and in the end fall in love for no reason whatsoever. Terrible. Could have been so much better, but as is was a miserably boring and non-sensical melodramatic romp. Elizabeth Taylor is crazy.

Worth Repeated Viewings Eerie. Sorta. A very very interesting premise, pretty well done. You have to accept that they live in the creepiest city ever, so that every single scene must be really "scary-looking". And you must be able to be frightened by a big-mouthed little black girl. I didn't like or understand some characters or their motivations (particularly Keifer Sutherland). Overall, it's good; just a bit mis-handled, yet enjoyable throughout. Special Features: None Similar Movie: It has a pretty similar feel something like The Devils Advocate, in reveals and twists, etc. However it's filmed pretty similar to The Lost Boys (another Schumacher).

I'm a sucker for romantic comedies, and especially teen ones. However, my tolerance of them is usually limited to just enjoying them because even the best aren't that good. This is the exception. 10 Things I Hate About You is not only a brilliant re-take on Shakespeare's Taming Of The Shrew, but also just a good stand-alone movie. The few clichés they use are handled well (besides, it wouldn't be a romantic comedy if there weren't a few). The characters and motivations are believable, and the frequent comic relief scenes are put to good use (it's a Shakespearian Device, after all). It's cute, it's sweet, and Surprise! Hot actors and actresses abound! If there's only one Teen Romantic Comedy to see, this is the one.

An odd, cute film about an odd, not-so-cute guy. Watch as a crazy low-life sorta guy spirals through a pretty miserable life. As luck would have it, he's vaulted into popularity by documenting his life through comics. The real value of the film is watching such a quirky person (and his equally weird ensemble of characters) deal with the sudden changes to his life. Based on a true story, this movie break stereotypes of it's genre by including the real Harvey Pekar along with an actor representing him, archive footage and some interesting visual effects to break up what might have become boring. Overall, he's just a little too much of an ass for me to really get into the movie, which is the only fault of the movie - it's otherwise really well made.

An interesting and hilarious Hong Kong comedy. I expected an extremely silly and quirky horror/comedy based on the apparently mis-translated synopsis. Instead, I got a fun comedy (no horror) with twists, a full robust plot, and some really touching scenes. Clearly built on a lot of Chinese mythology, this movie makes far more sense through-and-through than most "zany" Asian movies. It slightly falls apart at the end, in desperate need of some editing, and the beginning is slow. Overall, it's a wonderful surprise, this movie is highly recommended to all.

Similar Movie: Imagine Kung Fu Hustle with absolutely no kung fu. Just silliness.