Reviews

i saw this movie last night and even after a couple of beers the only giggle this movie got out of me was when i realized that i was actually watching it. in a word, it is unfunny. UNfunny. i totally believe the trivia tidbit about jack black apologizing for making this garbage. i can't believe that barry levinson didn't just toss this script when he read the first page. moreover, i can't believe that i watched more than ten minutes of it.

i gave it 3 out of 10* because i love to see christopher walken make terrible movies for the paycheck. also, the horse "corky," by merely existing as a character in this movie, is actually quite ridiculous.

NATIONAL TREASURE is anything but, believe me. i came into this movie with poor expectations but a heart full of hope. i'd been in the mood to watch a good explorers/adventurers flick and finding the recent movie well a bit dry i caved in to the first one that came around. i should tell any one who considers to watch this movie that nicholas cage (who i believe to be the most useless and overrated actor of our day) fails to inspire, yet again, marvelously. apparently he was paid to be be a model for hair plugs and bad highlights because i didn't see much acting in this movie at all. some of the worst "acting" scenes are shared with fellow Oscar winner jon voight. someone should notify the academy and have their awards taken from them.

this movie hosts such an abundant array of misguided and utterly terrible choices that it is difficult to place the blame of failure on any one aspect. is it the terrible script and story? the sub-par acting? the shoddy and cliché directing? the poor choreographed and conceived over-long action sequences? maybe it's the combination of it all.

benjamin franklin gates, our movie's protagonist, is probably the most pedantic and boring jeopardy contestant wannabe that the silver screen has ever seen. not to mention that nicholas cage brings absolutely no life or depth to this singularly annoying and insufferable know-it-all. the makers of the movie were trying to sell us on the idea that ben is a morally constant genius with a love of history and adventure. thing is, he's really a humorless sap who is entirely socially inept. this part could have been better managed by a better, younger, and good looking actor, but i doubt it would have made up for the rest of the film.

the "national treasure" of this movie isn't so much a treasure as it is pirate's booty from centuries of yore. it's not to have one amazing treasure with singular mythological and inherent value, it has to be bigger, better. according to the logic of the film, America's forefathers--in all their freemasonry glory--stored invaluable treasures that were plundered by the romans from the egyptians and kept hidden by a secret society of knights in order to keep it out of British hands. but wait, they left a treasure map on the back of the declaration of independence which takes half of the movie to steal. the rest of the movie revolves around ben's cleverness and social ineptitude getting the hottest archivist to fall in love with him and keeping his hip, young computer genius sidekick at bay. there's also something about a generational conflict with his dad. oh, and there are bad guys trying to steal the treasure for their own profit. i mean ben doesn't want the money, he wants to lay claim to helping solve a great mystery of American history. right.

wait for the last minute twist. so last minute and so cliché that you might just hate harvey keitel for the rest of your life for making this movie.

this movie is what's wrong with Hollywood today. that this movie is top box office material is what's wrong with movie audiences today. it panders to the worst part of the American pop consciousness and, despite its attempts to be clever and intelligent, aides in the dumbing down of every one who watches it--including myself. NATIONAL TREASURE succeeds at being the fluffiest, worst, and most embarrassing movie of my generation. i'm sorry to see that so many people liked it. but then again, i'm not surprised.

* out of 4*

i'm not too sure how much i like this movie. i had trouble getting through it both times i've seen it (once more than five years ago, and just the other day). it seems that this movie is easily interruptible, if that makes any sense. the acting is good, so is the action and gore. the story is so so, but better than most cops and robbers/caper movies generally are. oldman is great. he doesn't disappoint. neither does the writing. however, i can't say that it's that good because really, if it were, i wouldn't have been too distracted to sit through it all in one go (i stopped and started this movie at least four times in two days of watching it)...and i wasn't really all that busy. all in all, it's worth a go. it is especially good in places that other movies lack. i say this is one for tarantino fans or oldman fans.

7/10*

in truth, i didn't expect much from "troy" but i thought that at least it would be a good swords-and-sandals action flick and for that i would pay seven bucks. what i didn't anticipate is brad pitt (who i usually like quite a bit) taking a page out of the keanu reeves acting handbook in order to portray achilles. pitt is just a tip of the usually-good-but-somehow-terrible-acting iceberg that we call "troy." brian cox, one of my fave thespians, is even sickeningly over and under-acting his way to a razzie. the even spread of bad acting in this movie i can only blame on the direction--another watershed of garbage in this movie. petersen has decided that "troy" is going to essentially be a montage of over-long, overly-dramatic close up shots of his actors trying to muster up an expression. even the pretty faces of pitt, saffron burrows, eric bana, bloom, and "helen" (to name the prettiest) look ridiculous with these pointless shots and it really lends to the bad acting. i kind of want to tell wolfgang petersen, "it's OK if you couldn't find actors who can act but if you linger on their expressionless faces, the secret will be out." it's as if it is a director's choice to prove that his actors have forgotten what they learned in acting class (which is a shame, this is usually a good lot).

