Reviews

Like the tag line says: this one was better than Hannibal, but certainly not anywhere near the caliber of Silence of the Lambs.

This remake of the 1986 film Manhunter focuses much more on Lechter than does the original film (or the book, for that matter). He has, obviously, become the franchise. As a result, the rest of the story (the core of the story) suffers.

Hopkins does a decent job, and Edward Norton is (predictably) very good. However, due primarily to all the time spent on Lechter (a character we all already know well), this movie's killer (played by Ralph Fiennes (sp?)) is far too shallow. All we really find out is that he has a tender side...I think...and that he is angry at the world because he was (gasp!) abused...but that is only hinted at, and never expanded.

I was mildly entertained. I would have been more disappointed had I not already seen Hannibal and learned to adjust my expectations appropriately.

I gave this one a 6

By now, this "sleeper" hit has probably been seen by enough people to render my comments useful to only a very few. Regardless, I felt obliged to jot something down.

The film tells the story of an ugly duckling who falls in love with, and marries her prince.

Our ugly duckling (Fortula or Tula for short), has always been a bit uncomfortable trying to fit into both her American surroundings and into the expectations of her Greek family. Her Father (and her entire extended family) expect her to marry a nice Greek boy and turn out nice Greek children. Unfortunately for Tula, her prince turns out to be very American.

I really enjoyed this film. I found it charming, and laughed out loud frequently at the antics of the Fortula's family. I especially enjoyed the fact that the ugly duckling in this picture was not some Hollywood glamour girl or teen beauty queen dressed up to look frumpy (e.g., She's All That); it made the movie so much more believable.*

There is nothing terribly heavy about this movie; you never really have to wonder if something terrible is going to happen or whether someone is going to have to overcome something catastrophic for this romance to work.

I gave this movie an 8

Much commentary I have read on this film compares it to "The Shipping News" because it is set in Newfoundland. I would like to stress, however, that this movie is in no other way like "The Shipping News". Thank goodness. "Rare Birds" tells the story of Dave, a struggling restaurant owner who is recently separated from his wife. In order to boost Dave's spirits, and his business fortunes, his crackpot friend Alphonse (or "'Phonse") cooks up a scheme to lure bird watchers to the area. Meanwhile, Dave begins to fall in love with 'Phonse's sister-in-law. This is a charming film due in part to the beautiful scenery of the Newfoundland coast (which was so drearily washed-out in "The Shipping News"). The real gem of this film, however, is Dave's friend, 'Phonse, the inventor who sees conspiracies everywhere and always makes sure to have a "Plan B". I definitely recommend this film for some light, entertaining fare. I gave it a 7.

Clint Eastwood begins the movie as an FBI profiler investigating a series of serial killings. At each of the crime scenes, including the house at which we open the film, the killer has left a personal note for Clint. After reviewing the scene, Clint spots the killer outside the house and gives chase, only to have his heart give out on him at the end of a dark alley.

Fast forward in time (two years, as we find out) and Clint is given a new lease on life after a heart transplant. He is now retired from the FBI and has been working as a private investigator; he is trying to take it easy on the old ticker.

However, soon after the completion of the transplant operation, the killing starts again and Clint is sucked right back in to an investigation that he wasn't able to finish the first time around.

The one (extremely) annoying aspect of this film is the "requisite" romance between Clint (a private investigator and former FBI profiler) and his client (the sister of the woman whose heart has been transplanted into Clint). The romance feels contrived and adds nothing to the film.

Overall, Blood Work is a solid, old-fashioned thriller. No huge explosions, no virtual reality, no computer-animated characters. Just Clint and a nice little mystery.

I gave it a 7.

In Signs Mel Gibson plays a former protestant minister living with his children and his brother (played by Joaquin Phoenix) on a farm in Pennsylvania.

Disillusioned by the freakish accident that took the life of his wife, Gibson left the church only months before the beginning of the film (everyone in town still wants to call him "father"). Despite his loss of faith, however, Gibson still loves his children fiercely and he guards them very closely.

Early in the film, Gibson's children discover a series of crop circles in their corn fields, and not long after, the news reports a significant increase in crop-circle sighting all over the world. Are the Aliens coming? Are they trying to tell us something?

You'll have to watch the film for the answers to those questions, but I will tell you that I don't think this film is really about aliens. This film is really about human beings, and fate, and faith, and family.

