My reviews of movies in reverse chronological order (i.e. most-recent-first) of date-of-review (which is not necessarily the same as the date-watched).
Title: Not Another Teen Movie
Review written: 11 December 2001
This is the era of parodies. In fact, with Scream it was an auto-parody, and Scary Movie took it one step further to become an auto-meta-parody.
Not Another Teen Movie is, as its title blares out, a parody of teen movies from The Breakfast Club to Sixteen Candles to American Pie and beyond.
Not surprisingly, the movie is filled with tastelessness and tits. Jokes come flying thick and fast, as do the references to each of the movies being parodied. There are homages to Anthony Michael Dining Hall and John Hughes Auditorium, and Molly Ringwald makes a cameo complaining about the stupidity of teenagers in love.
Not only is the parody well done, the movie never takes itself seriously, which makes it a great success in what it sets out to do. Extremely funny and worth watching.
Title: Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust
Review written: 7 December 2001
Vampire Hunter D is a Japanese anime animation film (in English) combining the Bram Stokerian mythos of Transylvanian bloodsuckers with the postmodern techno-noir of Blade, with a bit of swashbuckling cowboy-western thrown in for good measure.
The result is a superb film that provides great and gory entertainment.
D is the ultra-cool vampire hunter who is half-man/half-beast himself. He lives in the far distant future when vampires have almost taken over the world, but are still in the process of going extinct. D finds and kills vampires for bounty, and in this adventure he tries to rescue a woman who has been kidnapped by vampire Link.
In keeping with the more sophisticated vampire legends (that have grown up in the post-Stoker era), the vampires in this movie are themselves quite sympathetically portrayed---their bloodlust is not much different than a hunger that humans themselves have for food and nourishment.
A very entertaining animation (and one decidedly in sharp contrast to the syrupy goo that Disney and Pixar throw our way; I think it is an unfortunate accident of history that American audiences have come to associate animation with cute children's movies when it is really another cinematic-language that should be better explored).
Title: Behind Enemy Lines
Review written: 30 November 2001
Last week it was Robert Redford's turn to demonstrate former-great-actors slumming in the garbage with Spy Game. This week Gene Hackman does the same with Behind Enemy Lines.
In yet another stunning display of American moronicity, parochialism, and pseudo-patriotism, we have a movie where US troops mow down hundreds of non-US cannon-fodder because of a bunch of photographs. This is, after all, the American Way of Life.
For about 5 minutes, I thought that the movie might, just might, pull through because of the comedic talent of Owen Wilson (even though he is being cast in a dramatic role here). But alas, criminally incompetent story-telling, photography, direction, and all-round movie-making kills this film and relegates it to the same garbage heap its stars wallow in.
This movie also makes the most convincing possible case for banning the gratuitous use of hand-held cameras. You could not have had a more unstable film that this one even if you had given the camera to a spastic, Parkinsonian with a triple-espresso drip directly into his bloodstream and orders to out-do the Blair Witch Project for nauseousness.
The only satisfaction in the entire experience was that I went into the theater with every intention of savaging this movie and came out with all of my expectations fulfilled. It is comforting to know that shit sometimes looks just like shit before and after.
Title: Rat Race
Review written: 29 November 2001
One of the great all-time movie classics is It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World, featuring a stellar comedic cast, and the inexhaustible plot-mine of human beings doing extremely stupid things out of greed for money.
Rat Race is Jerry "Naked Gun" Zucker's reprise of the theme. John Cleese plays an eccentric Las Vegas casino-owner who sends off 6 different groups of people to retrieve a bag that contains a 2 million dollar prize. The only rule of the game: No Rules (as in There is *NO* Rule 6, nudge nudge, wink wink).
Cleese, of course, is staging this race for the viewing and betting enjoyment of filthy-rich billionaires who have tired of vanilla casino gambling, and want to bet instead on human stupidity.
This movie starts slowly, a lull before the storm, before zooming into non-stop comedy. I had to struggle to stay in my seat, and control my tears as I watched this film.
Either catch Rat Race in the theaters, or else have a home movie-marathon with It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World, The Canonball Run and Rat Race, all back to back. You will work off a couple of years of disease and sickness from the hilarity.
Title: Out Cold
Review written: 20 November 2001
As great a writer as P.G.Wodehouse was (and he is the greatest writer of the English language), the one criticism that could be leveled against him is that he made his craft seem too easy---spawning a number of miserable imitators.
