dagonet Reviews

Mystery Men (1999)

There's something different under that cape.

[8/10 · 12 March 2000]

OK. There are people who should not see this movie.

1) Don't see it if you don't like satire or black humour. 2) Don't like it if you got offended by _The Watchmen_. 3) Don't see it if you want a serious superhero movie.

The rest of you, run, don't walk, to see _Mystery Men_. It's funny, it's quirky, it's a delightful sendup of every bad superhero cliche known to man. Occasional forays into junior-high humour don't ruin the tongue-in-cheek low-key fun of Jeanane Garafalo, Ben Stiller, and Hank Azaria, as well as a couple of amusing smaller parts by Geoffrey Rush and Greg Kinnear. (Good to see Louise Lasser getting work, too.) I laughed all the way through. Utterly unserious, somewhat weird, but -good-.

The Omega Man (1971)

Where's The Beef?

[2/10 · 18 February 2000]

OK. I give up. Why do so many people like this movie? Ignoring Charlton Heston's two whole facial expressions, ignoring the White-Out painted vampires, I have one question. This clunker about the last man on earth has him holed up in a museum or something, dressing like Little Lord Fauntleroy, and...eating sausage. Hey, Chuck? There's no one left on earth but vampires. What kinda meat's in that sausage?

A Midsummer Night's Dream (1999)

Substance behind the glitz.

[9/10 · 17 February 2000]

A lot of people thought this would be a glitzy, inaccurate AMND. But it wasn't. It was a delight -- I saw it the same week I saw Phantom Menace and thought this was the better movie. Kevin Kline is wonderful, Stanley Tucci is magnificent, and Calista Flockhart is surprisingly good. Definitely worth seeing.

Pushing Tin (1999)

John Cusack lets us down.

[3/10 · 17 February 2000]

This movie was just...incomprehensible. I'm normally a big John Cusack fan, but there was nothing and no one in this movie to even make me care what happened in it. The actual sequences of air traffic control were interesting, but...why bother?

Clay Pigeons (1998)

Multiple Genre Disorder strikes hard.

[5/10 · 17 February 2000]

This kept trying to be a good movie, but it seemed unsure of what type of movie it -was-. In the beginning, it seemed like a black comedy, and the shift to psychological thriller was abrupt and unsettling. Vince Vaughn was good, but Joaquin Phoenix just left me cold. The cigarette he smoked had more personality.

The Devil's Advocate (1997)

Not even close.

[3/10 · 13 December 1999]

This is just...a mishmosh. Too much gratuitous sex and blood hiding the real horror of the theme, a poor performance from Keanu "But Don't You Think I Sound Like I'm From Georgia" Reaves, and Al Pacino hamming it up and basically playing himself. Avoid this one. It could have been a great movie. What it was was disjointed, overdone, and mediocre at best.

The MatchMaker (1997)

Romantic comedy with a twist.

[8/10 · 17 September 1999]

Not just a typical romantic comedy, this quirky little love letter to Ireland has a few twists you don't expect. Jeanine Garofalo is wonderful, and Milo O'Shea is roguish. Denis Leary is darned unlikable. Some say it's a bit stereotypical, but I disagree; the characters seemed real in a lot of ways. Definitely worth seeing.

A Midwinter's Tale (1995)

Englishfolks play Hamlet. Hamlet loses.

[9/10 · 17 September 1999]

Cliches be damned, this is a wonderful movie, all about transformations, change, and deciding what is really important. Everyone in this movie becomes a real person, moving away from the stereotypes presented in the beginning, and the comic timing is impeccable. (Don't buy the hype that Jennifer Saunders is a star of this movie, though; she's in it for maybe five minutes. Spend your time watching Richard Sessions' magnificently funny performance instead.) Branagh's Hamlet is dull, dull, dull; Branagh's movie -about- making Hamlet is another shade of wonderful entirely.

Get Shorty (1995)

A plot full of twists and weirdness.

[5/10 · 17 September 1999]

Maybe it's me. But this movie left me mostly going 'What the hell?' Performances range from excellent (John Travolta, Delroy Lindo) to disappointing (Gene Hackman). At times, it seemed like there were plot twists going on for the sake of plot twists, and following the convoluted twists and turns made my head hurt. Byzantine is one thing, but -needlessly- byzantine is another. Bonus points for the ending, though.