mjuice Reviews

Corpse Bride (2005)

Just rent The Nightmare Before Chrismas

[3/10 · 5 November 2005]

Tim Burton strikes out with this one.

The plot is unbelievably weak. A young man, son of the nouveau riche, is to marry a nobleman's daughter. He's very shy and though he's never met her, he likes her, and this makes him bumbling and nervous. While practicing his lines for the ceremony, he slips a ring on a corpse's finger and she comes to life and takes him to the world of the dead, where he is seemingly trapped.

The corpse bride herself is a character of so much personality that she totally destroys the plot. She's insane and is keeping the man from his true love... which would make her a good villain. She's also been wronged and is innocent and is attractive, which make her a good love interest. This is where things really get screwed up: the whole idea for a movie this careless with plot is to stick to a formula. Unfortunately, it's the formula these days to deviate from "the formula" so the whole love interest part of the story gets completely screwed up and makes you kind of hate the main character.

The songs are dull, obviously meant to stretch the movie to be an acceptable length.

But most of all, there's nothing very impressive about the visuals in the movie that wasn't vastly better in The Nightmare Before Christmas. The land of the dead, frankly, isn't that appealing. Everything moves way too much, it's jarring. And the only moments that really look good are ones that borrow directly from The Nightmare Before Christmas.

Don't bother. Tim Burton's successes have all had interesting and unusual stories with characters that made sense and that we could relate to, but not The Corpse Bride.

American Psycho II: All American Girl (2002 Video)

Dull and stupid

[2/10 · 16 June 2003]

This movie is absolutely nothing like the first one. Bateman is gone, and instead of a main character living in a complicated, fractured, psychotic world, we have one who is merely ambitious and kills people. She never really seems crazy. Or evil. Or believable, really.

William Shatner does a typical job as the professor she's stalking.

Every character in this movie was trite and done to death. There wasn't a single scene that had any originality or edge. A sad, sad legacy for a very interesting first movie.

2 out of 10.

American Psycho (2000)

Creepy, edgy, funny. Gets better every time you see it.

[9/10 · 16 June 2003]

The first time I watched this movie, I expected to see some stupid slasher flick, with a crazed anonymous killer killing people for no good reason, the goal of the film merely to scare people.

Well, American Psycho is basically the opposite of that. The whole idea here is to open up the killer to you, to show you his mind, why he kills, what his world is like. This is really a much more interesting subject than the fear of random attack victims.

Inside Patrick Bateman's mind (masterfully played by Christian Bale), we are introduced to a mind where nothing has value, where even the idea of value is absent. All that is left is fashion, having a great body, eating at the most popular restaurants, having a good job with the best business cards. Particularly poignant is the way he relates to music. He has heard what music is popular and has clearly read reviews of it but he can do no better than mechanically quote these, since he doesn't know what is valuable about it.

What's more, Bateman can never succeed in any of this, but instead finds an urge to destroy, both out of jealousy, and as some kind of misplaced sexual urge. Part of this is inscrutable, of course, as (for most people) it is impossible to truly relate to someone like this character...

There is a great deal here to be consumed by a voracious viewer. Don't just watch this movie once, watch it repeatedly and you will begin to understand better and better. Even if this isn't your aim, Bateman's unique brand of creepiness is radiant and infective.

And this will scare you way more than any slasher movie... though it may not make you jump quite as much.

What Time Is It There? (2001)

Don't waste your time

[3/10 · 25 April 2003]

Ugh.

This is one of the least good movies I've seen in a long time, and I've seen some really bad ones. This one, however, is bad in a rather different way. This is the "story" of a guy who sells a girl his watch and somehow feels connected to her as she leaves for Paris. He goes around setting clocks to Paris time. He... oh wait, that's pretty much all he does in terms of thinking about her. I thought this was some huge romantic thing? As for her... she barely thinks about him, but I guess maybe she does though all we ever see is her doing random things in Paris with other people. Nearly every scene was too slow. I realize the movie is supposed to be about time, but if you want to make the point that cutting from one scene to another leaves out all the slow time in the middle, fine, but DON'T do it for the whole movie. I nearly wanted to cry after the first 15 minutes (and 2 scenes).

The only halfway decent part of this movie is the performance by Yi-Ching Lu as the boy's mother, who is greiving over her husband's death in many real and interesting ways, which leads to a few very poignant scenes. Unfortunately, there were far too many scenes without her in it, and it got aggravating.