One rarely appreciates true genius more vividly than when watching a fiasco that seeks to emulate.
The Malloy brothers, whoever they are, have demonstrated that it takes a lot more than mere concatentation of isolated tastelessness to achieve the comedic genius of the Farrelly brothers.
Out Cold was so bad that I almost walked out of the movie theater (something I have considered doing for only the 5 worst films ever made). This movie takes 6th place in that list of infamy.
What is particularly galling about this movie is its pretentiousness (an achievement made amazing by the fact that its target audience---19 year old frat boys---are the least equipped to understand supposed punchlines that seek to parody Casablanca). As one might expect, "of all the beer bars in all of the world, she walks into mine and "play that song, play it for old times sake" were greeted with pin-drop silence while a black human-turd in a piss-cup evoked a roar that echoed through the theater.
I have nothing against human-turds (black or multi-colored) in a piss-cup, but even the most tasteless movie must march to the tune of an internal logic. It is simply unacceptable to have "punchlines" without a story. The Farrellys realize this, the Malloys need to have it pounded into their heads with mallets.
The only thing more pathetic than the audience that enjoyed this movie is the studio that made it.
Title: Spy Game
Review written: 19 November 2001
Why does Hollywood make such imbecilic nonsense? More importantly, why does Robert Redford, with all his Sundance posturing, contribute to this glut of crap?
I won't waste time telling you what Spy Game is about. Suffice it to say: CIA, mentor-student, covert ops gone bad, mind-games, ticking clock, dramatic last-minute rescue, with a bit of a love story and sentimentality thrown in. In other words, cliched bullshit.
What makes sitting through this 2 hour movie a trial is director Tony Scott, a card-carrying member of the "let me jiggle the camera around in random ways, shoot from bizarre angles for no rhyme or reason, and crank up the music on the soundtrack to obscure the dialogue" school of movie making. Scott's previous movies have never been marvels of story-telling, but they certainly never had this level of nausea-inducing hyperactivity---has this guy tripped on acid.
Don't even bother to make a budget theater visit. That only enourages them to make more of this stuff.
Title: Black Knight
Review written: 15 November 2001
In the immortal words of the inimitable Mr.Cranky, No Fucking Way!!!.
Title: Focus
Review written: 14 November 2001
Focus has an interesting premise in these times of prejudice and hatred against anyone who merely looks dark-skinned and "Middle Eastern". It is the story of a man who is mistaken for being Jewish in WWII New York, and has to fight against the very hatred he himself has unconsciously been part of before the mistaken identity.
However, the movie (based on a play by Arthur Miller) is miserably executed. William H. Macy is underused and Laura Dern is a waste of screen time in this poorly directed film. The script is reduced to a repetition of cliched lines, and shots of the actors doing nothing but just staring off into the screen.
I suggest just reading the play.
Title: Zoolander
Review written: 10 November 2001
Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!!
Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!!
Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!!
Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!!
I have just 3 words to describe this movie: Hill, A, Rious.
What better target for a brutal, ruthless, non-stop satire than male fashion models---combining as they do an Adonisian physique with warm-custard-for-brains. Zoolander does just that.
There is a story with a premise so ridiculous that one actually suspects if there might not be some truth to it, i.e. fashion houses want the premier of Malaysia assassinated because he threatens to raise the minimum wage of children working in sweatshops in his country, the very place where most fashion clothes are made.
The crowning glory of this satire comes when Zoolander (Ben Stiller) and Hansel (Owen Wilson) are crouched on all fours in front of a computer, with no clue as to how to even turn it on, making screeching and growling noises, and the music of Also Sprach Zarathustra wells up on the soundtrack.
This movie also probably has the highest celebrity-walkon count of any film, and most of those featured allow themselves to be the butt of jokes---this either demonstrates their good nature (naaaah), or that they are too dumb to realize the joke in on them (tempting, but still naaaaah), or that human beings will do anything for a moment in the spotlight (which is probably the truth as proven by the One True Prophet Jerry Springer).
Do not miss this one.
Title: Amelie
Review written: 9 November 2001
There are movies like Audition and then there is Amelie, a celebration of life, joy, happiness, love, and romance.
Amelie is one of the sweetest, most romantic, warm-fuzzy, and funny movies I have seen.
