Review: YOU'VE GOT MAIL

YOU’VE GOT A GOOD MOVIE

(reviewed on ppv)
 
 If you’ve seen one romantic comedy, you’ve seen ‘em all. Guy and girl don’t mix. Either she likes him or he likes her but one half isn’t buying it. By the end it’s all happy and they’re together. I’ve seen it a million times. Right now “Notting Hill” is in theaters. Later “Runaway Bride” plays out the same cliché.
    But for my money, Nora Ephron, Tom Hanks, and Meg Ryan really have the formula down pat. The trio teamed for the entertaining “Sleepless in Seattle”, and now they’re all back in the more or less re-make of that film then of the original “Shop Around the Corner”, which is the basis of “You’ve Got Mail”.
    Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan are e-mail pals. They met in a chat room on America Online one night and have been exchanging and eagerly awaiting each others letters daily. They don’t divulge any personal information, just that they both live in New York City. Hanks plays the son of a big corporate big wig who owns Fox Books, a mega book store which has just been put in across the street from Ryan’s small children’s book store which will probably fold.
    These two people meet and hate each other all the while they are oblivious to the fact that on the computer they are kindred spirits.
    The original book and film dealt with two people writing letters to each other. The e-mail update brings a few laughs, but without Hanks and Ryan the movie would fall flat like Meg Ryan’s last disaster which I will never see in my life, “Addicted to Love.”
    Tom Hanks is better here than he was in “Saving Private Ryan”. I can’t picture TOM HANKS as a leader in WWII. I can picture him here. He’s really funny here, his chemistry with Meg Ryan is top-notch. The scenes when both are trying to seemingly outwit each other is especially humorous.
    Of course they fall in love…do I have to even fucking tell you?
    But thank the lord they don’t fall in love too soon because I really didn’t feel like sitting through them dating and boring shit like that.
    “You’ve Got Mail” is simple, sweet, and what Hollywood should be proud of, even though you’ve seen this before…one billion times. **1/2   

Review: DAYS OF HEAVEN

DAYS OF BOREDOM

(reviewed on Turner Classic Movies Sunday, June 20th, 1999)

    Last Christmas Terrence Malick received an extraordinary amount of press for his epic, WWII Guadalcanal film, “The Thin Red Line”. The reason for this was because Malick had made two small artsy type films that critics really liked, “Badlands” and “Days of Heaven”. Then he took 20 years off and finally returned with “The Messy Thin Red Line”.
    Let me tell you something that everyone in the world knows is concretely true. Terrence Malick is not a good director. He’s not even an okay director. He’s a bad director. He makes good looking films. Bad good looking films. “Badlands” was awful. Martin Sheen and Sissy Spacek go off and build a tree house or some shit. “Badlands” wasn’t even good looking, it was silly and stupid at the very same time. I didn’t see it when it first came out. Fine, lay that on me. “You didn’t see it when it first came out. Back then it was different.” Don’t give me that shit. A good movie you can watch anytime, any place, and it’s still good. I watched “Badlands” and thought it was horrible. The film that totally ripped it off, “True Romance”, was much, much, much, much better. “The Messy Thin Red Line” was awesome looking, poetic in it’s direction, yet it made no comprehensible sense. It was because Malick shot ten hours worth of film and forced it down into three hours that make no sense. Malick is good at photographing nature and sunsets. Make him a cinematographer, or better yet, make him a photographer at National Geographic. Just get him out of film. Though more or less he’s never really been in film anyway.
    “Days of Heaven” is trumpeted as Malick’s masterpiece. Why they say this I don’t have a clue. Richard Gere plays some dude in an iron factory with lots of orange sparks. He runs away after some sort of fight. He goes with his girlfriend and a kid that is maybe his daughter or maybe hers or maybe just some kid. I watched the whole damn movie and still don’t know.
    Gere goes to the middle of Texas where he helps with the crop of wheat some rich farmer yields each year. Gere’s g-friend eventually ends up in a lover’s quarrel with the rich dude and soon enough the plot is in high gear.
    What a fucking overstatement! This film is the slowest film I’ve ever seen in my entire life. The plot is only there so we have a reason why these people are walking around in the wheat fields all year. The characters are cardboard, the fucking sunset has more personality. The film won an Oscar for cinematographer. Shit, If I made a movie which focused solely on nature I’d win an Oscar too.
    So basically, “Days of Heaven” looks magnificent. But it’s a goddamned movie! This isn’t a Travel channel special! Malick forgot what a movie is. He’s not re-defining anything except what boring means. This movie moves so slow I graduated college before the credits rolled. ½* (out of ****)

