Reviews

Kevin Costner has made his share of "el stinkos" but this one is a pleasant surprise. It has a story and works toward telling it and has a neat ending. What else does one ask for these days for eight bucks?

Believe me the "New Age" trend is not without pit falls. The Sixth Sense was only good for a single showing and then you got the whole planet knowing the "catch". At least in Dragonfly the zinger isn't the whole trick. There was one thing that did sort of bug me. The indigenous natives show up in one scene with AK-47's in hand while in full native feathers and ear pierces. Next they are in a near stone age village with wooden spears and long arrow bows. I wondered where the AK-47 guys were?

This is an OK movie and sure Kathy Bates is rather wasted as are some other fairly neat roles such as the pilot of the small plane....But that is what you get these days with the inmates running the asylum. A big name star picks a script and it becomes a movie...or does it????

I see movies that are dubbed "hilarious" and "laugh riots" and all sorts of other hypes ...that when I go to them and they stink up the theater I really feel ripped off.

This one lives up to the hype and then some. The only thing that anyone could find "wrong" with this one is ....It is very "liberal" in those fundamentalist no-no areas called S-E-X-. In fact it is about sex, or the lack there of for one guy and it deals with the power games associated with the oldest "war" of mankind's history...the war between the sexes.

We saw it tonight at a "sneak" and the place was full of MTV type kids. They loved it and I have to tell you I did too.

I rated it a seven which is exponentially higher than I rate most comedy fare these days.

One could nit-pick and say the editing was lame...it was. One could make a case for other "craft" related criticisms...but you know it is funny and that is more than can be said for most comedy efforts these days.

So go see it and have a good laugh. If you tend to be a little stiff about sexual subjects stay home...Sorry about the pun...it was one before I realized it...I laughed a lot and I think you might too.

I read The Lord of the Rings more years ago than I want to count. I also saw a weak effort to make part of it into a movie in 1978..."el stinko"!! But this time I was bolstered by the early reviews and my wife and I went tonight. She had never read the book and she thought it was just barely passable and too long. I remembered how I visualized Froto Baggins and I have got to say my mental picture wasn't Elijah Wood. Conversely my minds view of Bilbo Baggins was Ian Holm to a tee or vice versa.

The special effects and Middle Earth were better then I imagined them as were many of the other effects and battle scenes. Yet I have mixed feelings about this effort. If I have to wait until next Christmas for part two it will be a drag, plus knowing that it is already "in the can" makes me wonder if the studio is just waiting to see before deciding on a February release on part two? Either way for we of the 60 plus million who have purchased the book, we are hooked to see the next two parts and those who haven't read the stories will likely not be back anyway, so why wait? This is good work on a very hard subject to convert to the screen.

Crowe is a proven winner at his craft and with a super star cast, how can anything that gets on the screen be anything less than super?

The answer is:......Go see Vanilla Sky. First at 150 odd minutes it wears on the most devoted fans. The "formula" films that are the "rage" of Hollywood run the usual 95 to 110 minutes and they hit the demographic marks for all the well known reasons.

Vanilla Sky does none of this and I want so much to applaud that notion "but" in this case it really confuses at first. If the Cruise and Cruz dynamics is not real I can buy the popcorn next time. She is beautiful and he is .....well even disfigured he looks like a winner.

Perhaps there might have been ways to visit "Abra Los Ojos" with less license. If other folk's work is to be emulated, it seems that a holistic view would have been better instead of stealing the star and copping out the ending. Oh well, if there is to be real change in Hollywood toward works that take chances and ask the viewer to engage their mind as well as their emotions, then efforts like Vanilla Sky need to be supported. So I say go see it. Don't let anyone "spoil" it for you before you do, and just let it flow for awhile and it will sort of grow on you. No awards are in order for cast nor others but it is still a brave effort.

Two hours and twenty minutes of not being in the know with a full house of unruly kids who all seemed to know all the inside stuff, ....it makes one go to sleep at worst and squirm around in the seat a lot at best.

I confess I was anxious to go see this 125 million dollar "kid's" movie and it had some interesting parts, but it was a dead dog drag in a lot of places too.

I feel rather like the kid who said the king's new cloak was his bare behind! People say..."Oh wasn't it fabulous?" and I say...In a word NO! I can see lots of promising things in the movie but nothing at all as good as "E.T" which is to be re-released in the spring and I found myself delighted by seeing the previews again.

My neighbor said; "If you haven't read the books you wasted your money to go!"

