Monthly Archives: June 2001

Swordfish

Posted on June 12, 2001

Travolta really knows how to play the hip, hip bad guy, to push the words of his character out of his mouth with menace even while he’s charming you. Swordfish got a mess of bad reviews but a few good ones including three stars from the SJ Mercury News. Hugh Jackman (Wolverine in X-Men) plays the innocent, sort of, good guy, a Kevin Mitnick type of convicted hacker, who only wants to have his 10 year old daughter back in his life. Dominic Sena, who also directed the bang a minute Gone in 60 Seconds, keeps the cameras moving here with very good pacing and the editing of the end of the opening scene is just excellent. Halle Berry (Storm in X-Men) isn’t bad either, but I think producer Joel Silver wasted $500k to get Berry to take her shirt off.

recommended

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Best in Show

Posted on June 10, 2001

Christopher Guest has been making us laugh for around 25 years now, even if you don’t recognize his name or face. He wrote, directed, and co-stars in Best In Show, a pseudo-documentary about the Mayflower Kennel Club Dog Show and some of its participants. Guest is best-known for the 1996 film Waiting for Guffman, in which he also wrote, directed, and co-starred, for playing bassist Nigel Tufnel in the hilarious This is Spinal Tap, and writing and performing on Saturday Night Live.

Best in Show has a lot of similarities to Spinal Tap, which he co-wrote, in that there isn’t a plot per se (just like most lives lack a nice, tidy, Hollywood-esque plot), and instead finds humor in the quirkiness of its characters and situations. For example, one of the funniest running gags is that husband and wife (co-writer and Second City TV alumnus) Eugene Levy and Catherine O’Hara (also an SCTV alum) make the trip up to the show from Florida with their terrier, discovering along the way that every man they meet is one of O’Hara’s former lovers.

recommended

Posted in comedy, indie, movies, Recommended, Reviews | Comments Off

Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon

Posted on June 5, 2001

Wow! What a cool movie! Beautiful to watch on the big screen but works really well on a good TV too. Winner of four Academy Awards including Best Foreign Film and Best Cinematography. Chow Yun Fat, Michelle Yeoh, Zhang Zi Yi, and Chang Chen are fabulous in Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon. The film blends fantasy, martial arts, romance, and true emotion in a way I’ve never really seen before.

Highly recommended, one of the few films I think is worth buying on DVD!

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Boss of Bosses

Posted on June 3, 2001

I like mob movies. Sopranos, Goodfellas, Godfather, Casino. Unquestionably, all of these have characters who are unquestionably bad but with whom we come to identify and cheer on. But Boss of Bosses, a made for cable original that premiered tonight on TNT, goes to far in making Paul Castellano into a good guy. He kills people but hates that he must and this gives him nightmares.

And beyond the amazingly poor taste shown in Castellano’s characterization, the film explicitly lies about a key factor in his downfall. In the film, his maid (also his lover) tells the FBI to go screw when they approach her for help; in reality, the FBI planted bugs in Castellano’s home with the woman’s help and it was she who told the FBI that Castellano often sat at his kitchen table to discuss business.

This will film not be joining the others mentioned in the mob film hall of fame.

Posted in crime, movies, Not Recommended, Reviews | Comments Off

The Yards

Posted on June 2, 2001

S t a y   a w a y    f r o m    t h i s    m o v i e.  The Yards seems to have been staged inside sets filled with transparent, viscous goo. The actors speak slowly and move slowly. They react slowly. The camera moves slowly. The germ of a decent movie is in there somewhere and Mark Wahlberg and Joaquin Phoenix come close to giving us some decent emotional acting but director/co-writer James Gray seems to be fixated on closeups of his actors’ eyes for no discernable reason. Wahlberg was much better in Boogie Nights and The Corruptor; Phoenix in Gladiator as the mad young emperor. Charlize Theron is wasted in the girlfriend role and Gray seems to have tried making her as unattractive as possible with dark, heavy makeup and dark, badly cut and unstyled hair (and even though this movie aims for the working class, Theron’s character and family have money to afford the local hair salon).

not recommended

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