Shallow Hal (2001)

eh

[5/10 · 7 April 2003]

This movie's premise, as I'm sure you know by now, is that "Hal" gets hypnotized to be attracted or unattracted to peoples' "insides." A cute premise, except when you realize MOST people would look different under this rule. In the movie, fat or hideous becomes attractive, and one slimy gold-digging girl becomes ugly. This is a terrible simplification of the idea...

Especially annoying was that the only fat people in this movie are beautiful to Hal. I would agree, they are probably more attractive on the "inside", but a lot of overweight people I've known are particularly neurotic, lack ambition, have terrible self-esteem, or have an attitude that looks don't matter at all, and for those reasons I haven't really wanted to get involved with any of them. But don't get me wrong, it's not like I think your average attractive person is much more together. But when you start thinking about this, the whole movie falls apart.

The worst of all: how come Hal never sees himself as ugly? He's basically a horrible person..

Oh, and if you think there's more to this movie than the premise, you're wrong. There isn't. It's just a big "what if," which doesn't make sense, and there's really no more quality to the movie. That, and a bunch of fat jokes.

When a Man Loves a Woman (1994)

sorry, didn't care.

[2/10 · 7 April 2003]

This movie was a vaguely competent portrayal of how hard alcoholism can be to deal with. However, for those of us who aren't alcoholics, it really offered nothing. I gave the movie about twenty, maybe forty minutes, but I never started wanting the two to work out their problems, I just wanted him to kick her out of the house. I'm sorry, but before you show a couple in such misery and expect the audience to want to see them get through it, you have to show us that the couple is based on something good.

Honestly, I kept looking for the new female love interest to show up so we could get on with the movie.. but it just didn't go in that direction. (2/10)

How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days (2003)

Not bad, but not really worth it.

[4/10 · 22 February 2003]

For the most part this movie was fairly funny and entertaining. The two leads do a credible job of playing their roles, and some of the things she does to drive him away are quite amusing.

However, a lot of this movie just doesn't make sense. And not in a slight non-sequitur that movies often have swept under the rug. No, I'm talking big-time here. This supposedly smart, worldly columnist for a Cosmo-clone tries to drive this guy away by being wildly psychotic and bizarre, not what would actually make sense: unattractive and needy. And then when psycho and bizarre doesn't work, she ends up going to meet his folks on Staten island. And suddenly the script writers seem to give up on trying to decide what she should be thinking and she just goes as herself, with no anxieties or anything. Nor does he seem to notice this difference.

Actually the whole Staten island sequence was excellent: funny, real, sweet, sincere... it just totally didn't fit the rest of the movie. It's as if the writers came up with that really great scene and then tried to find a totally bland hollywood movie to stick it in, where it vaguely makes sense.

It's hard not to let this bother you. It reminds me of bad sitcoms where things are too zany for anyone to just continue on trying to be normal, and yet they do.

Spider-Man (2002)

Pretty good

[7/10 · 31 May 2002]

Spider-Man was an enjoyable light summer move, and was pretty good all around ... the acting was pretty good.. the effects were pretty good.. the story was pretty good. Nothing really popped out about it as great though -- even the best scenes in the movie were barely memorable in the long run. There's one hot kissing scene, one good fight scene, and about two vaguely memorable funny scenes.

I recommend seeing it.. it's fun, just don't think you're going to be seeing a classic.

The Art of War (2000)

No art, and no war either

[2/10 · 24 April 2002]

Wesley Snipes plays a secret agent for the UN.

Okay. Let me say right now that already this was looking real bad for me liking this movie. Excuse me? "The" UN? Like the UN exists as an organization on its own? Like the UN has an agenda on its own? Never mind. Apparently this is one of those suspension of disbelief things.

So Wesley Snipes is a secret agent for the UN. Oh my GOD I CAN'T BELIVE I WATCHED THIS WHOLE MOVIE! I knew in the first FOUR MINUTES it would be completely devoid of intelligence! I'm not that stupid! Really! *sigh.* Let me start over. Again.

So Wesley Snipes is a secret agent for the UN. He has a name but it wasn't important. Apparently there's some kind of China trade thing going on and the UN has decided it will happen, or something, I never really figured it out. So this secret agent .. *restrains self* .. says he wants to retire but his secret agent boss somehow convinces him to stay for one more "easy" assignment.