I think she had a point. The plot is old, tired, and just plain trite. The acting save one, the big guy...I don't even know his name, is all ordinary. The special effects are good but not the best I've seen and movies that are carried solely by their special effects bore me anyway.

I heard two women talking about it yesterday and their comments may make me go see it again. One said; "...it was a secret plot to undermine Christian values with pagan witch craft!"

I asked my seven year old grandson if he thought the movie was about witches and he said; "....Naw Poppie....it's about people who act like witches." Enough said perhaps?

All you right wing crusaders out there lighten up. This is plain vanilla kid fun and trying to make it anything else only sends fools like me back to see what I might have slept through the first time.

Go see it ...take the kids but keep the expectations in check and it will pass easier.

Who said that every move had to be "Citizen Cane" and every performance George C. Scott's in "Patton"? "Cliche...contrived, weepy" to recount but a few critical points that have been repeated even in this formate. But you know folks we all pay our eight bucks to get something from a movie. Entertained is an ok thing. Made to feel good,...well that is ok too in my book and a good cry at the movies, well give me "Lassie Come Home " every time over most of the pseudo garbage that the critics seem to flock toward.

Kevin Kline plays "George" a terminally ill and terminally bored person with a chance to make a late inning rally. Kristen Scott-Thomas is a little...well corny, but she is so gorgeous and sensuous to just look at that the rest is not so bad.

Hayden Christensen as the disconnected "Sam" is...well there hasn't been such fire from the screen from a young actor since the young Paul Newman first came on the scene. Of course after he plays Skywalker in the next Spielberg thing he will be a housewhole word, but remember him from this movie as a "I knew him when" role.

Mary Stieburgen has a really very neat role as a "neo-Mrs. Robinson" type. She looks great and handles the role with understated style.

I liked the movie and I think most of the public will too. It makes no attempt to be anything other than what it is and it is wonderful at it!

When I first heard about this movie I wondered if it would be as good as "Starman" (the last thing I liked Jeff Bridges in)....well it wasn't. But before you decide to stay home or worse yet go see some of the other slop that is playing now down at the old local picture show, give K-Pax a try.

The concept is so neat that one tends to overlook some of the meandering the screen play aka "Plot" seems to take at times. Kevin Spacey is really good as Prot from K-Pax or as a John Doe delusional that has something so horrible inside his emotional ship that he dare not visit it. Spacey's work is worth of some award consideration.

Jeff Bridges is a big city psychiatrist who treats Spacey and declares that "he is the most convincing delusional I've ever seen." He does a workman like job but it really would have been better if he had spent more time in the comparative science areas like the astro-physicist scene where Prot dazzles with his knowledge of the heavens. But one must remember that actors say the words that are written for them and are directed by directors who want those words to be said, so go easy on Jeff. He was ok with the material he had.

So go see K-Pax but expect less than you might otherwise.

Densel Washington in his most powerful role ever and true to the bone like none since Glory is what you get at Training Day. One finds oneself torn by his character with a full emotional spectrum from admire to loath. In the end the matter is rather well set but the movie is Washington and I can't think of a current actor who could come close to pulling off the performance he did.

Not that the rest of the cast isn't crisp and professional, but they look pretty dull in a straight comparison to Washington.

The story is street hard and may not sit too well with the weak of spine types but it is coldly real even though the ending is a bit over done for my taste. I wonder how many wolves there really are in say Houston PD where I live? Or maybe I wouldn't want to know after all. The best this year so far.

For you "not like the book" critics this is a field day movie, but you know, it is the essence of Mr. King's wonderful story and that is all it tries to be. To do the whole thing would take four hours. I never thought I could ever see Anthony Hopkins and not see Hannibal Lector, but this is Sir Anthony at his understated best. There could have been some transition scenes to help those who didn't read the book to catch up to the movies actual direction and point, but let's not split hairs. This is a moving and delightfully presented movie and you ought to go see it.