i knew this movie wouldn't be a faithful retelling of the Trojan war, either from the "illiad" or as petersen claims, from other sources. still, i expected a little more. it seems like the entire three hours movie was built around the scene of achilles and hector's fight which, mind you, is the best ten minutes of the entire movie. even the score, which is horrifyingly bad and unfitting during the rest of "troy," matched the action. truly, the scene had the best choreography of the fight sequences in the movie.

there is no question that this movie boasts some of the worst writing i've seen in a movie since, well, "van helsing" which really will compete for the worst writing i've ever heard in a movie. with a budget of 150 mil which i'm sure they went over, you think they could at least revise the script. forget the close-to-the-text interp. of the "illiad," let's just work with the story they conjured up. the cinematography in this movie is kindergarden. it is pathetically over-indulgent and wasteful really. it pains me to even think that there really was a cinematographer because it seems as though he/she was absent on filming days. it's like the producers said, "let's forget ab out the writers and cinematographer, instead let's give pitt a bigger paycheck." (undeserved in my opinion)

so many things are wrong with this movie that it would be impossible to write about this anymore. the audience snickered throughout the entire thing and yet they mostly walked out talking about how amazing the movie was. they are wrong and Hollywood is wrong for making audiences think that this is what good film-making is. no, good film-making is just that. this is a poor excuse for a blockbuster. forget "braveheart," "gladiator," "ben hur," and "the matrix," this movie falls flatter than debra messing. really, don't waste your money and if you do--try to stare at brad pitt as much as you can because that's the best that "troy" has to offer. and don't pay attention to the music either, it's a bore. 3/10*

all in all, this is a worthwhile watch especially for those of us who like time travel and psychology. it was a lot better than i, and others that i've talked to, expected it would be. kutcher isn't too bad as the lead but the real treats are the group of cast members who act as the characters as children and adolescents. the theories are a bit stretched but i don't think that's the movie's fault...it's hard material to work with considering the logistics of time travel and changing the past. but it is really interesting and definetly worth a look. i think the naysayers (especially us geeks out there) will be at least mildly pleased. the way to look at it is as a good topic of conversation.

not nearly (and i mean NEARLY) as good as "donnie darko" but at least thematically on the same wavelength. 6 1/2/10*

this movie's trailer makes it seem like this is the perfect haunted house flick: are the former owners terrorizing the new ones, does the house have a poltergeist that killed the first family, is there some fantastical connection between the old family and the new family??? but that's all to cover up the fact that this is the a totally un-terrifying, un-horrifying, un-thrilling "thriller" movie.

mike figgis, this gem's director, is full of un-eventful film ideas, check out the sorely overrated Leaving Las Vegas, or the flat arty attempt in Loss of Sexual Innocence. he has no idea how to make a coherent film, or even a remotely interesting one. his "innovative" camera work, which has been mentioned in some of these other comments, is really just conventional "unconventional" camera work. every hand-held sequence or from the camcorder screen sequence looks just as blase as it does in every other movie you see it in. similarly, his "innovative" camera placement comes off as awkward and pointless.

the acting is average. good selection on aging stone and quaid though because, honestly, they look great on screen as real people with flawed features and face lines. i really do think that's my favorite thing about the whole CCM experience.

am i the only one who thinks that they shot all of stephen dorff's scenes after he did 200 sit ups and was greased down for an hour a time? because i don't think figgis is beyond it. the whole father in the hospital with the cherries thing is another low point in the movie. whoever thinks that it was well done and either intentionally funny or remarkably disturbing should join him in the convalescent home.

this movie is garbage. at least the house is nice. 4/10*

Unlike most of these ultra-violent summer blockbuster films, the new tomb raider movie is almost exactly 2 hours. This is the best thing about this movie, you don't have to sit through 3 hours of it. I went to the publicity screening and found it to be almost painful to sit through. And I'm not one of those people that hate action movies, I can fully enjoy pointless violence for it's entertainment value but this film wasn't entertaining. More over it was completely unbelievable. Not much in this movie isn't air brushed or completely computer animated. Jolie's skin looks like she's made of paper, it has no texture. There is no chemistry between any of the characters. The one shot that i enjoyed was when she was riding the horse, that seemed real and it must have required a lot of skill. A two min. riding sequence dosen't make up for the other 118 minutes of bull.