Ok now I think the guidelines tell me I have to say I'm giving a spoiler before I give it, but I would really call this a saver rather than a spoiler, as it might save you from watching this movie. What happens is, his boss sets him up. DUH! As if this didn't happen in EVERY MOVIE! You know what? It's not a surprise anymore! But it was worse here because it actually didn't make sense even in retrospect. The whole idea apparently was that you watch this movie for two hours and get like one decent fight scene out of it, and realize it had not ONE clever moment, not ONE well-acted scene, not ONE interesting character, not even ONE good idea.

You know a woman gets partially decapitated here but ends up living? They COULD have had her be STABBED or something... but apparently they couldn't make up their minds between having something happen that made sense to the plot and having a little extra blood. Maybe I'm giving them too much credit here, they probably didn't even notice.

Oh yeah, and at one point, Wesley Snipes goes on a tour back through the route he took during a chase near the beginning apparently figuring things out or something. Only I didn't realize what was going on and I went into ventricular fibrillation thinking that HBO had accidentally cut to an hour and a half earlier in the movie and that I'd have to watch it again. AAAAAAAAAaaaaaaaaaaaaaa.

Agent for the UN. God help the human species.

Four Weddings and a Funeral (1994)

Definitely Funny... but can we ditch Andie?

[5/10 · 5 April 2000]

Okay. There's something I have to say about this movie, and I feel it's pretty simple. Andie MacDowell is so bad at acting I found myself wishing they WOULDN'T get together. We basically are never shown anything interesting about her character except two points: She isn't faithful to her fiance, and she apparently isn't very interested in Hugh's character Charles. So why do we want them to get together? I didn't.

On the other hand, the movie is really quite funny and while the whole romantic ending thing left the taste of something horrible in my mouth, I enjoyed the beginning. All the brits are very fine actors and their part of the script is quite decent.

But if there are any casting directors out there, please PLEASE stop hiring Andie Macdowell. She can't act and she's not even that pretty.

Run Lola Run (1998)

"Sliding Doors" all over again

[8/10 · 28 September 1999]

Lola rennt (Run Lola Run) is a refreshing reuse of the strong theme from "Groundhog Day" and "Sliding Doors" - basically, that events depend on each other, and we could imagine a sort of alternate version of a day, or a life, or (as in this movie) of 20 minutes, where things are slightly different at first but get more and more different later on.

In "Lola," the idea is this: Lola has 20 minutes to get a large amount of money to her boyfriend, or he'll probably be killed by his gangster boss. (This bothered me somewhat... I liked Lola, but wondered why she cared so much about this guy who seemed like such a loser...) And over the various attempts at the 20 minute run, all kinds of things happen.

The crucial difference between Lola and the others I've seen which are like it is that Lola is an action film. In Groundhog day, the repetition was all about doing the day "right" or something; the movie was a comedy. In Sliding Doors, there was a single branch; the two sides of the movie basically are concerned with what the woman's life is like on each side... it's a romance. But with Lola there's an excitement that the

others didn't capture... in those, the choices the character makes are more internally important, but in Lola, the things that happen are important for an external reason: someone's life is in danger.

That being said, Run Lola Run was a lot of fun, but the ending left me a bit unsatisfied; it felt more like it was a big joke, and the ending was the punchline. Also, the whole movie felt a bit like a video game. But this is a solid film experience, very exciting, and mentally stimulating. What more do you want, really? 8 out of 10.

Big Daddy (1999)

Surprisingly touching, Sandler triumphs again

[8/10 · 6 July 1999]

I went to Big Daddy expecting it to be funny, but I was very surprised at the way it evoked emotion. It reminded me strongly of The Wedding Singer, another movie that I didn't expect much of.

The difference? Well, there's a lot of difference between the two, but the primary one was that this was driven by Sandler *alone,* while the Wedding Singer was driven a fair amount by Drew Barrymore's talent. Actually, there's a lot of difference - the types of jokes are completely different... Adam Sandler doesn't get to sing a song in this one. It's not a love-driven plot at all (except maybe his love for the kid he's taking care of).