The title character Amelie (played by Audrey Tautou) is a young woman who leads a somewhat solitary life until one day (the very day of Lady Di's Darwinian culling) she finds a box hidden behind the wall of her apartment. The box contains the little trinkets of a young boy who had lived in that apartment many decades ago.
Amelie goes on a quest to search for and return the box to the now grown boy. As she does this, and sees the happiness she brings to him, she resolves to help everyone else around her.
With her pixie-like charm, Amelie brings joy to those around her (and still finds enough time to play naughty tricks on rude and bad people). Finally, she finds a young man whom she falls in love with, and they live happily ever after.
While the story sounds straightforward (and perhaps trite), the movie features some dazzling camerawork and direction by Jean-Pierre Jeunet (who has been involved with two previous French masterpieces Delicatessen and City of Lost Children as writer/director), a superb soundtrack, gorgeous acting by Audrey Tautou, and non-stop humor.
And this being a French film, it is full of those surreal and dadaist twists of logic that make the Gauls such a hoot.
A not to be missed film. See it with an SO (or go just by your IS), but do see it.
Title: Shallow Hal
Review written: 7 November 2001
A while back, I said that the Farrelly Brothers seem be maturing with Osmosis Jones. And boy, oh boy, have they blossomed into a pair of fine filmmakers.
We all know that beauty is in the eye of the beholder while booty is in the butt of the babe. This is the premise of Shallow Hal.
Hal is played by Jack Black, a guy obsessed with women's looks in his quest for dates. Obviously, this gets him nowhere since he ain't no Mel Gibson. On a chance encounter with Ben Affleck, no wait, Tony Robbins, in an elevator, Hal is put into an NLP trance by Mr.Jawbone himself---to see women as they truly are inside their souls and not as they seem to be.
Soon, Hal starts seeing some pretty ugly women as drop-dead gorgeous, luscious babes, and otherwise pretty women as quite ugly (which, happens to be quite close to truth, but that is a matter for an entire essay in evolutionary psychology). He falls for what he thinks is a svelte Gwyneth Paltrow, but is in reality a digitally enhanced Gwyneth "Klump Me", who terrorizes restaurants by eating all their food and breaking their furniture by just sitting on them.
Naturally, the spell is broken, Hal is in shock, but he soon gets to really see the inner beauty in his girlfriend, and they all live happily ever after.
Who woulda thunk that the F-Brothers would make such a feel-good, touchy-feely, sentimental, sweet movie. But then, this is not all that surprising for anyone who is more than a shallow moviegoer themself.
All of the Brothers' films have featured losers who finally find love and happiness. In Kingpin a drunken cripple and moralless whore find love among the Amish. In Dumb and Dumber two unspeakable morons find a busload of bikini babes. In There's Something about Mary a nutsack mangling chump lands Cameron Diaz (no less). In Me, Myself and Irene a multiple-personality, spineless doormat lands the Bridget herself. See the pattern? Certainly gives me hope!!
There are any number of ways a love the good inside people, not their outsides theme could have been made into a smarmy, pretentious, preachy, holier-than-thou movie. But the Farrelly Brothers combine their Tourettically tasteless vulgarity with some superb filmmaking to produce an excellent movie.
The closing credits provide a fine touch---featuring photo-shots of the entire crew (an extremely rarely used technique, one I last recall seeing in Lethal Weapon 4 (catch the MelG reference?), and something that should be used more often).
Well done Brothers!! Way to go.
PS: Some women are exempt from this appearance reversal. Celebrity gossip rumors to the contrary, a famous Welsh beauty is one of them (Krishna's First Medley Rule of Movie Reviews: "It ain't complete if it ain't got a CZJ reference").
PPS: Some women are just as ugly either way. The rantings of a thumb-sucking critic not withstanding, the depressed devil is one of them (Krishna's Second Medley Rule of Movie Reviews: "It ain't complete if it ain't got a Devilina diss" :-).
PPPS: Such is the power of movies that I briefly considered forgiving the Gwyneth. On second thought, naaaaaah!!
Title: Sexy Beast
Review written: 4 November 2001
What the 4-letter-wording 4-letter-word is this!!
Sexy Beast is a gangster, bank-robbery movie where the supposed robbery takes up 5 minutes of screen time. The rest of the movie is about disgustingly corpulent, former-gangsters shouting at each other in near-incomprehensible lower-class English accents where the only intelligible words are cunt and fuck, with a few pussy, ponce, and (the now extremely tame) bastard thrown in for good measure.