i am sickly obsessed with the "i love the 80s" show. its on all the time and i cant escape it. i dont even mind. i look foward to watching it. ive seen them all so many times and yet i cant be torn away. top notch stuff really. michael ian black is hilarious. he has a wealth of useless trivial knowledge that is best put to use in this arena. watch out for the mullet-love, he-man, top gun, dungeons & dragons (with a hint of journey), juliette lewis' middle school 'do, the depeche mode/morrisey psuedo-goth rant...amazing. really. the most amazing thing about it has to be its addictive quality. EVERYONE HAS TO SEE THIS JUST PUT ON VH1 I BET IT'LL BE ON.

on the heels of returning this movie to blockbuster (after watching it twice in as many days) i just HAD to buy it...and i did. "adaptation" has got to be one of the best movies i've seen this year and i've seen a crap-load of movies. the great thing about it is that it works on two levels: one as the movie "adaptation" starring charlie/donald kaufman, second as "the orchid theif" starring susan orlean and john laroche. thing is that while i haven't read the book and am not really interested in commenting on the adaptation's integrity, "the orchid theif" part seemed to work better than the other. see, as much as everyone raved about nic cage's performance, i found that he brought little to the table as far as character development and showing the different facets of the kaufmans. this probably wouldn't have been so disenheartening if it wasn't put against the out-of-this-world performances of both meryl streep and chris cooper.

kaufman's "adaptation" script is self-concious and self-indulgent...and genius. it does everything that scripts aren't supposed to do: point out that they're fiction, that they're just words on paper, and that they don't really exist all the while pretending to be real...genius, fresh. the attitude of the film is another point worth mentioning. maybe it's the script, maybe jonze's direction, but whatever it is, "adaptation" has an intelligent, pop culture-concious look and feel.

it's "new" and it's f'in great. due in no small part to streep and cooper...probably more than any other factor, their acting, chemistry (like making good jazz, cooper said when he accepted the oscar) brings the film to a whole 'nother world of "f'in great"-ness. this was the year for streep no doubt (with a second amazing performance in "the hours") and surely the role of a lifetime for cooper (and he didn't even have teeth!). their work in "the orchid theif" part of "adaptation" will be raved about in a gazillion years when the dvd gets found by the post-apocalyptic space explorers among some movie buff's other faves...even then, it'll be considered new and f'in great.

10/10*

this "film" is in my major suck category. i'm no conservative and i'm a big art-house fare kind of girl. but this is just trailer trash crap and really a failed attempt at making a controversial debut. i had some hope for harmony korine. yea...i guess that's poor judgement on my part. i can't even rate this, it's a half-assed attempt at camp and it's barely a movie.

"mighty wind" is the third mockumentary by christopher guest and eugene levy with their regular comedy troupe, their previous films being "waiting for guffman" and "best in show." id stretch to say it may be the most enjoyable of the three. the acting is excellent, especially levy as the depressed ex-singer/songwriting genius mitch, and the songs are great. so great in fact that as much as i despise folk music, im set to get the soundtrack.

the cast's improv gets better everytime they get together for guest. and the special sort of spinal tap reunion in the folksmen is worth the wait. there's nothing like seeing the trio walking to the stage "spinal tap"-style singing songs about country folk eating at "OE'S" and giving lectures on the spanish civil war. watching them rehearse is also hilarious especially when they argue about their retro/new-tro costumes. another great performance from o'hara and levy who have perfected playing off of each other to the t.

whether singing metal and getting lost on the way to the stage, putting on a god-awful community theater production, grooming prize-winning pooches, or strumming on a mandolin while wearing matching blue and yellow outfits, this team is always a winner. can't wait to see what they'll do next. guest and levy are sure to never let us down, with or without a script.

not that i didn't see this movie twice or anything...not that i don't think it's not worth to see this movie even if only to watch vin disel and paul walker be hot, fast, and dirty boys...not for anything but did anyone already see "point break"? the first time i saw this movie in the theatre that was the only question on my mind. seriously, watch "break" then follow it up with "furious" and see if you make any connections: plot? characters? extreme sports? cameos from questionable music personalities (ja rule, red hot chili peppers)? the list goes on, believe me.