As one who is soon to see the start of his sixth decade on this planet I always relish the unseating of the old king with the new, the old champion with the new...etc. I see about 125 movies a year and have seen the spectrum of bad to wonderful in the past few decades. Until today a movie called "The People Under the Stairs" had the status of being the worst movie I have ever seen. It has stood proudly against such contenders as Caddy Shack 2" and "Troop Beverly Hills" for many years. Believe me there have been many other would be champions of the worst, but seemingly none like the crop from this year and none even in the class of the new king. This abomination sets new and I rather imagine unsurpassable standards of terrible-ness that will last the rest of the decade at least. I got trapped into going to this ...this thing by the review in the Houston Chronicle. Satire and parody when in the hands of a skilled writer and director can be wonderful. When they become diatribes that are so trite and vulgar that even a movie junkie like me cannot find the remotest bit of redeeming ....anything in it, well...this thing is a train wreck of redundant "f" words and flatulence and nothing more. Even the kids in the movie were restive and didn't even snicker at the bathroom humor after awhile. Humor is the wrong word here, residual is a better choice. That is what the new king of bad is...bathroom residual. But there is one nice thing....People Under the Stairs can now throw off the yoke of worst movie ever made, for there is a new king.... Long live the King!!

Since I read the novel and had a complete mental picture of the story already, it was hard to be fully unbiased at someone else's version of the "picture". Director John Madden gave it a good go but don't expect this to be the book.

There should be a Best Supporting for John Hurt as Dr. Iannis. Of all the characters he stands alone in performance. Nicolas Cage is better than he usually is as the title role, even though his accent is a bit trite. Ms. Cruz is perfectly cast as Pelagia and she could have been ....well she is not the same as in the book...enough said ok?

Now the scoop is the loyal side kick of Cage. I don't even know his name but he looks like a young Marlon Brando. My wife pointed the fact out to me and...well he needed more lines and ...naw not possible...got a male star and....everyone knows the drill. In a summer of crummy nothings this movie, while flawed to be sure, is very nice. Go see it.

Dark, dank, and no dowery...I could do more "d's" and be way more interesting than this what did the trailer call it..."thriller"? Fionnula Flanagan is pretty good as the housekeeper. A couple of kids do an ok job too considering the product with which they had to work. Ms. "K"?...ok, she isn't one of my favorites, but to try to be fair she too tried hard not not see us all fall asleep through the first long, long, hour of the movie, but she falls short. The movie .....well don't even rent it. After this revue I'm disavowing I ever heard of it.

So we have another failed effort to find the magic "The Sixth Sense" found and ...go shopping instead.

Ms. Jolie is of course beautiful and undressed a lot. Mr. Banderas shows real promise as an actor. The story...well it is sort of trick in spots.....but. Man is there always a "but" in these things. This "but" is a disaster in the cutting and editing room. The movie is too long. The flash back starts twenty minutes into the thing and it seems to run forever before it gets to the "climax". Sorry about the pun.

Ok to the editing. Looks early WWII in vintage, you know we have a limited amount of film...find a home for what we got and....well if it is a bit choppy so what.

If this was not such a critical and blatant flaw there might be room to let it slide, but this is a real distraction. I gave it a "two" when it might have been a bit better than that, but folks have got to start drawing the line and demand that professional film makers make movies that are at least technically correct even if the material is a bit stale. So don't waste your money. It will disappoint.

The story is ok. The special effects are better than ok. The characters are....well they are computer generated and I didn't expect to identify with them at all. But you know folks, I found myself pulling for the good guys and relating to their fears and such just like the real thing. Afterwards it dawned on me that I had just seen the beginning of the end for 20 million dollar actors that clearly can't be justified for any reason. Like many struggling artists they still need to work on the hands, but the rest is grand by any scale. Go see this movie for history if for no other reason and I bet you will like it.

You have to kiss a lot of frogs to find a prince and the frogs are over running us this summer and the princes are few and far between. This movie, and I use the term loosely, never got there for me and I went there expecting nothing. That is what I got so I shouldn't complain right? Fair enough, but perhaps I can prevent another soul from my same fate.

Safe to say that Ms. Jolie runs around in various color leotards (mostly black), and bulges in all the right places. She whips up on at least a platoon strength commando unit, while expending only fifty thousand rounds of pistol fire. She looked fit and for an up scale Jane Fonda fitness video with explosions and a trillion rounds of machine gun fire, it might have been ok, but for a major motion picture???? Eighty million dollars of "major" at that...well.

I know this was designed for the folks who are nutty about the video game, but is that what we can expect in the future, videos turned feature movies? It is a lame movie and save your money, but there was one sort of interesting scene. Ms Jolie has a "full fire" encounter with some sort of robotic creature. I felt that it, the robot thing, would eventually play a part in the movie, but it didn't. Then there is this computer nerd that I felt had promise as perhaps some sort of alter ego character, but he didn't do squat either. There is one other interesting thing and that is the demographic of folks who "loved the movie". Using IMBD's own numbers it seems young girls and women over 45 where the biggest fans, go figure. Sure there are not all that many female super hero role models around and the young girl thing I'd buy on that count, but women over 45???? So another summer block-buster bites the dust.