There are a lot of laughs in Big Daddy, and most of them are more sophisticated than the lowest-denominator puke and pee jokes. And while there are a couple gross cheap laughs, it's saved by the fact that the characters aren't just stupid people, like the Something About Mary cast or the Dumb and Dumber guys. Sonny Koufax (Sandler's character) may be working part-time at a toll booth and have a complete mess of an apartment, but he's got stock market investments and he knows all about law, he's just not motivated. Koufax is more of a rogue than a buffoon - he reminds me a bit of Randall in Clerks.

The basic plot is that Koufax gets a kid delivered to him with a note saying that the kid is his roommate's son - the roommate, unfortunately, is out of town for a long while on business. In the meantime, Sonny could just hand the kid off to social services, but he decides to keep him to try to impress his girlfriend. When that doesn't work out, he ends up keeping the kid and taking care of him, and he grows to really love doing it.

There were a couple of scenes that really didn't work for me, namely the scene where he talks to the kid's teacher (who screamed "overacting" and "one-dimensional" to me), and the court scene near the end - none of it made any sense. But in the end, they didn't get in the way very much of this charming and intelligent movie. This one will have staying power, too - it's not just a cheap laugh with no substance. 9 out of 10.

Tarzan (1999)

Disney misses the point - but delivers on everything but the story.

[5/10 · 6 July 1999]

Normally, I don't go see animated films in the theater, because of the whiny-kid problem. But Tarzan looked like it had such fun animation that I wanted to go see it. But let's not worry too much about why I went to see it, let's instead worry about what it was like.

I'll start with the good points: First, the animation was fantastic. Not a single moment in the movie fails to live up to the high standards the preview leads you to expect. I would say the animation was not quite up to the level of The Lion King - mostly because the jungle canopy world of Tarzan is inherently confusing, so evoking it well gives a sense of magic, but not of realism. 9.5 / 10.

Music? Well, the songs were good and I like Phil Collins, so that was a plus. They didn't fit as well into the movie, though. I wouldn't classify Tarzan as a musical the same way I would classify most of the recent Disney movies as musicals, because the fact of the matter is, all the songs are background music to certain action sequences. The characters, for the most part, don't sing. Also there was less music than the other movies, or at least it seemed that way... Let me put it this way: this was nowhere near The Little Mermaid in musical quality - the songs seemed to be a gesture rather than central to the movie. 7/10.

Humor. Truth be told, Disney Animated movies haven't been comedies for a long time. But there are enough funny sight gags and such to keep the tone of the movie light even at serious moments. Kind of what you would expect. 8/10.

Lastly, we come to the plot. The plot is actually important in this kind of movie - the Lion King wouldn't have worked at all without its plot. However, Tarzan falls significantly short of the excellent mark we have come to expect from Disney. The story is pretty simple to start - A mother and father with their baby get shipwrecked, and live in a home on the shore. Unfortunately, the parents are killed. At the same time, a gorilla loses her baby to a leopard. The gorilla finds the baby human, and takes him back to the family to raise him. The boy, of course, is Tarzan. As he grows up, he has problems fitting in - the other youngsters don't accept him, and neither does the head of the family, Kerchak. Eventually, he learns that he's human, when he meets Jane and her father and their guide, Clayton. Then, he struggles to decide whether he belongs with his family or with the humans that are clearly more like him.

Up until this point, the story is nothing short of charming. Then, Disney adds a gratuitous bad-guy (Clayton, of course, and anyone will see it coming) which completely ruins everything. Tarzan rushes headlong into the fight which proves what? He's brave? He cares about his family? We knew that already. There was a point in the movie, right before the bad-guy part of the plot comes in, where I was actually interested. After that, I just wasn't interested anymore. Plot: 4 / 10.

Oh yeah, one note I wanted to add - this movie should have been rated PG. Three scenes of note (that justify this comment) - at least twice in the movie, we see blood, once, we see the moment of death, not directly but directly enough that I would consider it violence. Also, Tarzan touches Jane's breasts at one point - in an innocent way, but still.

Of course, this is Disney and They Wouldn't Dare Give It A PG Rating.

Overall - I enjoyed the movie, but because the thing they did with the plot was so annoying, I'm not going to be seeing it again. I'd give it a 7/10. Disappointing for Disney, but still a good movie.

The Thin Red Line (1998)

Worst Film of 1998

[1/10 · 7 April 1999]

The Thin Red Line has to be the worst movie I've seen in more than 5 years. > And for those of you reading this who still have an open mind about this movie: I really mean it. I don't exaggerate the way other people do about this kind of thing.