Review: THE GENERAL'S DAUGHTER

SPECIAL DELIVERY OF NOTHING

(reviewed at AMC Marple 10 on Sunday, June 20th, 1999 with jack & steve)

   There’s this good scene in “The General’s Daughter” when…oh, wait a minute. My mistake. There are no good scenes in “The General’s Daughter”.
    It’s summer. When summer is around the bend you obviously heed the warning of the incoming popcorn films. Okay, Lucas, you tricked us into thinking your little sci-fi film was special. We were tricked, some of us are still tricked, but right now, after a god awful “Star Wars” film in every theater this side of the Atlantic, every moviegoer now has their awareness radars on full blast.
    What the hell am I talking about? When summer comes along the illusive Hollywood popcorn films show up. They have big stars and big production values, they come out in thousands of theaters, are promoted to the moon, and always turn in massive profits. The problem? They usually suck.
    Popcorn films are mindless fun, right? They’re supposed to be. “Jaws”, “Jurassic Park”, “T2: Judgment Day”, “True Lies”, The Indiana Jones films, the first Star Wars trilogy. These were all great popcorn films. They had their flaws, but at least they entertained and made you glad you sat through them. “I had a good time.” I can’t even remember saying those five words after viewing a popcorn movie. It’s been that long.
    “The General’s Daughter” may pretend to be an Oscar-worthy, in the same-vein as “A Few Good Men”, but they aren’t fooling anyone. “The General’s Daughter” is a popcorn film, and defines everything bad about a popcorn film. Big name star, glossy quality, forced action, crowd pleasing wisecracks, horrible plot, awful ending, bore-a-thon 2000, etc. etc. etc.
    John Travolta plays John Travolta…I mean, some guy. I don’t remember his name, that’s how memorable the film was. He’s a detective at a military base in the heart of the south. A general’s daughter is murdered and he has to solve the murder with the help of Madeline Stowe who plays Madeline Stowe…I mean, some woman.   
    The film is based on a book by some dude Nelson Demille. He writes mysteries. Even at it’s barest essentials, this mystery sucks. Who killed the general’s daughter? Who cares? There is one suspect; James Woods who plays, okay the joke is over.
    Since there is only one suspect, who else could it be? I won’t spoil it, but I will tell you this, even if you aren’t disappointed in this God awful film, then you most definitely will be when they reveal the killer. You’ll be like, what? Come…on. The last good murder mystery was the slasher flick, “Scream”, and the killer in that was…killer.   
    When I pondered this film in my mind I was thinking of how many good scenes it had. Okay, none. Good song, “Carmina Burana”, but every damn movie uses that, so no points. Any semi-good scenes? No. Any bad scenes? Where do I start?
    The actual back story to this murder mystery is so bad it will make you write threats to the people that put this together. Maybe the novel was good if they had time to explain, but the story up there on the screen made me wish the general never had a daughter, John Travolta never became an actor, Simon West was still living at home with his mom and working at the local McDonald's, and the producers were like, “Um…I think we’ll pass.” If only I had a time machine. Now there’s a story. ½*

Review: I STILL KNOW WHAT YOU DID LAST SUMMER

I STILL KNOW…THIS FRANCHISE SUCKS

 (reviewed on ppv Monday, June 14th, 1999)

