Reviews

Along with Wes Anderson's Rushmore, and P.T. Anderson's other masterpice, Boogie Nights, Magnolia is one of the best three films of the 90's. Magnolia is a series of interlocking stories: The characters include Stanley Spector( an amazing performance by young Jeremy Blackman), a current quiz kid champion who wants to be loved by his father; Frank T.J. Mackey( Tom Cruise), a sexist motivational speaker who gives speeches on how to "seduce and destroy" women, former quiz kid Donnie Smith( William H. Macy), now a middle-aged homosexual who is only kept going because of his love for a bartender, a religious cop, Jim Kurring( John C. Reilly) who wants to help people, Claudia Wilson Gator( Melora Walters), a troubled drug addict who is asked out on a date by Jim, who has no idea of her problem; Jimmy Gator( Philip Baker Hall), a dying game show host who is Claudia's father; Earl Partridge ( Jason Robards), a TV producer who is also dying of cancer; Linda Partridge( Julianne Moore), Earl's pill-popping wife; and Phil Parma ( Philip Seymour Hoffman)a kind nurse who goes beyond his career, and actually feels his patients pain, but who really has no life beyond his job, and has a problem communicating with the outside world. Magnolia happens all in one random day, and the characters lives play out with Aimee Mann music in the background( the characters sining "Wise Up" is truly a brilliant cinematic moment). Although Magnolia may be a little too long( 3 hours, 8 minutes), for some viewers, Magnolia takes you on an experience like few other movies do.

I originally rented Bottle Rocket because it was from the same director and writers( Wes Anderson, Owen Wilson) of my favorite movie Rushmore. I'm glad I rented it. It turned out to my one of my favorite movies. Bottle Rocket starts as Anthony Adams( Luke Wilson) is being released from an asylum for "exhaustion". Anthony meets up with his friends Dignan, an enthusiastic wannabe criminal( played by co-writer Owen Wilson), and rich, but depressed Bob Mapplethorpe( Robert Musgrave). Their first big robbery is at a bookstore, which is very funny because Dignan politely robs the store( "Uh, do you have any bigger bags for atlasas and dictionaries, uh, sir?"). This leads to the three hiding out at a hotel where Anthony falls in love with a maid( Lumi Cavazos), who can't speak English. I'm not going to give away any more of the plot, because I feel I gave away too much already. Now I'm going to say why Bottle Rocket is a great film: It's original, funny( especially in the scenes involving Kumar Pallana as a senile safecracker), and with great performances by Owen Wilson, Luke Wilson, and another Wilson brother, Andrew, as Bob's bullying big brother. James Caan also gives a very good small performance. Bottle Rocket also have some great music in it, including a score by Mark Mothersbaugh, and the movie songs include two of my favorites: The Rolling Stone's 2000 Man and The Proclaimer's Over and Done With. Definitely a must-see movie!

I do have to admit that the only reason I rented Race the Sun was because Sara Tanaka( Margaret Yang from "Rushmore")was in it. Rushmore is one of my favorite movies, but I especially think that Sara Tanaka was good in it. Well anyway, back to the review, I heard quite a lot of negative things about the movies, but I decided to check it out anyway. I was quite surprised. The story about a group of poor students from Hawaii competing in a solar-car race in Australia was well-acted, interesting, and fun. I was kind of disappointed that Sara Tanaka wasn't given enough screentime, but it was still quite an entertaining movie, and Sara Tanaka gave another good performance.

I first seen Rushmore on Encore one night, and I knew that is was something special, when I could relate to all the characters like that. I watch this movie almost every day, and every time I watch it I appreciate it a little more. The film has Jason Schwartzman( in a great performance) as Max Fischer, a 15-year old at Rushmore, a local private school. Although Max is in about every club there is at school( and he creates many other ones), he is a lousy student, who is about to get expelled because of his poor grades. He actually only got into Rushmore on a scholarship for writing a play about Watergate at a young age. Max meets local steel tycoon Herman Blume( Bill Murray, giving his best performance to date; he should have been nominated for an Oscar), and this leads to Max giving Mr. Blume an idea about building an aquarium to please a 1'st grade teacher at Rushmore, Rosemary Cross( Olivia Williams), for whom Max has fell in love with. Then problems happen as Mr. Blume also falls in love with her, leading to lots of hilarious moments. Rushmore has three great assets that make it one of my favorite movies: 1. Acting- All of the performance here are fantastic. Schwartzman as Max gives a high energy performance that is so perfect here; Murray gives a touching performance as a man who hates his life, while Williams gives a good performance as Miss Cross, while Seymour Cassel ( playing Max's father) and Sara Tanaka( playing Max's love interest) also give good supporting performances. 2. Script- The script is so great that it's just incredible. The dialogue involving handjobs is hilarious, but amazingly not over-the-top. 3. Music- The music is so perfect that one of my top priorities right now is to buy the soundtrack, if it's avialable. It's so full of perfectly coordinated songs, that even if the acting and script were terrible, the movie would still be good. I think that one of the problems in Hollywood is that there isn't enough movies like Rushmore. Rushmore is a brilliant film, and it's a film actually about people for once.

Robert Zemeckis' Cast Away is one of the best films I've seen for a long time. Tom Hanks gives an excellent performance as Chuck Noland, a Federal Express worker who leaves Memphis, for a short time to go overseas on business. Before leaving, he tells his girlfriend Kelly ( Helen Hunt), "I'll be right back". What happens next is extraordinary filmmaking: Chuck's plane crashes, and Chuck is the sole survivor, finding himself cast ashore on a deserted island. These scenes are the greatest in the film, for we see Hanks trying to adjust to island life, and having as his only companion, a volleyball which he calls "Wilson". There are a few funny scenes in Cast Away. I laughed at the scenes in which the Federal Express boxes were cast ashore, which were full of rollerskates, videotapes, and of course the volleyball. But the main point of Cast Away is the drama of trying to adjust to life, both on the island and when he gets back home. Whatever you do, just see this film at least once.

Return to Me is a good film because it's a romantic-comedy without being sappy or mushy. It's a well-acted, well-directed, well-scripted film, that has a great musical score. Return to Me tells the story of Bob Rueland( David Duchovny), an architect whose wife( Joely Richardson) recently died in a car accident), whose heart is given to Grace( Minnie Driver), who is in desperate need of one. One night, Bob, still getting over his wife's death, decides to go out to O'Reilly Italian Restaurant where he meets Grace( a waitress at the restaurant, owned by her grandfathers), and starts thinking that he knows her. Later, the next day when he comes back for his cell-phone, he sees Grace again and asks if she wants to go out on a date. The film tells the romantic story that we all know of, but it's done in such a good style here that I call it an irresistible film. The film is almost perfectly timed. David Duchovny gives a good performance here, as well as Minnie Driver, while Carroll O'Connor and Robert Loggia both give quite enjoyable and funny performances. Finally, a film worth seeing.

Alfred Hitchcock's Murder! is not a great film, but I give it *** out of ****, so it must be good, and it is. The acting is good, the premise is intriguing, but the film being extremely slow-moving, makes the film boring at times, but it is still at times a quite mesmerizing film that is worth is just for the extraordinary ending. The plot deals with a woman( Norah Baring) being accused of murder, and a juror( a great Herbert Marshall) being almost sure that she is not the killer, and attempting to find this killer. I will not reveal any more of the plot to you, as I think that this film deserved to be seen, not just read. It is not one of Hitchcock's more popular films, and not one of his best. It is an early talkie, so be prepared for a poor print. But past that and it's slow-moving flaws, it's a well-acted film that deserves to be seen.