The eponymous beast of the title is a pseudo-abstract, pretentious reference to a devil figure that appears in nightmares threatening to shoot one of the gangsters. Yeah right!! If dreams were a valid source of names, then most movies would be called Catherine Zeta-Jones.
Title: Audition
Review written: 1 November 2001
A middle-aged widower TV producer, Aoyama, seeks a wife. So he and his friend send out an audition call for a movie they claim to be making, in the hope of meeting a suitable date. And in walks Asami, who seems to be the perfect answer to Aoyama's quest.
Naturally enough, Asami turns out to be a completely crazy, psycho-bitch stalker whose modus operandi is to pretend to be a sweet, innocent, young thang until she beds her victim, and then torture, mutilate and kill him.
It is not clear if the movie seeks to create some sympathy for Asami by portraying that she herself was abused physically, psychologically and sexually as a young girl, but if so, the film actually loses some of its chilling impact.
I have rarely had as much fun in a movie theater as I did watching Asami use a wire-saw to slice off Aoyama's foot as he lay writhing on the floor with needles stuck through his eyeballs.
Gory and gorgeous. Don't go even near this movie if the thought of blood makes you queasy. But realize you will miss seeing a superb display of humanity in all its depravity. A wonderful film.
Title: The One
Review written: 30 October 2001
Can anyone say Matrix Ripoff. Apparently, Jet "Dipweed" Li can. On the one hand we have the greatest movie ever made, telling us about Neo, who is the One, and on the other we have an utterly moronic piece of buffoonery and waste of expensive film, telling us about Jet Li's continuing attempt to prove that he is nonpareil when it comes to bad acting.
In The One, Jet Li lives in a multiverse with 125 (too many) copies of himself. Each time a copy dies, the other copies divvy up his life-energy (you can already see the bullshit rising), until the last copy becomes god. Aarrgghh!!
So, bad Li goes on a killing rampage until there are only two Lis remaining---the goodly, and the badly, while the film gets ugly and each wants the other to be deadly (haha).
The (so-called) special effects in this film are worse than what you find in kick-boxer arcade games. There is no acting to speak of. The story is muddled beyond remedy.
What Christopher Lambert did for the phrase There can be only one, Li does for I will be the One.
Just say no this to mind-destroying crapfest.
And oh, not content with dumping a single load of feces, the film leaves itself open to sequels. I guess all this multiverse needs is The One: Two.
The other great Hongkong, kung-fu action star Jackie Chan is a comedian by choice; Li is fast attaining farce status through sheer incompetence. What a senseless waste of martial arts talent.
Title: Memento
Review written: 29 October 2001
Warning: This review contains spoilers. So if you have not seen the movie and are concerned about such infantilia as suspense, stop reading now.
The language of cinema offers the filmaker the tools to explore storytelling along two (more or less) orthogonal dimensions: style and substance. Movies, genres, and directors differ from each other in how much emphasis they place on these two dimensions.
Memento is a movie that elevates style far above substance, but only to make the substance far more weighty than it might otherwise have been without the style. This is a wonderful thing (I am probably among the minority of moviegoers who prefer slick style to smarmy substance---style movies are technically masterful, substancy movies tend to be pretentious crapola).
Here is the entire story of Memento told in chronological, causal sequence:
Lenny is an ordinary, insurance-claims investigator who lives a happy, contented life with his (diabetic) wife. All of a sudden, disaster strikes when a couple of thugs break into his home, rape his wife, and beat Lenny up so badly that he develops a form of amnesia that prevents him from ever consolidating his short-term memories into the long-term (as soon as he defocuses his attention from a situation, it just fades from memory and he has to start all over again). In his addled state, Lenny overdoses his wife on insulin (or perhaps she encourages him to keep injecting her just to escape from the torment her life has become).
Lenny now begins to go mad. His loss of memory combined with the rage that his wife is dead, and that he himself may be the cause of it, makes him construct an elaborate fantasy about how his wife was not just raped, but also murdered at the incident, and that her killer is still active. He reconstrues his life's purpose as exacting vengeance on this mythical killer. He also begins to leave himself notes, photographs, and tattoos (on his own body) to keep track of what his memory no longer allows him to, in his search for this killer: a John G.
