Reviews

This new adaptation of Inherit the Wind is pretty weak. It's supposed to tell the story of the famous Scopes "Monkey Trial", but it glorifies the whole thing into a preachy non-reality that the real trial never was. The dialogue is painful in its wordiness, with Lemmon and Scott seeming to make the whole thing up as they go along. Apparently, learning your script is a lost art. In this version, the Scopes character is overdramatically ripped away from teaching evolution and thrown in the slammer. In reality, Scopes was never in a jail cell, and the entire trial was kind of a bet between Scopes and the townspeople on who would win (the penalty for teaching evolution was only $100, which was to be paid by a newspaper if Scopes lost). The entire trial was a premeditated media circus conceived with the specific intent of attracting people to move to town. Instead, with Scopes' loss in court the town was considered ignorant by most and the trial was only an ephemeral economic interest. The REAL story, I think, is far more interesting. This contrived version basically rips on the law itself--something which is easy to do and boring to watch.

High Fidelity leads the audience through the lovelife of Rob Gordon (Cusack) as narrated by Gordon himself. Rob has recently had a breakup with his girlfriend of several years, and this opens up a period of time in his life where he begins asking whether he is incompetent in relationships or merely if relationships are inherently faulty. This dialogue with the audience is punctuated with hilarious instances of conflict with the two music nerds that work at Gordon's music store. The choices of music in this movie are fantastic because most of them are quite obscure yet very good--perfect for a movie about music gurus. Most of the acting is performed nearly flawlessly. High Fidelity reminds me a lot of Annie Hall both in quality and content (although this one is more post-modern). In fact, you could almost call this a Woody Allen movie without that annoying, neurotic Jewish guy. The plot has numerous twists and turns without seeming busy, and the narrative format is perfect for conveying the personal tribulations that Gordon experiences. I've given High Fidelity a tentative 10. . .almost a nine but the music is so good. This one will surely be a classic sometime.

Wild Wild West contains some really interesting special effects. In fact, there are even times when I started to want to like this movie because of them. Even though Kenneth Branagh has both of his legs, for instance, you would never know it from this movie. Moreover, the incredibly huge mechanical spider seems to really be cruising across the deserts of the southwest. However, these special effects did not prevail. I still came out of this movie extremely disappointed. Perhaps the biggest disappointment was in the plot itself. Klein and Smith, while interesting and funny actors in their own right, are not able to revive a story that really has no point. I spent half the movie saying to myself, "What are they trying to do again?" The jokes are weak and immature. The character played by Salma Hayek is obvious eye candy. They don't even play the cool "Wild Wild West" song enough. I do not recommend even renting this movie. Better yet, wait until it goes on Blockbuster's favorites list, watch it, and return it for a store credit!

The premise of Canadian Bacon, that Canadians could rise up and rally to attack the United States, is as brilliant as it is hilarious. Unfortunately, it is not carried out as well as it could be. While this movie has its funny moments and a great cast, it gets bogged down at times because it appears the writers just couldn't think of enough topical humor to maintain this feature length film. It is, however, worth watching if nothing else to talk about at parties.

Unforgiven is a brilliant movie because it brings humanity and life to the stock good guy-bad guy western movie. The traditional protagonist/antagonist struggle is more than just reversed. In other words, the protagonist isn't merely switched to the bad guy role. Rather, the viewer is never sure who the bad guy is in the first place. Sometimes we find ourselves rooting for the protagonist, other times we are shocked to find how violent and abhorrent the protagonist really is. We seek to turn to an antagonist as someone to root for, but there are so many, and they are constantly in flux as well. If this sounds complicated, that's because it is! Clearly, this is the resounding message of the movie: that humanity is sloppier and more complex than traditional westerns. However, this message is implicit and it propells the plot further and leaves it embedded in the viewers mind long after the tape is rewound. Traditional western lovers will enjoy the movie's gunfight scenes, and the fairly rudimentary storyline: atonement for the damage of an "innocent" woman. More intellectual types will watch it again and again in search of a message that will speak to their inner psyche and help to reveal to them what lies within.

Squirm is a low budget movie with bad actors, bad special effects, a boring story line, a ridiculous premise, and bad music. The acting is plagued by serious over-embellishment of southern accents, garbled speech, and bad timing. The makeup on the "worm man" appears like it could have been done by one of those halloween kits you could get at a supermarket. The writer's serious anti-Southerner bias makes even people who don't like Southerners cringe. Squirm's only value is that it makes good material to make fun of on Mystery Science Theater 3000, where they hilariously explicate the minutia of the problems with this movie.

With The World Is Not Enough, Pierce Brosnan has fully developed the character of James Bond from merely the hedonistic character he has been in the past, to a thinking and feeling James Bond that responds to the pain in the situations that face him, and actually finds something other than physical gratification in the some of the gorgeous women that he beds. As with all James Bond movies, this is a formula movie, but the formula works very well and I am glad that they have stuck with it. The action scenes are spectacular, and they are softened by more-funny-than-usual comedy. Changed too is the way in which women are portrayed within the movie. As villains, they are powerful not merely for their sexual appeal (which they have a lot of), and they get their due treatment from Bond just as all of the male villains of the past. Bond's love interests are also becoming less helpless and more intelligent and assertive. Also, the appearance of John Cleese adds depth to the comedy and it appears that we may expect to see him in further productions. All in all, this could be one of the best James Bond movies ever. With so many good ones, it is hard to have a favorite.

I first saw La Cage Aux Folles after its American remake "The Birdcage". This was unfortunate because that meant the plot was already familiar to me. However, it was even more hilarious than its American version. The characters in the American version are nearly exact duplicates of their French counterparts. Somehow, the whole movie appears funnier in its original French (even though I don't speak French).

American audiences may like the remake better because the script was rewritten so that its humor was more topical. For instance, Gene Hackman's character is an obvious farce of Bob Dole, who was a prominent republican leader at the time. The French version contains a more generic conservative versus liberal dialogue.

However, if you can stand reading the translations, La Cage Aux Folles is well worth your time. I enjoyed it thoroughly.

The English Patient is an overly indulgent, depressing and sappy movie that drags audiences through scene after scene of plotless drivel. I'm with Elaine on this one--it hurts! The only redeeming quality of this movie is its excellent cinematography. It provides sweeping views of the African desert. For this reason, I gave it a 4 instead of a 1.

The first movie in the series, 2001, was a very artistic piece that had only moments of dialogue in its more than two hours of film. 2010 appears nearly apologetic in comparison, explicating somewhat excruciatingly every nuance of the plot through the main character's supposed messages back to planet earth. All of the blurry details of 2001 are made crystal clear in this fashion. It is a very wordy movie.

Nevertheless, 2010 has images that can captivate audiences just as well as they did in 1984. Today's movie goers will notice slight glitches in the special effects as well as a couple of discontinuities. The movie also dates itself because the plot includes a lot of tension between the Americans and Russians.

Because 2001 was such a great movie, 2010 tends to pale in comparison. However, it is still a very good science fiction movie and it is worth viewing (but probably not buying).