what's the worst part of this though? someone actually wrote a comment on "point break" calling it a rip off of this flick...a whole decade later!!! besides, does anyone else think "break" is the only movie that patrick swayze looks hot in? seriously, bodhi is like a once-in-a-lifetime swayze bullseye hit. that and the whole "ex-presidents" thing in "break" means that at least these stoner surfer guys have something in their noggin besides putting matching lights under the cars their using to run crime with. and lori petty as keanu reeves' love interest, however non-feminine she may appear, is so much better than the pit-bull "tough girl" in a mini-skirt michelle rodriguez who has as much depth as the f-in' kiddie pool.

oh...but to see hot boys getting dirty, being bad, and blowing things up...wins me over in a big way 6/10*

i knew this movie was going to be good but i never guessed just how awesome it would be. i went to see it on the first day with a group of fellow movie-buff friends who had seriously low expectations thinking rob zombie would be the next dee snyder. ten minutes into the movie they were nudge-nudging me talking about the awe-some shots and incredibly intense artistic concept of the film.

technically, it's an ode to the old school horror genre that zombie adores. coming from the man who designed the universal studios haunted houses, this is a film that is seductive if not wholly terrifying in its make-up, costuming, set design, lighting, etc. it truly stretches the concept of horror film-making to another level of creativity and artistic impression. plot wise, there are no open endings or holes that you leave the theatre feeling that need to be filled. its a disturbing story with gory violence and a wack as hell funky-bunch of a family. it'll give you a couple of jump starts and some of the blood and guts may stick with you for a while. the dialogue is classic horror shlock...and its all great.

zombie made a masterpiece horror FILM with "house of 1000 corpses." he is a huge fan and conessieur of the great classics and those influences shine through in a big way with this one. i seriously recommend it. see it now, buy it later on DVD (uncut if possible), write a letter to Lions Gate thanking them for finally releasing it if you can...it proved to be well worth the almost 2yr-wait of its shelf life over in big studio land.

dont expect a happy ending either. its a good one. 10/10

time travel, an imaginary friend from another dimension of reality in a terrifying bunny outfit, coming of age, catholic school, star search-like dance recitals to duran duran, beginning of the school day soundtrack-ed by tears for fears, and a brilliant, intense, sincere performance from jake gyllenhaal...this is an exceptional film. never mind that drew barrymore, with whom i have a love/hate on-screen relationship with, took a huge leap of a chance getting this first-time director on the big screen with his little queer story about a boy named donnie darko. props to drew, it was an excellent move.

i have yet to meet someone who DOESN'T fall in love with this movie when they see it. jake g is charming as donnie and jena malone is brilliant as his new girl in town love interest. in fact, the entire cast is great, even patrick swayze in a most uncharacteristic role. this has got to be the most intelligent, well-made, and unexpected coming of age movie of...a really long time. this is the kind of movie people should try to be making. movies like this are what keeps things fresh and interesting for frustrated intelligent movie-goers.

this movie is as dark as it is refreshing. the kiddie love story mixed with the alienation of being a smart adolescent in a stupid world mixed with space-age philosophy and a killer semi-goth eighties soundtrack make this movie a definite in your DVD collection. coming of age never looked so dark. try also "dangerous lives of altar boys" (produced by jodie foster, with kieran culkin and jena m, again). 10/10*

I've had a copy of this movie lying around for a couple of months and have never really gotten around to it primarily due to my love-hate feelings of Gwyneth Paltrow's movie choices. I was sure this would be another one of those cases where no more than 15 minutes into the movie I'd be way too put-off by her performance to want to finish it. However, I was sorely mistaken. "Possession" turned out to be a pleasantly charming surprise and I would recommend it to anyone who likes small, romantic films that are both witty and filled with lovey-dovey will-they or wont-they stuff. Paltrow and Eckhart are great and though the plot is pretty predictable, it never keeps you from really enjoying this picture. Neil LaBute has made a small gem. English majors especially will enjoy this pic. Coming from a harsh Gwyneth critic, this recommendation is well earned.

8/10

I saw this movie so long ago that I find it amazing that it remains on the top of the crappiest movies I've ever seen list. No matter how many other bad movies I've run into in the past years, this one will always take an honorable mention. Move over "Cool As Ice," Dee Snyder (yet another pop-market reject) is taking over. Look out for the terrible acting on Snyder's part. It's not very hard to believe that the same guy who wrote this script is the uber-genius behind "We're Not Gonna Take It." The outrageously thin monologues where Mr. Serial Killer "Captain Howdy" (how original) explains to us in true Shakespearean form his passion for pain are really great. Really. Snyder, for the love of god, don't make another movie. And watch out for the outrageous piercings and self-asphixiation scenes and the breakdown on Mr. Police Officer Whose Daughter Has Been Kidnapped. The dog-barking scene is amazing. How our police-officer protagonist has figured out the crime would make Colombo proud. Real genius.