Lenny's monomaniacal obsession with revenge makes him an ideal foil for anyone who wishes to have an enemy of theirs killed. So, people around him begin manipulating Lenny's notes to their own ends, constantly throwing him on the trail of some poor schmuck. Chief among these manipulators is Teddy, an undercover cop who had initially helped Lenny with the investigation of his wife's rape, but is now using him to get at criminals who might be out of the reach of normal legal channels.
Unfortunately, after one too many killings, Teddy realizes that Lenny has become a danger to himself, and tells him about the elaborate charade that everyone has been playing. This expose destroys what little hope Lenny has, and he manipulates his own notes to kill Teddy, as the next supposed killer in his vengeance tale.
And so he does.
Now imagine this story in 100 chapters. Throw away most of the chapters 1-50, leaving just a few scattered ones for later use. Film chapters 51-75 in black-and-white, and 76-100 in color. Interleave chapters 100-76 and 51-75, in that sequence, sprinkle with the bits and pieces of chapters 1-50, and you have the recipe for Memento.
The movie has been receiving rave reviews for a couple of reasons: (1) people think that the plot is complex and requires multiple viewings to "get" (bogus!! the movie is quite straightforward to understand), and (2) that the story is told in non-chronological order.
Now, it must be obvious to most people that movies are never filmed in chronological sequence, and, in fact, the director and editor go through a great deal of effort in resequencing the film for the viewers.
Likewise, many other movies have very effectively used non-chronological sequencing as a style device (most notably Pulp Fiction in recent times).
What I think makes Memento a really great film, and Christopher Nolan a great director, is that it makes specific use of a stylistic device, namely sequencing, to the service of substance, namely giving the audience a feel for what it is like to not be able to form long-term memories. It places the audience in the shoes of protagonist Lenny (at least for the 1st half of the movie), thereby creating a mystery story for us to solve. It turns a rather pedestrian story of revenge-for-love into a mental challenge that takes cinema closer to an art form.
This movie should be watched for both its raw entertainment, and also for its cinematic style, for introducing a new language construct for expressing as strange a mental state as memory disorder.
The only lingering problem Memento leaves for students of cinema is that the style device is one-shot; no one can, for quite some time from now, use the same non-chronological sequencing to explore memory disorientation without raising the outcry of ripoff. That is sad, but then, anyone who is able to reuse the device and do it in a way that goes beyond what we the audience can imagine (given our experience with Memento), is truly pushing the envelope of great movie-making---and that can only be good.
Title: Donnie Darko
Review written: 26 October 2001
What if you could go back in time and change the past to remove all unpleasant memories from the minds of those you love? And what if doing this means your own non-existence?
Donnie Darko ponders these questions, working from a premise antithetical to that of the syrup-ridden Christmas crap It's a Wonderful Life.
Jake "Bubble Boy" Gyllenhaal is Donnie, a very troubled teenager with a history of attitude-adjustment problems and prone to paranoid schizophrenic delusions. Donnie begins to have visitations from a time-travelling monster bunny rabbit named Frank who tells him that the world is going to end, just as a huge aircraft engine falls through his room narrowly missing killing Donnie.
Donnie and his new girlfriend, the fabulous Jena Malone, try to adjust to life such as it is under these circumstances.
As the imminent destruction of the world approaches, Donnie realizes that he can prevent the deaths of his girlfriend, mother and sister, if only he had been in his bed on that fateful night when the airplane engine crashed through.
And so he is.
This movie seems to have been shot with a minimum number of film cuts, extremes of speed changes, and comes off as a quirky, well-acted, thoughtful story. A very enjoyable film.
Title: American Pie 2
Review written: 25 October 2001
Teen protagonist Portnoy, in his eponymous complaint, showed us creative places to jack off (baseball mitts in seedy burlesques). His present-day counterpart, (Adam Sandler lookalike) Jason Biggs took it one step further exhibiting intimate congress with baked goods in American Pie.
Now comes American Pie 2, a no-frills, no-pretentions, straight-forward sequel that is just as funny, vulgar, tasteless, disgusting, and enjoyable as the first. Whether the filmakers intend it or not, humor is the best possible means of defusing the sexual neuroses of horny teenage boys.
In AP 2, Biggs finds himself in rather sticky, very very sticky, predicaments as he desperately attempts to get laid. There are plenty of babes showing off their boobs and butts (yay!! I say), there are sexual jokes galore, and minimal sentimentality (which, in my opinion, should have been replaced with more babes showing off their boobs and butts).