Shyamalan is adept at creating a very tense, mysterious atmosphere in this film, and Gibson and Phoenix are (as should be expected) excellent. Shyamalan's trademark "twist" is certainly not as impressive as in the "Sixth Sense" but this is still a very good film.

I look forward to more from this director. I gave Signs an 8.

Two women at different rungs on the corporate ladder meet on a business trip and then proceed to bore you to death.

This movie is supposed to be a study in control. Julia Stiles (the ivy-league brat and aspiring writer forced to work an IT job in order to pay the bills) manipulates Stockard Channing (the community college grad and devoted career woman recently promoted to CEO of her company) into taking part in what we are supposed to believe is some revenge scheme against a man who sexually assaulted Stiles' friend.

Except that through the course of this tedious film, we discover that it was really Stiles who was assaulted...no, wait: actually, it turns out that Stiles doesn't even know this guy.

How ironic. How curious that after the whole ordeal (which eventually turns criminal), Stockard Channing seems amused that she has been so cleverly manipulated. How totally ingenious.

Except that we never really get to know Stiles' character. We do get some insight into Channing's fiercely-determined, staggeringly-insecure CEO, but none into the "enigmatic" malcontent who is the movie's protagonist.

Sure, not everything in life can be neatly tied up in two hours, but not everything in life deserves to be put on cellulose either. This was just a bad film.

At some point I will learn to decode the critics' reviews in order to identify these stinkers before I watch them. This particular offering was, according to one IMDB reviewer, filmed in just 23 days. Maybe they should have taken a little longer. More than a study in control, this movie is a study in what people will swallow as art.

I give it a 2, because Stockard Channing does a reasonable job with her role.

Here comes another "edgy" film with a constantly-shifting camera, and grainy, washed-out footage. If you have an extremely short attention span, perhaps you will enjoy it; the people who made the film don't seem to be interested enough in any one character in order to develop any of them. Lazy film making.

As the Gin Blossoms once said: "If You Don't Expect Too Much, You Might Not Be Let Down"

I thought this one might be fun, but was also prepared for the possibility that it might reek to high heaven.

I was pleasantly surprised.

Orange County tells the story of Shaun Brumder, an aspiring writer and reformed surf bum (played by Colin Hanks), who is determined to get into Stanford and study under his hero: writer Marcus Skinner.

Shaun is convinced that the only way to become a great writer is to escape the mind-numbing stupidity, pettiness, self-interest and general disarray that surrounds him in Orange County. However, due to a mistake by his guidance counselor (Lilly Tomlin) who sends in the wrong transcript, Shaun is turned down by Stanford.

What follows are several increasingly desperate attempts at getting admitted to Stanford, with each attempt horribly, although unintentionally, mangled by members of Shaun's family.

In the end, however, Shaun realizes that he doesn't need to escape Orange County to be a great writer, because his greatest inspirations (his friends and family) are right there at home.

Ahhhhhhhhh.

Jack Black, who has a tendency to be a little bit over the top for my taste, was absolutely hilarious as the drugged-out wastoid older brother. Shaun's parents (especially his mom, played by Catherine O'Hara) and his surfer pals are also pretty gosh-darn funny. The only character I could really do without is the overly-earnest Schuyler Fisk as Shaun's girlfriend. Ugh.

Overall, this was pretty good stuff.

When was the last time that you saw a Best Picture award winner that you really thought deserved the title?

My guess is that you will not be impressed with this latest recipient.

Before watching a Beautiful Mind, I read all the press about how the movie was not an accurate portrayal of the life of John Nash; that it left out several important but "inconvenient" or "unattractive" facts. I told myself that I would put all that aside, however, and try to see the movie as simply a good story.

So much for that approach.

I found this movie to be pretty boring and unfulfilling. They spend very little time on character development and even if you haven't read about the parts of Nash's story that were left out of the movie, it still feels like something is missing.

Nash is supposed to be some kind of unrivaled genius, but aside from watching Russell Crowe stare at many terribly complicated equations (no doubt written onto library windows and chalk boards by graduate students who happened by the set during filming) we get very little sense of what it was that this guy did that was so earth shattering.

If they had bothered to go more into Nash's game theory work, the movie could have been a lot more impressive and interesting. As it is, we are left to take on faith that Nash's theories about maximizing his and his friends chances of getting laid must have been Nobel caliber stuff.