Let me explain what I didn't like about this movie.

#1: No Protagonist You might expect that in a movie where everyone is a young white man wearing identical army outfits, they might helpfully give people different personalities and perhaps NAMES so you can tell them apart. No such luck, I'm afraid. It's almost entirely impossible to tell when the action focuses on the character who's supposed to be the main character and when it focuses on someone else.

#2: The Concept The Concept is "War turns you into a monster." Okay, first of all, this is a tired and stupid concept, it's been done eloquently and grippingly in two of the REAL war movie classics: Full Metal Jacket and Apocalypse Now. Secondly, see point #1. The main character, barely ever named, impossible to tell apart from anyone else, is supposed to change. Well, maybe he does, but I never had a clear idea of what he was like in the first place to change... so basically this movie takes a tired concept and executes it badly.

#3: The Action This is a movie about war. Right? So you kind of expect there to be at least some good action. Well, this is very disappointing, too. The central scene of the movie is about a whole bunch of American troops trying to secure a hillside protected by a hidden Japanese bunker. There's a lot of shooting, and there are some people dying but the scene skips around all over the hill, you can never tell which group you're with or where they are or what they're supposed to be doing, so basically it's just confusing.

#4: Gore Well, without some action, it'll at least have some gore, right? SOME kind of effects? Wrong. At one point, someone is hurt by a hand grenade, and instead of showing anything, they basically just show his face with a little blood on it as he slowly dies. Basically, the best effects you can hope for are people pretending to get shot and falling over.

#5: Dialogue Why not at least have some decent lines? I have to admit, the dialogue the characters actually engage in isn't too bad, but there's this constant, confusing, rambling, pointless talking, some detached narrator goes on and on with. None of it makes sense; artistic talk like that kind of requires that you understand the character, or that you at LEAST know who's talking.

My basic complaint is, after sitting in this movie for 2 and a half hours, I still didn't know who anyone was, what was going on, what the point was, and I had stopped giving the movie a chance. This was SUCH a boring movie.

If you want to write or direct movies, part of your job is to make a story people can follow. Without that all your high-flung philosophical ideas just become confusing and pointless.

Star Trek: Insurrection (1998)

Star Trek gets back to real Science Fiction

[6/10 · 7 April 1999]

Let's face it.

Star Trek: The Next Generation was a good show. Much of the time they dealt with interesting topics, sometimes it was just fun, and there were always great special effects. This is great for us if we want to watch the shows, but it's really bad for the people who make the movies. Why? Think about it - they have to make a product along the same lines which is so much better than the show that people will go out to the theatres and pay $7 to see it.

They have a really tough job. Which is why I really feel sorry for them that another one of the Star Trek movies has fallen short of the goal they need to set for themselves. Star Trek: Insurrection, at least, is written with an interesting premise - one that draws on American treatment of the Native Americans, among other sources.

There's a decent space battle, and a lot of good moments with Picard & Company, but in all honesty, I felt about this movie the same way I felt about First Contact: It was like a pretty good episode. Neither one was as good as the best episodes the show had; neither one was as good as Star Trek VI, my favorite of the series.

Don't get me wrong - this movie is fun. It's got good special effects, lots of great one-liners, a solid plot and decent acting for the most part. But because it's Star Trek and I can see all that every night on television, I feel it fell short of what it should've been.

Out of Sight (1998)

One of the best 40 movies of 1998

[6/10 · 7 April 1999]

I can say with confidence, this was one of the best 40 movies of 1998, especially now that I've made it through the whole year and can look back.

This movie is the closest any movie has come this year to truly exploiting the female body the way we used to see in grand style in the 70s and 80s. What do I mean? I mean Jennifer Lopez is a hot chick trying hard to act convincing in a hackeneyed pair of stereotypes. One: An ambitious professional who feels lonely all the time, and two: a good girl (in her case, a cop) who falls for the wrong kind of guy.

Clooney is passable, but mostly he's just there to be sexy. Lopez is sexy. The plot is utter drivel, so know if you rent this you're renting it to see the love scenes and some fairly amusing action sequences.

Overall, a pathetic waste of two talented stars.

Office Space (1999)

An otherwise good movie goes astray

[7/10 · 16 March 1999]

I for one was pleasantly surprised by Beavis and Butthead do America. I was never a particular fan of the duo, but the writing was superb, and the plot was clever. And when I saw the previews of Office Space, I expected some very high-quality humor.