Obviously, these kinds of movies are targeted at a very specific demographic and not everyone is going to enjoy them. But if you like the Farrelly Brothers, and the first serving of the pie, you will certainly laugh off your chair for this one.
Title: The Last Castle
Review written: 19 October 2001
The Last Castle is 1 hour and 45 minutes of pseudo-patriotic, chest-thumping, honor-and-courage, officer-and-gentleman, soldier-to-the-end, buddy-buddy, cliched bullshit surrounding 15 minutes of one of the best prison riot scenes in cinema.
The eponymous Castle is a prison for former soldiers who have been court-martialed and stripped of their rank. The place is ruled by the ruthless James "Baritone" Gandolfini. All's well in hell until Robert Redford arrives as a destarred general, and begins to organize revolt among the prisoners because they are soldiers and nothing can take that away from them. Yech!!
Redford and Gandolfini give excellent performances; the rest of the cast is interchangeable and forgettable.
The timing of the release of a movie with such "fly the flag" themes not withstanding, the prison riot scene manages to make up (but just barely) for the rest of this annoying, stupid movie.
Title: Mulholland Drive
Review written: 16 October 2001
Warning: Artsy-fartsy review ahead!!
There is a school of philosophy (most notably the American version of pragmatism, but tracing its roots back to the inductive skepticism of David Hume) that holds that data grossly under-determine theories that can explain those very data. To wit, there are potentially unlimited number of theories, stories (if you will), that lead to the same observed facts; conversely, no plethora of facts can pin down the one true theory.
David Lynch's Mulholland Drive is a superb exposition of this contention.
Mulholland Drive is easiest to interpret as two different stories.
The first story is a mystery: a woman experiences severe amnesia in a car crash just before she is to be killed and finds shelter in a house whose owner is away on a trip. The owner's niece arrives to audition for TV/movie roles, befriends the amnesiac, and the two set out to solve the mystery of her real identity. And then, midway, we have [...].
The second story is a trite love affair: two aspiring actresses and lovers fall out with each other as one attains stardom and the favor of a big-name director, while the other stews in jealousy and plots her revenge---hiring a hit man to murder her treacherous former lover. And this is how the movie ends.
I think it is both wrong and missing the point to weave together a single coherent story through the two threads. Lynch has succeeded in his mission (and given his talents as a teller of bizarre stories, one must grant him that he made precisely the movie he wanted to make, rather than have the movie be the result of incompetence) of making a movie where each little scene seems to make perfect sense on its own, and seems to mesh perfectly with its surrounding context, but when one steps back to look for the big picture, there is no forest---just trees and trees and trees.
It is up to us, the audience, to make of the movie what we will.
As I came out of the theater, I was able to make the story coherent, but it involved the use of the supernatural . But that would be cheating---by invoking the supernatural, one can make anything work---voila, hey presto, and we're off. Likewise, I can make the story work assuming that one of the threads is a dream---but that is just as much cheating as suspending the laws of nature in favor of cinematic hyperbole. I think that my supernatural story is pretty good (and non-trivial), but again, that is not the point.
Fans of movies will continue to be puzzled by this film, while students of cinema (see the artsy-fartsy distinction between the two) should absorb not just Lynch's craft (long steady-cam shots, unexpected angles, chilling music, uncompromising pacing) but also his story-telling prowess---if you were tasked with writing a story that worked only in its hyper-reductionist parts, but failed to materialize a workable whole, could you do a better job that Mulholland Drive? Regardless of your answer, you would have, in pondering this question, taken the correct approach to evaluating this remarkable movie.
Title: Iron Monkey
Review written: 12 October 2001
To fully appreciate Iron Monkey one must have already seen its cinematic prequel Once Upon a Time in China. The former indulges in homagic mimesis of the latter all through: the umbrella tricks, brushing off dust from the coat, toe circling the sand, and on and on.
Once Upon a Time in China is the story of Wong Fei-hong as a young man fighting the British. Iron Monkey is the story of his father from the time when Fei-hong was still a boy. Father, Kei-ying teams up with Iron Monkey, a mild-mannered doctor by day and a kung-fu fighting Robin Hood by night, to defeat an evil Shaolin monk.
This is what a real kung-fu movie should be like: minimum senti-crap, and balletic kung-fu for everything from gathering up papers scattered by the wind to cooking noodles and stir-fry to ripping off someone's guts with the Buddha's Poison Palm.