    Jennifer Love Hewitt is back, cleavage and all, and so is the hook weilding maniac psycho who only knows one thing: revenge! He’s tortured her soul, killed her friends, and can’t wait to desembowel her and watch her scream! He is the insane fisherman! He is…BEN WILLIS!
    Pretty anti-climatic, right? That’s what I was thinking when in the original “I Know What You Did Last Summer”, they unmask the killer to find out it’s some old man who looks like a hermit. Yeah, Jason, Freddy, and Michael Myers had pretty dumb names too, but at least they wore masks and/or had knives for fingers. Ben Willis is just a dorky old senior citizen who looks about as scary as the local Police Chief in Any Town, USA.
    Other than that, the first film wasn’t half bad. It was entertaining, and with Sarah Michelle Gellar strutting around I at least had some eye candy to keep me busy. Plus, the ending was so cool when the killer jumps through that sauna mirror ready to slice-and-dice and then the credits hit the screen. Whoa…can’t fucking wait for the sequel.
    It’s with some deep regret that I knew the sequel, “I Still Know What You Did Last Summer”, would blow, because the climax of the first film was merely a dream. Come on! Why couldn’t you start the film off in the shower? You could have a massive, violent bloodbath/fight scene with Julie swinging shards of glass trying to stop the madman.
    I guess it made more ‘sense’ to whomever wrote this disaster of a script. Kevin Williamson wrote the first film’s script, and it was basic but it worked. It of course helped that it was based on a decent teen book. This new film was apparently based on some hack screenwriter’s bogus idea to put Hewitt on a deserted island in the middle of a tropical storm with Ben Willis.
    Where’s the next sequel’s setting going to be? On the moon? I can almost read the tag-line now: She was pushed so far…she had to escape to the most outer reaches of man…I STILL KNOW THAT YOU KNOW WHAT I DID THREE SUMMERS AGO!
    Jennifer Love Hewitt is Julie James. Julie James is a college student living with Brandy. They win a radio promotion trip to some tropical island on the Fourth of July weekend. They have four tickets so Brandy gets her boyfriend and his friend to go. Brandy’s boy-toy is “Clockers” own Mekhi Phifer, the only good actor in the film. Maybe it helped that he didn’t grow up an actor or in Hollywood. He acts real, he acts smart, he acts like you and I would in this kind of situation (not that you and I would ever be stuck on an island being chased by a fisherman with a hook, but you get the idea).
    So the foursome go to this island in the middle of nowhere and find out that they are the only tourists on the island. There’s the hotel owner who happens to be a bastard, a stoner pool boy with dreadlocks, a Courtney Love looking bar keep, an old black dude who practices Voodoo, a Spanish maid, and another Hotel worker who ties the boats up at night. If you’re a rookie at slasher films, I’ll spell it out for you. These characters are nothing more than V-I-C-T-I-M-S.
    And so a big, bad, vicious storm brews onto the island and it’s survival of the…er…characters of the first film? I won’t ruin it for you, but I will heed you with these immortal words: the director of this made “Judge Dredd”! *

Review: THE SIEGE

SEARCH & DESTROY…THIS MOVIE

(reviewed on ppv Sunday, June 13th, 1999)

    If you’ve ever wondered what happened to the serious thriller, look no further than the duller than dull, sillier than silly, ridiculously bad “The Siege”.
    You would think by getting Denzel Washington and Bruce Willis together the script would have had to, at the very least, be acceptable. I couldn’t stomach that piece of shit if it was covered in chocolate sauce and topped with a maraschino cherry.
     The film pretends it’s smart because it deals with terrorists in a deadly serious manner. Big deal. The last major terrorist bombing in the U.S. was the Oklahoma City incident which didn’t even turn out to be a terrorist bombing, yet more or less that incident inspired this boring mess.
    Denzel Washington works for the F.B.I. His partner coincidentally happens to be Middle Eastern. Denzel gets a call about a bomb on a bus. If you haven’t seen the previews for this movie then you don’t know that the bus blows up. But seriously, if you’re watching this movie than you’ve heard about it more or less from the previews which gave away that the bus blows up. The previews don’t give away that a Broadway theater blows up, the F.B.I. building blows up, and a car warehouse blows up.
    The mediocre plot involves Denzel running around the city mad, then a big explosion rips apart something, then Denzel runs faster and madder, then a bigger explosion happens, then Denzel runs around even faster and much more mad, and then a really big explosion occurs, and then Denzel sprints around furious.
    Silly. Then the film has the audacity to turn Bruce Willis and the entire United States army into “the villain” instead of the immigrants going around doing the bombings.
    Come on.
    I remember when the film hit theaters it was a hot topic because all these people from the Middle East who now lived in the U.S. were pissed because the film portrayed them as being cliched terrorists. I’m sure the film’s producers were happy to get the extra publicity push. I honestly don’t agree with them hating the film because it portrayed their people as all being terrorists, I think they hated the film because it SUCKED.
    Denzel does his best, but Bruce Willis and Annette Benning walk around like robots in need of re-fueling. The plot gets even sillier towards the end when a stadium is turned into an…internment camp. Edward Zwick, you are a hack. You made “Glory”, good, pat on the back, then you made “Courage Under Fire”, one of the worst, most boring movies I’ve ever had to painfully sit through. Now this disaster.
    And to think, you had a writing credit on this.
    Pray to Allah, Zwick, because you better believe in reincarnation when you put that gun to your head. ½*

