this is an obvious case of kevin smith falling in love w/ his own dialogue and letting his words run wild. while at times the scene is funny, overall it's pretty drawn out and boring and the big 'reveal' at the end isn't all that funny and is basically a cop out to end the scene. kevin smith is a talented guy but not all of his dialogue is fantastic and this is an example of that. the delivery also gets real annoying after awhile. there's a reason these 2 guys never found success outside of smith's movies. i guess if you are a huge fan of smith's and clerks then you cant go wrong but there are tons of other comedic short films out there - most relying on dialgoue - that are a helluva lot funnier than this but never get any recognition.
Reviews
3 Reviews
Ash Wednesday
(2002)
an unbelievably bad film
20 February 2004
Warning: Spoilers
Contains spoiler It's dissapointing how bad this movie is b/c it had such potential to be a rich character driven story. instead, it falls flat on its face almost from the very beginning and insults the viewer throughout the entire film. most of the problems w/ the horrible script have been addressed already (my favorite is that elijah wood's character brutally murders three men and then is 'shocked' and 'surprised' when told that his father and brother killed people - yeah, ok). burns' character and his involvement w/ dawson's character is never fleshed out and is instead left to be an unbelievable storyline simply meant to garner sympathy in the end. the climax scene at the end in the bar is ridiculously stupid and insults the viewer's intelligence - but by that point i didn't expect anything short of retarded anyway. the point alot of people are overlooking is that the main performances are a huge letdown. the worst, by far, is elijah wood. you're going to tell me that a kid who spent the first 18 years of his life growing up in hell's kitchen surrounded by tough irish men and then shoots three men in cold blood grows up to be the wimp that elijah wood presents on screen? AND WHAT ABOUT HIS LACK OF AN ACCENT!!!! virtually every other character either has an irish roll or at least an affected new york accent. i mean COME ON! he sounds like he just walked off the set of lord of the rings! he throws in a few words here and there but overall he spends the entire movie speaking w/ a standard english dialect. the scenes between he and burns are unbelievably boring. besides the pointless dialogue - which throws in a 'fu<k' every other sentence to give it flavor - both actors are extremely wooden. at one point wood's character gets mad at his brother and is supposed to hit him to say 'f-u, back off!' - but the emotion that wood shows is virtually non-exsistent. as far as his character in the script - the kid is supposed to be the smart one in the family and he comes back to town after 3 years, goes out for a drink, buys a pack of cigarettes and blahblahblah when the consequences are as big as they are? pleeeeaaaasssseeee.... rosario dawson is another letdown. she is playing a poor puerto rican living in hell's kitchen and not only does her accent go in and out, but when she's told that her husband is alive after thinking that he has been dead for 3 years she shows virtually no emotion whatsoever. the camera direction is good as well as the soundtrack, which manages to hold your attention from scene to scene and sticks w/ you afterwards. the script is bad, the acting is bad. overall, a very bad movie. no surprise it never made it theatres. Ed Burns has been better and hopefully will be better again, but there is no denying how bad this movie is and how dissapointed i was afterwards.
Down to You
(2000)
Worst Film of 2000
13 January 2001
I want the hour and a half i spent watching this excuse for a romantic comedy back. The acting was absolutely horrible. Freddy Prinze Jr. must be the worst actor of the decade (he uses the same facial expression for every "cute" line he says, and then thinks that if he simply squints his eyes he'll convey some sort of anger or sadness). Julia Stiles, who is a decent actress, is simply annoying in her role. The supporting characters who were meant to be funny...are not. The entire scene on his dad's cooking show was utterly pointless...it was like the director was trying to say "hey, you see, he LOVES her, and ooooh, ooooh, they are meant for each other!" in case we didn't understand that the movie was about their relationship. There are so many scenes in this movie that don't move the plot(not that there was much of one to begin with) along that you have to wonder who supervised this production. I actually found myself laughing when they were (unsuccessfully) trying to pull off dramatic moments. Everything was forced and nothing moved smoothly. Down To You, with "The Skulls" a close second, is my pick for the worst movie of 2000.
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