Furthermore, there is no explanation at all about what on earth it is about Nash (a confirmed misanthrope) that could possibly make his wife fall in love with him, much less spend her entire life as the care-taker of the nuthouse that is Nash's life. Note: had they felt inclined to include the fact that Nash and his wife were separated for a while, it might make the picture a little more believable.

Maybe she knew that she would win Best Supporting Actress if she stuck around long enough.

Once again, I am disappointed in the Academy's Best Picture selection.

When was it that Jim Carrey decided he needed to be taken seriously as an actor?

Truman Show was annoying, Man On The Moon was painful, and this movie was extremely tedious and high-handed.

I like Jim Carrey, and I keep hoping that he will turn out something that is at least going to make me laugh.

In The Majestic, Jim Carrey is Stanley Ipkiss of The Mask, without any of the levity: he's just a really nice, normal guy with no serious ideological bent who is just trying to get by...until something really REMARKABLE happens, he lucks into the girl of his dreams and achieves self-actualization.

It's pretty standard schlock, with one particularly annoying detail: another rant about how UN-AMERICAN Joseph McCarthy and the Committee on Un-American Activities really were. Oh, the irony of it all.

Alright, already! We get it. We all had to read The Crucible in high school (and if you didn't, you should). We all know how much Hollywood suffered at the hand of over-zealous politicians...and how ridiculous it was that accusations were even leveled in the first place. Of course, what no one in Hollywood seems to want to acknowledge is that many of them were members of the Communist party...and many of them probably still are. Seriously, folks! If you want to rail against Joseph McCarthy and his antics, fine. But at least have the good grace to admit that you really WERE Communists.

I really wanted to like this movie, but I couldn't.

Purely marginal fare.

I couldn't help feeling while watching this movie that this must be the kind of script that actors like Kevin Spacey and Julianne Moore look for to regain some credibility as actors after taking part in fiascos such as Hannibal and K-Pax...and Pay It Forward.

In "The Shipping News", everyone has a hard life. The weather is rarely anything but rainy or cold, all color is drained away (either by the weather or by all of the suffering everyone endures...or maybe the camera is just broken), mommies and daddies desert their children (or try to sell them into slavery), families are burdened by age-old curses, and everything is generally pretty abysmal.

In the end, however, we learn about the triumph of the human spirit...I think.

The movie is well acted, or something, and you will probably walk away feeling like you just watched a very powerful film, but I think that the real lesson of the movie is that Cate Blanchett and everyone who lives in Newfoundland are all pretty worthless.

In the American version of a 1997 Norwegian film, Al Pacino is Will Dormer, a decorated veteran LAPD detective. He and his partner, Hap Eckhart, are ostensibly in Alaska to help an old friend of Will's investigate the murder of a seventeen year old girl. Hap, however, is convinced that they have been sent away to ease the pressure of a sweeping Internal Affairs investigation underway in L.A.

Dormer closes in quickly on the primary suspect, mystery novelist Walter Finch (Williams). Fortunately for Finch, however, he has some valuable leverage on Dormer; he knows something that Dormer can't afford for anyone else to find out. As a result, Finch, who believes that his experience as a writer qualifies him to be a master criminal, is able to manipulate Dormer and the local cops.

Compounding Will's problem with Finch is the midnight sun of Alaska; Dormer hasn't been able to sleep since he arrived. As Dormer's grip on reality becomes increasingly tenuous, he is beset on all sides by his personal demons, by the devious Finch and by an earnest rookie police officer, Ellie Burr (Swank), concerned about the direction her own investigation is taking.

Christopher Nolan's first directorial effort since his critically acclaimed Memento is significantly less confusing and much more rewarding. The Oscar-encrusted cast deserves quite a bit of the credit. Pacino is Pacino, but he works perfectly as the shady, shoddy veteran cop and he manages not to chew up all the scenery. Robin Williams is surprisingly creepy as Finch, and he manages not to erupt into madcap hysterics.

Based on the popular novel by Nick Hornby, About a Boy tells the story of Will Lightner (Grant). Will is a self-absorbed confirmed bachelor living comfortably in his very chic, very roomy London flat. As Will is occasionally forced to admit, he really does nothing for a living; his lifestyle is funded by the royalties he receives as a result of a very popular novelty Christmas song penned years ago by his father.