This cinematic masterpiece of martial arts has inspired auteurs all over the world, eventually being quoted in movies as remote from China as Charlie's Angels. Director Yuen Woo-ping is also the fight choreographer for The Matrix series.
Do not miss this ultimate kung-fu movie.
Title: Bandits
Review written: 11 October 2001
Bandits is a funny, good film that should have been great. It is unsatisfying for me as a moviegoer and amateur critic to see such potential go to waste.
Bruce Willis and Billy Bob Thornton are a couple of jailbirds who break out, and then begin robbing banks to fund their eventual retirement in Mexico. Their modus operandi involves scoping out a bank, sleeping over at the house of the manager the night before the robbery (hence their moniker Sleepover Bandits), and looting the bank vaults first thing next morning.
They meet up with a mad and bored housewife, played by Cate Blanchett, and have a triangular love affair, before finally staging their own deaths (taking off on Dog Day Afternoon) and escaping to Mexico.
The potential that was wasted comes about from the movie's ambivalence about whether it is a comedy or not, whether the criminals are bungling idiots or just simply quirky, whether the love triangle is passionate or just silly. The plot flip-flops back and forth between all of these antipoles, and clocks in at 45 minutes too long.
A tightly-paced, consistent plotline would have made this into a truly great movie. Very enjoyable, nevertheless.
Title: Legally Blonde
Review written: 10 October 2001
Reese "Candy Bar" Witherspoon plays a dumb blonde who nevertheless succeeds, by saying and doing silly things which just serendipitously happen to work out well, in the world of intellectual nerds and thus redeems herself and her ilk. Anyway that is the premise of Legally Blonde, and it is a very funny movie to watch in so far as it goes for programmed laughs.
However, I am unable to decide if this movie was made by:
Reese "Candy Bar" Witherspoon once again gets typecast in the same role she has played in every one of her previous movies.
And what is it with this Jennifer Coolidge woman. Everytime I see her in a movie, I get nightmares. She has got to be one of the most disgusting screen presences ever, and given the existence of the Gwyneth, that is saying a lot.
This film is good for a budget theater visit, no more.
Title: Don't Say a Word
Review written: 27 September 2001
Here is Krishna'a First Rule of Gangster Movies: Don't make a movie where the money at stake is less than what you pay the lead actors. Don't Say a Word features desperados using very high-tech equipment, committing murder and kidnapping, and taking huge risks all for a measly $10 million.
That said, Michael Douglas delivers an excellent performance as a psychiatrist who has a few hours to extract a secret number from the mind of a disturbed girl, because the number is the key to the hiding place of a jewel the gangsters are after.
A reasonably enjoyable movie, with minimal melodrama, and well-paced action.
Title: The Score
Review written: 25 September 2001
The jewel heist genre of cinema has been exhaustively mined for all its plot-ramifications. So, the thrill in watching such a movie is not in the outcome (which can be only one of a small number of possibilities), but in the cinematic technique used to build the suspense and release the tension.
The Score is a smart movie because it avoids most of the expected cliches, and focuses primarily on technique and style. Robert de Niro and Edward Norton give excellent performances as the two main gangsters.
Still, the movie is a bit too long at over 2hrs. One other thing, and maybe here I have been spoiled by the recent dot.com baby-billionaire boom era---but it seems ridiculous for people to plan elaborate crimes for, what, 4 million greenbacks??!! Hello, screenwriters!! Keep up with inflation, will you.
Title: Osmosis Jones
Review written: 24 September 2001
Remember those books you read as a kid, all trying to explain the physiology of the human body using the metaphor of a large city, with a government (brain), services (digestive and excretory systems), and law enforcement (antibodies).
Osmosis Jones is the Farrelly brothers take on this theme (and a surprisingly tame movie by their own past standards; probably a sign that they are maturing)---a combination of live-action and animation.
The live-action features Bill Murray, a disgusting slob who lives to eat, and eat junk food at that. He swallows chimp-anthrax, and his body's defenses now have to figure out how to save his life.
The animation features Chris Rock, Laurence Fishburne, William Shatner, David Hyde Pierce, among others, giving voices to antibodies and cold pills trying to win the battle against the invading pathogen.
Murray deserves a Oscar for his slob-performance; it was that funny. A very very enjoyable movie.
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