Review: AUSTIN POWERS: THE SPY WHO SHAGGED ME

MIKE MYERS SHAGS ‘EM ROTTEN…AGAIN

(reviewed at marple 10 Saturday, June 12th, 1999 with Jack)

    The original “Austin Powers” film was a major hit for one reason: It was funny. The good thing about it, though, was that it was one of the freshest breaths of air Hollywood received in years. It didn’t involve gangsters or bloodbaths or independent charm. It was about a swinging sixties oddity love machine, Austin Powers, and his nemesis Dr. Evil, one of the best villains ever. It was better than the other comedies out there because most of them relayed on relationships and/or same-old syndrome. “Austin Powers” showed up and not only made us laugh until it hurt, but was such an original film that we had to love it. It was great, it was new, it was something we’d never seen before. It was a wild ride.
    So now, what the hell do you do for a followup? 1999’s “Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me” answers that question by more or less re-making the first film. Yes, with new gags and two new baddies, but for the most part, the sequel is the exact same film as the first one…but that isn’t exactly a bad thing. The sequel is hilarious, smart, ridiculous, and the key to a popcorn summer film that “The Phantom Menace” didn’t have: FUN.
    This time around, the plot is reversed as Austin Powers travels back to 1969 where Dr. Evil has stolen his “mojo”. What is a “mojo”? It’s not his cock, if that’s where you were going. It’s his sexual being, his entity, his “swingness”, his “shagadelic” personality. He can’t be Austin without it. He can’t shag like two crazed weasels without it. And he has Heather Fucking Graham staring at him with what the City Paper called a Fuck-Me look with those saucer blue eyes and flowing blonde hair and sexiness and she wants every inch of him…but he can’t divulge. Yeah…I’d want my mojo back too if Rollergirl was waiting for me.
    So Austin, with the help of Felicity Shagwell (Heather Graham) go out to destroy the evil Dr. once again.
    And once again…the most laughs come from the villain and his “circle”. This time around we are introduced to Dr. Evil’s newest recruit, a 1/8th version of himself, Mini-Me, and an obese Scottsman dubbed Fat Bastard.
    Even though this time around it’s more of the same, it’s definitely one of the funniest movies in years, and to give away any of the precious gags the previews have hid so well is to ruin the experience for anyone else. Go to the theater, and shag away, babee. **1/2

Review: HOMEFRIES

OVER  COOKED ‘HOME FRIES’
(reviewed on ppv on Thursday, June 3rd, 1999)

    If you have ever wondered who exactly wins those film festival screenplay contests, look no further than to Drew Barrymore and Luke Wilson’s latest about small time love and…Apache helicopters.
    The writer of this ridiculously insane script is X-Files scribe Vince Gilligan himself. Noted, he wrote some of the best episodes for Mulder and Scully, including ‘Small Potatoes’ and ‘Bad Blood’ (Blood starring Luke Wilson as a small town sheriff). Here though, he’s out of his league. Way out. So Vince? Stick to television.
    I’m not sure if I should even go into the mangled plot. Realistically, the only way this script ever won a contest is either because the other ones reallllly sucked, or they liked the originality in this. Luke Wilson and Jake Busey play army helicopter pilots who are involved with something bad in the opening. Accidentally, the headphones at a local burger joint pick up their transmission, so they have to go to the burger place and see if they know anything. They don’t. But Luke Wilson is forced by his big brother to get a job flipping burgers just in case.
    Drew Barrymore plays a pregnant worker who Luke eventually develops a relationship with. The rest of the film is…well I don’t want to give anything away. I will give this out: don’t watch this movie.
    Vince Gilligan- in ‘The X-Files’ anyway- writes weird but smart, funny, energetic, fun. Here it’s weird but stupid, ridiculous, not really fun, just silly.
    There are no laugh out loud scenes, no tender moments, no surprises that you care about…at all. I’m seriously wondering if Vince had a friend on that screen play contest board, and if so he may also be a big shot producer…because how in the hell did this shit get made? Maybe Drew Barrymore liked the script, and Luke Wilson showed up so he could have a little tete-a-tet with ol’ Drew, but seriously, do you think the execs at whatever studio greenlit this read the treatment and said, “Yes!” * (out of ****)