Anyone who follows my reviews knows that I reserve wonderful for truly rare cinema. Moulin Rouge is wonderful.

I think I hear Fredrico Fellini saying "Here! Here!" out there in paradise. It seems almost fitting that the world lost such a genius as Fellini on Halloween, since his works were always events of the bazaar and often masking greater things. The writers of Moulin Rouge saw a few Fellini films, bet the farm on it.

Anyway, except for one, the cast was splendid too. John Leguizino is a show stopper as his version of Toulouse Latrec. Evan McGregor as the love smitten Christian is very good too. Jim Broadbent is dazzling as Zidler. Ok to the "el stinko";…..yep it is Ms.Kidman. Ok so she is pretty. Sunsets are pretty, even beautiful, but they are hardly sexual experts as courtesans are supposed to be. Nicole Kidman as "Satine" the courtesan, is rather like casting Ernie Borgnine as Lancelot, it wouldn't be a fit. She is not a fit. She is pretty and perhaps she can even act, who can say, but a courtesan she isn't.

Hollywood is full of sexy young courtesans, pick any one of hundreds and put them in this role and you have a masterpiece. Anyway, go see this movie. It is fun and it will make you laugh.

Seems the skills of getting several points across in a few scenes is dead and gone in Hollywood. Never do in a crisp one minute scene what can take thirty, seems to be the rule of the day. This movie is long. My rear end got mega "level one" tired. That is a sure barometer of other problems in any movie. I guess when you try to tell a story that has been told five dozen times you feel obligated to put every cliche known to man in the effort.

But you know in the world of let's make cash and damn art and damn anything else that looks like classic movie making, this one is demographically superb! No need to cover all the hits but there was even the "little dog" that managed to make it some how!

The movie will make stacks of cash and in some perspectives it deserves to do so. The special effects are top of the line and and Ben Affleck may make a leading man yet. He's a good looking guy and too bad the words he was given to say were so shallow and ...trite.....but like the man said...."people who are trite are good as gold"!

My father was at Pearl during the attack and he said the thing he remembers most was that the whole harbor was covered in oil and on fire. So much for realism huh? Anyway...I waited all the spring for this movie....I mean they started running trailers in January, and I got this. Well, if this is the "summer blockbuster"...I'm going fishing.

In the above mentioned movie it always seemed strange that a really rich and handsome guy resorted to a hooker, albeit a real knockout one? Now we see a possible scenario that might make the plot not just a fantasy. A "Dot-Com." millionaire, with the required "nurd-ness" uses his economic power to feed his...well I guess fantasies and the story results are pretty good. They are at least more realistic than the sterile grunting that most current movies use as "sex scenes". Hollywood does violence beyond scale, but they do "sex" in the taboo filled lock-ups of censors and religious heresies. A director takes a daring chance into these forbidden areas and he is either eviscerated or beloved. For this movie there has been some of each. I don't think it deserves either. I think the movie making is a bit lame but the story and the attempt at reality deserves credit where due. I wonder how "The Postman Always Rings Twice" would have been if it had been done this boldly? Rhetorical questions seem to serve little purpose but I wonder how this movies got to be "R" rated and "Midnight Cowboy" was rated "X"? A question for another time perhaps? This movie is not in the class of "Midnight Cowboy", but it is pretty good and should be seen.

When historic events happen we all tend to remember where we were and such. I was getting ready to go play football against the University of Arkansas when when November 23rd 1963 happened and on July 20-21st 1969 I was in my apartment in Houston with old friends gathered around the Television waiting to see man walk on the moon. Until I saw this delightful movie last night I didn't realize how close we all came to not seeing it happen.

Oh I knew or came to know that Armstrong and Aldren were down to 30 seconds of fuel when they landed,but I didn't know about a bunch of Aussies in a sheep meadow who risked their lives in 60 mile per hour winds to see the pictures get through. So I loved the movie if for no other reason that it so delightfully set me straight on these events. The humor is vintage Australian and we Texans love it. It's a nice story well told and you ought to go see it.