Will lives his life as an island, careful to avoid the personal entanglements that would require him to shift his focus from himself. He shops, he watches TV, he plays billiards, and he dates lots of women. In his frequent, short-lived relationships, Will is able to take on whatever role he needs to become Mr. Right for a time. Unfortunately, he can maintain each charade for only so long before he has to call it off, and then he is thrust into the most uncomfortable and very unwelcome role of bad guy.

Will soon discovers what he believes to be an untapped source of commitment-free relationships: single moms. Will invents a son for himself, and finagles himself a date through a support group for single parents. On his `date' he meets Marcus (Hoult), the painfully nerdy son of aging hippie, Fiona (Colette).

Marcus initially latches onto Will as a potential husband for his mom; Fiona is emotionally erratic, and Marcus desperately wants to see her happy. The `magic', as they say, is just not there for Will and Fiona. However, Marcus continues to visit Will's flat on his own, as an escape from the constant taunting at school and the emotional roller coaster at home.

Will is initially resistant to this infringement on his insular existence, but he eventually begins to accept the visits and actually starts to interact with Marcus. As Marcus becomes more of a fixture in Will's life, it slowly dawns on Will that he actually does care about somebody else's happiness: Marcus'.

Hugh Grant really makes this movie. He is delightfully shallow and cynical as Will, managing to step beyond his traditional role of the bumbling, hapless, hopeless romantic. Some of his comments and asides should have you laughing out loud. Nicholas Hoult does a good job as Marcus, (although he could work on his enunciation), and Toni Colette is appropriately annoying as the over-protective mother.

In Unfaithful, Connie Sumner (Lane) is the suburban New York mom with little to do outside of shopping and planning charity auctions. She has a devoted husband, Edward (played by Gere), and a well-adjusted, healthy son, Charlie (played by Erik Per Sullivan of Malcom in the Middle). On a shopping trip into the City, Connie gets caught up in a bizarre windstorm and literally bumps into Paul Martel (Martinez), a used-book seller with a French accent. Martel manages to lure Connie up to his apartment so that he can bandage her knee. He piques her curiosity, and it is not long before she is back again…and again…and again.

Adrian Lyne, the director, is no stranger to the subject of marital infidelity, having directed both Fatal Attraction and Indecent Proposal, and he does a passable job with this latest effort. If nothing else, it is amusing to see Richard Gere cast as the cuckold. One big problem with this picture, however, is that it is difficult to explain why Connie Sumner would chose to pursue an extra-marital affair. There is no sordid underbelly to her marriage, and she and her husband appear to be very much in love.

Could it be that Connie has gotten bored with the suburbs (even though Connie was the one who decided the family should move to the suburbs in the first place)? Maybe it is the result of some sort of cinematic karma, whereby Gere's character is being punished for the painfully abysmal Autumn in New York. Or perhaps it is simply the animál magnetism of the irresistible Paul Martel, who assuages Connie's misgivings about their affair with this gem: 'There are no mistakes. There is only what you do, and what you don't do.'

No doubt many politicians and countless postmodern intellectuals would agree with this compelling logic. However, as the affair carries on to its inevitable conclusion, we see that there apparently are mistakes, with very real consequences for all those involved. Including paying to see this movie in a theater.

This movie is mildly entertaining, if for no other reason than the fact that Richard Gere is cast in the unlikely role of cuckold. The movie's fatal flaw is that we are never given a compelling reason why Diane Lane's character would venture outside of her apparently very happy marriage. There is no dark underbelly to the marriage, and Gere seems to be very much in love with his wife...not to mention that they also have a very healthy, seemingly well-adjusted son. I was also disappointed by unmet expectations: I was led to believe that there was some very interesting twist to the story...I'm still waiting for that twist.

I have read through the several reviews of this movie that question what genre this film is attempting to follow...action? comedy? I think if you stop to wonder about the directors intent, you may have spent more time contemplating this movie than the cast and crew did filming it. Seriously, I don't think they did more than one take of any scene. Want to pick a genre? How about: le cinema BAD. As one reviewer so aptly noted, no one in the entire city of Amsterdam appears to speak Dutch...in fact, they all appear to be Americans and every one of them are just going through the motions. I half expected William Hurt to jump in front of a bullet just to end his own misery.