The Good News: I got a lot of what I was looking for. The Bad News: I got less than I wanted.

The movie centers on the idea that Peter Gibbons (Ron Livingston) decides to stop putting up with his job. He does all sorts of outrageous things along his path to revenge (non-spoilers - from the previews) like putting a fish in a box of papers, and knocking down his cubicle wall. Absolutely brilliant.

And then, the movie takes a wrong turn. This stuff was funny, and I would've liked to keep seeing that kind of joke continue, but instead, the plot changes direction when a couple of Peter's buddies who get laid off decide to help him rip the company off. Then it becomes a big angstful "did I do something wrong"-fest, and it's far less funny. Not that this was wrong inherently, I just felt that it stopped working.

The ending is pretty satisfying, though, and the scenes of people telling off their bosses and such are pure pleasure. Worth a watch, definitely. Only don't think the movie is all fun.

8MM (1999)

Disturbing, thrilling, and boring. How does that happen?

[6/10 · 16 March 1999]

I want to make this clear: overall, I thought this was a good movie. Tom Welles (Nicholas Cage) is a private investigator hired to find the victim of what appears to be a snuff film, found by a widow after her rich husband's demise. In order to track it down he has to make his way into the deep world of violent and horrific porn.

You really have to know what you're getting into. It's the same thing with any movie that's disturbing - if you get taken by surprise you can have a really unpleasant experience. Se7en was like that. Schindler's List was like that. Closetland (a much more obscure movie) was also like that. But if you don't mind, or you're ready for it, you can get through it much more easily.

The climactic scenes are worth the wait. Cage becomes vengeance incarnate, and the dialogue is gripping.

By now you're probably wondering about that "boring" part from the summary. Okay. I can't stand when a movie tries to take the easy way out of anything, especially something as important as character development. Catherine Keener plays Amy Welles, Tom's wife. Tom also has a baby. This movie was LONG. This movie had a lot of plot to get through, and the wife and baby were there purely to make it look like Tom cared about his family. He didn't. They never have any effect on him, you never expect him to sacrifice anything of his work for them, and he doesn't. The movie would've been far better if they just hadn't been there to weight the plot down with pointlessness. It's like they didn't trust Nicholas Cage to be a good enough actor to portray being a good person. He did that fine, generally. In his scenes with Mrs. Christian (Myra Carter) he shows great empathy and compassion.

It bothered me a lot. It bothered my girlfriend even more, and so she *didn't* like watching this movie. But all in all I'd still have to give it a thumbs-up. I just wish they'd trimmed the fat a bit.

Rush Hour (1998)

Beauty and the Bore

[6/10 · 16 March 1999]

I like to pan movies. It's fun. But today that's not my plan. I think in Rush Hour, I got half my money's worth. And that half was Jackie Chan. Seriously, those of you who like Jackie Chan will like his part of the movie. Unfortunately, Jackie Chan is a *CO*star in this movie.

I don't think Christ Tucker is that funny. This movie didn't help much. Okay, I laughed a bit, but he's a complete waste of time next to Jackie Chan.

Jackie Chan doesn't fight nearly enough (he has two scenes, both of which are pretty good), but his choreography is definitely up to form. On the other hand, Chris Tucker comes off as nothing - he's not an action star, he's not that funny, he's not some stone-cold cop, he's just kinda silly.

Even worse, Jackie Chan is kinda silly too. He's always been silly. Thus, there isn't chemistry, because there's no contrast. Chris Tucker and Bruce Willis had chemistry in The Fifth Element. That was chemistry.

If you want to see this, make sure you watch something more solid afterwards, because you're going to come away from it wishing there was more Jackie Chan. I give it 5 out of 10.

The People vs. Larry Flynt (1996)

A clever and diverse film

[9/10 · 16 March 1999]

When I first saw The People vs. Larry Flynt, I thought I would be seeing a lot of skin and not much else. Well, if that's what you want to see, just go *buy* Hustler and quit futzing around. On the other hand, if you want to see a simple truth portrayal of one of the more controversial figures in the last thirty years, check out this movie.

Woody Harrelson does a strong, credible job as Larry Flynt, and particularly notable are Coutney Love as Althea (Flynt's wife), and Edward Norton as Flynt's lawyer. I didn't think Courtney Love would be any good at acting, but she was definitely well-billed in this appearance.

