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Reviews
South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut (1999)
Really, really funny.
Damn - this movie is really, really funny. You might be offended, but you'll probably laugh harder and longer than you have at any recent movie. My sides hurt, as do the smile and laugh muscles in my face from laughing so hard. I laughed so hard my eyes teared up and I rolled around in the chair beating the armrests with my fists.
But don't take your kids to see it. Really. It's a cartoon aimed at adults. Don't be one of those retards that takes their four-year-old to see people getting slaughtered in Private Ryan. The makers of South Park: BL&U had to cut scenes to bring the rating down from NC-17, and it's easy to see why.
But it's so damn funny you've got to see it yourself.
The Matrix (1999)
Good with great parts; could have been a great film.
Ack! How frustrating. The movie had a great idea, great visual style, and an interesting, twisting plot... if only they had gotten rid of the many bad parts to leave us with the unbelievably great stuff in between, we could have had a truly wonderful film.
The fight scenes were like a super-stylish mix of Woo-style gunplay utilizing (and well, too) the new spin-around-a-still-scene technology seen in those Gap and Coke ads, and Hong Kong style kung-fu (Not a surprise since they got Yuen Woo-Ping, a veteran Hong Kong director dating back to the original Drunken Master in '78, to choreograph the fights). And those scenes are amazing - really. The high-speed photography was absolutely beautiful, and mixed with the unreal camera movements, gave me an action experience unlike any other I've ever seen, from America's greatest action/sci-fi flicks, to Hong Kong's recent gunfests and kung-fu extravaganzas. It's new, it's exciting, it's great, and it will copied unabashedly in the future (best to see it while it's fresh).
Add the audio/visual perfection to an interesting plotline and passable-to-good acting from everybody, and you've got the making of a great show.
Unfortunately, there is some pretty downright lame dialogue, a rather slow expository section in the middle, and some "bad CG creatures versus the CG spacecraft (or whatever) in the CG set" scenes that are totally passable, but I've seen a million times before and detract from the completely novel, brilliant fight scenes mentioned earlier. They also kind of fart up the pacing of the later parts of the film, don't add anything substantial to the story, and are generally uninteresting.
Overall, a totally enjoyable experience with scenes that will certainly be floating around in my head for weeks to come.
Swimming with Sharks (1994)
Not satisfying... as a comedy anyway.
I thought the movie tried to do too much. Keeping this vague enough to not reveal any spoilers... I thought if the entire movie had been a comedy, like the first half, it could have been truly hilarious. If the movie had been like the second half, we could have had a really good, serious tragedy.
Instead, the first half (and the fact that the movie is billed as a comedy) sets us up to be in a lighthearted mood and to want to see bad things happen to Kevin Spacey, and then the second half makes him sympathetic and brutalizes us in our vulnerable state into feeling bad for him.
Overall, I finished watching the movie pretty unsatisfied about everything. The hilarious punch-line I was waiting for at the end of the movie never happened and instead I was made to feel guilty about rooting for Whaley's character in the beginning.
To be fair, the movie might be a completely satisfying and worthwhile experience if one goes into it knowing that it isn't a straightforward boss-bashing comedy.
Wong Fei Hung II: Nam yee tung chi keung (1992)
Good introduction to 90's kung-fu movies.
This is arguably the best of the 'Once Upon a Time in China' series (which now runs to 6). It stars Jet Li as martial arts master & doctor Wong Fei-Hong, a historical figure/legend popular in Hong Kong period pieces, much like Robin Hood or King Arthur in Western culture. It features some of the most exquisitely choreographed and executed fight scenes in any movie I've ever seen, utilizing two truly excellent martial artists/actors, Jet Li and Donnie Yen. And, almost as importantly, the level of absurdness and ridiculousness, so high in many HK movies, in the fights, humor, and story are kept to a reasonable level so western viewers won't be totally put off. In general, production quality is high, story is good/tolerable, and the fights are truly incredible showcases of the actors' abilities. It would be an excellent choice for the western movie-watcher trying to find more Jet Li films after seeing Lethal Weapon 4. It is also an excellent example of how in 20 years the 70's kung-fu chop-socky has evolved after it and Bruce Lee disappeared from the west.
--ken