Reviews

This is a strange and engaging movie that one must see with others in order to have someone to discuss with afterwards, similar to another great film from this year, "Election." The acting is top-notch, and expect one or more to be nominated for a Golden Globe and/or Academy Award, and possibly an accolade for the movie itself as well. It's deservedly rated R for some language and sexual situations, but doesn't go overboard with either. 'American Beauty' makes no attempt to preach a moral nor would one work because we are seeing the most extreme of every personal and family stereotype, and very humorously in many cases, heavy-handed in others. An additional plus is the music, which uses deep bass in conjunction with subtle piano strokes to create a black comedy atmosphere for the ages.

"Fantastically creepy! One of year's best!" is how it would read were I quoted in one of The Sixth Sense's ads.

From the surreal opening credits, fading in the smoky white letters over a black background, the aura of this film is a little spooky and subtly intense.

According to our young protagonist, Cole Sear (Osment), when you get the shivers and feel the prickly things on the back of your neck, it is "them", the ghosts. But it is The Sixth Sense that gives you the chills at your local theater.

Unlike The Blair Witch Project, which I enjoyed for the psychological aspects, The Sixth Sens genuinely had me spooked. After seeing it yesterday afternoon, last night when I woke up a few times and felt a bit of a chill, refused to open my eyes.

By the way, the acting is top-notch and Haley Joel Osment blows the other 10-year-old of the summer, Jake Lloyd, out of the water. Anakin has nothing on our little talker with the dead.

I laughed so hard I spit out half the bucket-o-pop I was drinking, and finally had to stop sipping from its fine nectar, because so many times I was hooting and bending over in joy.

There are some slower moments to let you catch your breath and allow for moments of sincerity, but only for a minute. The scenes in the previews (the ones you think will ruin the movie for you) are expounded on ten-fold, so there are plenty of surprises.

During the movie I kept saying, "This is me and my friends when we were in high school!" They were almost the same conversations about life, sex and girls; just not as frequently, but it's only a two-hour film. Any guy will appreciate American Pie full tilt, and girls will realize just what hoops guys jump through in order to get their attention, let alone in their pants.

What added to American Pie is that I liked every character, because the filmmakers didn't feel the urge to give us prototypical teen characters. Their personalities are distinctive, and their situations are all different, which leads to a hilarious finale where we see just how their pact plays out on prom night.

As I mentioned before, there are genuine moments on the screen where the guys and gals have revelations of sincerity. It adds a needed depth to a film like this, where it's not just raw, raunchy comedy, but important to the lives of the characters who know more than sex is at stake. Which is another reason to like Pie, there are several slices, and sexual conquest is only one of them.

It's difficult to put into words the almost seething hatred I have of this film. But I'll try:

Every other word was an expletive, the sex scenes were uncomfortable, drugs were rampant and stereotyping was beyond the norm, if not offensive to Italian-Americans.

I'm not saying the acting was terrible, because Leguizamo, Sorvino, Brody, Espisito et. al, performed well. But...almost every character in the film I despised. Not since The Bonfire of the Vanities have I disliked every character on screen.

I'm directing the so-called "Director" of WWW, Barry Sonnenfeld, to see a John Ford Western. Maybe then he could learn how to showcase its' beauty and wonder without making it a convenient backdrop to an 80-foot spider, where the entire screen looked computer-generated--therefore, fake.

Never have I been so offended at a movie for leading me to believe it was a Western, meaning the action was nowhere near exciting and the music does not lead to a sense of urgency. In fact, the music is dull. I can tell that Elmer Bernstein had fallen asleep when writing the music and just went with the scribblings he did while dreaming. Probably dreaming of a chick-flick where music isn't as important as an $180 million summer blockbuster.

I'd be much obliged if someone could tell me what Salma Hayek is doing in this picture? That's it. She doesn't serve to help the film in any manner other than have guys stare at her body. Highly under used.

The chemistry between Smith and Kline is nonexistent. When they're supposed to be "bonding" by challenging each other every other minute, I wasn't convinced that they were becoming partners. Kenneth Branagh should be crying himself to sleep after accepting the role of Dr. Loveless. Spewing racial epithets at Smith while circling 'round and 'round in his wheelchair were not worthy of his acting credentials.

The humor? Flat. I laughed one time. I don't even remember which part, but I do know it was only once. Maybe a smirk or two once in a while, but only one actual guffaw. Scenes that might have been funny were extended for laughs, and didn't work. I'm yelling "Get on with it! It's not cute anymore!" and the actors aren't listening.

This movie is the perfect example of how you can't buy a hit with money.

The problem with making a movie like this, though, is that the finale, the crème-de-la-creme of the movie, the battle between the two souped-up ships, must be done well. Disappointingly, this scene in Ironclads is obviously done completely with little model ships in an overgrown tub. There's no tension, little explanation of what exactly is going on and what the timeframe is of the stand-off.

The film takes quite a few liberties with the surrounding story, as all true stories do when converted to a movie, such as the Union traitor and most notably that of Betty Stuart (Madsen), a Virginia belle.

It resorts to making a possibly-decent movie involving an interesting story on the ironclads to preaching about the evils of slavery. It was out of place in this historical drama, and was a cheap ploy to bring in the women viewers. It only succeeded in lessening the positives about the film.

The acting is suspect, the action was anything but fluid, the dialog was worse than cliche. The worst part was the blatant use of Wing Commander as a World War II movie, with frequent references to the Destroyers that look like submarines, the pilots planes and outfits that look like Flying Leathernecks, using torpedoes, phrases like "We have a bogie". One fancy flying reference is a direct rip-off of "Top Gun". And the weapons seem awful primitive, such as the planes/space fighters using bullets. If we can jump throughout space using pulsars, surely we can come up with more sophisticated weapons!