Nameless bodies floating face down in the Volga River or boats blown to pieces from bombs dropped by Stukka dive bombers is war as we have sort of known it in films, but when it gets down to the cross hairs in a high powered sniper gun being fixed on a enemy that you could recognize in a police line up for example, is another matter. "Enemy at the Gates" puts the cross hairs directly on the mark. I'm a big Ed Harris fan and he is wonderful again as Nazi super sniper Major Koenig, but Jude Law takes the day as Russian hero Vassily Zaitsev. This film is stark and real almost to a fault, but in the end it is a battle of wills of two men. One is described as a Bavarian aristocrat and the other a farm boy from the Urals. Throw in a grand performance by Bob Hoskins as Nikita Krushchev and a generally wonderful cast and you got an "eight" out of ten. Since I reserve "10's" for perfection, I have yet to see such a thing. I rated "Saving Private Ryan" as a nine, so if the blood and guts of real war bother you, stay home, otherwise go see this one it is great.

Ever see a movie and can't seem to get it out of your mind? This is such a work. The blah-blah critics can find fault and the fantastic in this...see I can't seem to call it by a name. It is a delight in areas. It is tantalizingly close to greatness. Yet the force of it all is Defoe. I was a one man band in support of Ed Harris for his gripping work in "Pollock",...but fickle as I may be.....Defoe IS better! Not by a lot but enough for those who know who should really win the little gold man. Oh we all know it is not in the cards! Cash and big daddy big bucks will as usual decide...but at least the actors, those of the craft and art saw fit to put three truly great performances into the process. Nope, not Crowe, even though he was good...it is Rush of course...but back to this movie. I liked it so much I may grow my nails out as a silent protest for it not winning more honors. Go see it. It is a hoot!

My father bought a Jackson Pollock work sometime in the fifties. It hung in his study for years and now hangs in mine. For those who know Pollock's works it is redundant to visit words like brilliant, tortured, mesmerizing.....so imagine how I felt when a movie was made about the man's incredible yet...like all the adjectives above...life. If you want to be a stickler for detail...you can find flaws in this movie aplenty.....but first and foremost GO SEE IT!!!! Then visit the minor problems if you must. What a shame that Ed Harris won't win the little gold man for this,...but we all know that story....little budget film about some....artist?....Won't make a dime and....everyone knows bucks decides the votes! But I won't go there either. This is "Pollock's" time. Marcia Gay Harden is perfectly cast as the long suffering and dedicated Lee Krasner. Without Lee, none of us would have Pollock's works at all. Perhaps the show is stolen by Amy Madigan who touches the legend of Peggy Guggenheim in the almost perfect way. Now to Ed Harris; This must have been a tremendously demanding role for him. To go to the tortured places where genius resides is no easy trip. He should be rewarded, but ...well, we will all hope. Go see this movie!

The king is dead long live the King! The triad of Caddie Shack Two, The Family underneath the Stairs, and Troop Beverly Hills had been tied for worst movie ever for so long that they seemed icons in their own right. But there is a new king.....yep.....all hail the new king...."Down to Earth". But some things, like Tiny Tim for example, are so bad they are good. Some day this could take out the inimitable "Rocky Horror Picture Show" as a cult film. So go see this ....this....well just take my word for it. Go see it. All hail the new king!

I think Sean Penn may evolve into one of our better directors if...ah the big "If" he can learn that most of the viewing public doesn't share his taste for the unbelievable. A man who, as far as we viewers know, is not even a Catholic..does the old swear on the cross thing, and then everyone is satisfied...they get the guy...except....??? Not our guy! The movie is full of bad police work, bad original premise, and bad plot management. It is far too slow to the point and I would have left but I got in free. It is hard to make a "Snow" movie....the stuff doesn't always want to be there when the scene is shot...so this part was good. As far as Jack N. goes...he is hard to make too bad. Robbin Wright shows promise too. Most women would die before allowing a cap to be destroyed on their teeth....but...she has style. The place is pretty and looks like Canada trying to be passed off as Nevada. Nevada never looked so good. I would have rated it a five but I have rated some really bad stuff five and this is not a total loss but Sean Penn needs better things to work with in the future, like a script.

Give the film a good grade for trying a hard subject, but why load the deck against oneself? Three plots all poorly developed and what sort of "drug tzar to be", Federal Judge would mess around with a crack selling pimp?...Man, get the cops and do the job! The multi-film choice is boring and distracting. Clearly this much Spanish with English sub titles is distracting and...the head sitting next to me kept asking the person next to him to read it for him!

Anyway...you shove this junk down the public's throat at your own peril. The story...my kingdom for a story!!!!

Oh well it will get awards...and beats me how it could? Save your money!