Most of the movie is about Larry Flynt's life, about his struggles for freedom and against censorship, about his love life, about his reintroduction to Christianity, about his time in Jail and his troubles with drugs.

Top it off with some amazing courtroom scenes (the Supreme Court scene near the end is my favorite in a very long time) and you've got a winner of a movie. I don't think the movie tries to make you like Larry Flynt. If you don't like him before you see it you probably won't like him after you see it. But it will make you think twice about opposing the things he stands for.

By the way, Larry Flynt doesn't look anything like Woody Harrelson, but he does talk a little like him. A piece of trivia - Larry Flynt has a cameo in this movie, as the Cincinnati Judge, Judge Morrissey.

Rumble in the Bronx (1995)

Jackie Chan delivers

[7/10 · 16 March 1999]

Jackie Chan *always* delivers pretty well at least. The fact of the matter is, since he always does his own stunts, and he does so much of the choreography for his movies, they're always worth a good look if you like the genre.

Truth be told, when Jackie is fighting with the gang, the scenes are incredible. However, when he's fighting the real criminals, it's just not Jackie Chan's arena. Don't get me wrong, he's not bad with guns and cars, but he's nowhere near as good with them as he is in hand-to-hand combat.

And by the way, the ending is superbly silly. The big fight at the end deals with a Hovercraft, which is a unique concept, but the very end is... well, it almost ruined the whole thing for me, to be honest.

Of course, it's classic Silly Chan.

Payback (I) (1999)

Mel Gibson is a badass

[10/10 · 15 March 1999]

They're right. You really do root for the bad guy in this movie. Porter (Mel Gibson) is a sadistic bastard who gets screwed over by his friend and his ex-wife, and spends the rest of the movie trying to get his money back from a big-time crime family.

He's ruthless. Utterly ruthless. He's a complete badass, and he doesn't need sinister music or big explosions to do it. He's a badass just walking down the street.

This is a real rollercoaster of a movie - full of action and an absolute blast to watch. It barely lets you up for a breath of air.

Drunken Master II (1994)

The quintessential martial arts movie

[9/10 · 15 March 1999]

Jackie Chan is a genius. I think I had seen Enter the Dragon or something before this, but once I saw Drunken Master II it not only became the milestick by which I measure other martial arts movies, but it awakened my interest in the genre in the first place.

Wong Fei-Hung is a master of Drunken Boxing, which he discovered (in Drunken Master) only truly works when the fighter is actually drunk. In this movie, he accidentally takes a valuable jade seal from the British Consul; they in turn come after him. He gets drunk for a spectacular display of fighting against the Consul's hired thugs, but it angers his father and he promises to stop drinking.

But there is more at stake that drinking; it is the honor of the country that is at stake.

The movie is packed full of the action scenes everyone wants to see; and as amazing as even the first fight scene is, every fight is more beautiful than the one before. It's amazing that Jackie Chan can keep topping himself, but he does. See it. You won't be sorry.

The Gods Must Be Crazy (1980)

One of slapstick's greatest triumphs in the last 20 years

[9/10 · 15 March 1999]

Forget Home Alone. Forget Dumb and Dumber. Forget There's Something About Mary. If you want really simple slapstick humor, The Gods Must be Crazy is one of the greatest triumphs in the last 20 years.

The premise of the movie is a three-fold plot; Xixo is a bushman, whose family has found a coke bottle that some pilot dropped from a plane. It turns out to be magnificently useful, but everyone fights over it, so Xixo decides to go to the end of the earth and throw it off. Meanwhile, Andrew Steyn (Marius Weyers, your basic bumbling idiot) is a student studying, primarily, Elephant Dung. And he's asked by a friend to go pick up the new schoolteacher, Kate Thompson (Sanrda Prinsloo), and deliver her. Meanwhile, Sam Boga (Louw Verwey) and his band of terrorists are fleeing from justice into Botswana. All three elements meet up with each other in interesting ways. Between Steyn's ridiculously bad vehicle, Kate's overmodesty, Xixo's complete ignorance of culture, Sam Boga's seriousness and his inept band of people (including the two dopes who're always playing cards), there are dozens of clever plot twists and loads of brilliant comedic situations.

Trust me, you'll laugh your baboons off.