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Reviews
The Roller Blade Seven (1991)
Looking for a movie for your Turkey Film Festival?
Looking for a movie for your Turkey Film Festival? THE ROLLER BLADE SEVEN is on my list of the ten worst films of all-time. The plot, the story of a post-Apocalyptic roller blading samurai warrior, is a convoluted hodge-podge of film references of everything from STAR WARS to THE SEVEN SAMAURI. The acting fluctuates from bland to abysmal. The scene where the villain tempts the old master is embarrassing to the point of jeering laughter. Frank Stalone's Black Knight reminds one too much of John Cleese's Black Knight in MONTY PYTHON AND THE HOLY GRAIL. (Word of Advice, Frank: When you stoop to doing a movie like this one, your career is over.) I chanced upon this little stink-bomb on a low-end cable channel and I could not stop watching. It is like watching a train wreck, you just can't look away.
Spy Kids 3: Game Over (2003)
Promising, but uneven
The premise for SPY KIDS 3-D is a good one: a child trapped inside a video game, experiencing real dangers along the way. The CGI world of the game is well executed, looking like the graphics of the best games out today. The racing scene is especially reminiscent of the original video game movie TRON.
But the movie is hurt by the use of 3-D. Putting the audience inside of game might have looked good on paper. Unfortunately, the process still has not been perfected. Stereo-optic viewing is best in short stretches, but there is little time to adjust in this film.
The story is uneven. The script starts out strong, with Junie (Daryl Sabara)called back into service to stop the evil Toymaker (Sylvester Stallone) from enslaving the world's children with a video game. As long as the action stays in the game, the story is plausible. But the ending is sunk by the bringing back all the rest of the characters of the franchise: Dad, Mom, Grandma, and all the rest of players of the first two films. Disbelief is unsuspended in the last twenty minutes as element of the game are released onto Austin's Congress Avenue.
Using Siskel & Ebert & Roeper's thump test, I would say my thumb is on the line, edging upward for its promising start and interesting effects.
View from the Top (2003)
Nothing new here
Gweneth Paltrow plays a white-trash girl trying to get out of her hometown. Inspired by a motivational book by Kelly Weston, a successful stewardess (Candace Bergen), she becomes a flight attendant at a bottom-of-the-barrel airline. As she climbs the latter, she befriends two other flight attendants (Christina Applegate and Kelly Preston) and falls for hunky law school drop-out (Mark Ruffalo). While in training, she is mentored by Weston, who believes she has the right stuff to go to the top.
This is clicheed material that can be found in just about any other film of its kind. There is nothing fresh this "follow your head, not your heart" kind of movie for Paltrow to work with. Her relationship with Christine (Applegate) is supposed to be of the supportive best friend variety, but there are times where one wonders if there is a lesbian attraction between the two characters.
Only two actors seem to be having any fun. Mike Myers clearly likes playing the cross-eyed instructor. Perhaps too much, because at times he starts chewing the scenery, such as when Paltrow challenges the results of a placement test. Joshua Malina seems happy to shed his usual bookish roles to play a gay airhost. He plays it with relish, stealing nearly every scene he is in.
I would like to state that the look of the film is very well done. The sets were impressive, which help to chronicle her humble beginnings to her life at the top without stooping to characture. As for the flight attendant uniforms, they are great, harking back to the 1960s era, either in the go-go look of the budget airline to the elegant lines of the first-class uniform. All of them are bright and colorful without becoming garish or tacky.
VIEW FROM THE TOP compares with TOYS. Both have an impressive look, but I wouldn't want to look at either again. I give this one a 5/10.
O Pioneers! (1991)
What theater presented on television should be
This is an example of what theater presented on television should be. Mary McDonnell's performance as quiet but strong immigrant is textured and deep. I haven't seen this presentation in ten years, and I find I still remember many of the scenes vividly.
The Andersonville Trial (1970)
Great courtroom drama
When I saw that this video starred William Shatner and was directed by George C. Scott, I thought "Great, one over-actor directing another." Actually, this is something everything involved with it can be proud of, and it may be the best thing ever presented on PBS.
The story is the trial of Henry Wirz, the commandant of the notorious Confederate P.O.W. camp at Andersonville, Georgia. Shatner is the Union Army prosecutor who must tread onto dangerous ground to make his case. (In the original Broadway production, Scott played this role.) Equally good is Jack Cassidy as Wirz's manipulative defense attorney. Richard Basehart plays Wirz as he was: proud, arrogant and unrepentant. Leading support is a cast some of the finest character actors of a generation: Cameron Mitchell, Buddy Ebsen, John Anderson, Albert Salmi and Whit Bissell.
But center to this production is the compelling script. Based on the transcript of the actual tribunal, Saul Leavitt imbued this record of brutality with a great sense of humanity.
This one should not be missed. I rate it 10/10.
Edison Kinetoscopic Record of a Sneeze (1894)
All action, no plot.
All action, no plot. Still important in the terms of film history. It was the first film made by Thomas Edison on his motion picture camera. I can think of worse ways for kill 2 seconds.
Mr. Deeds (2002)
Two hours of my life I'll never get back
Adam Sandler cements his position as "Hollywood's Least Deserving Star" with this truly awful remake of a true Hollywood classic. Sandler plays Longfellow Deeds, a small town schnook who inherits an unbelievably large amount of money. He turns in another of his patented performance as the dim-witted loser. Anything resembling Gary Cooper's charm in the original role is purely by accident. Sadly, much better actors Peter Gallagher and Winona Ryder are caught in the Sandler vortex, delivering unsympathetic charactiures of jaded Gothamites. Only Nicholas Turturro gets to have any fun, but it is lost in the shuffle. This is two hours of my life I'll never get back.
Kind Hearts and Coronets (1949)
A gem of a movie
This is the movie that established the reputations of both Ealing Studios and Alec Guinness. The story revolves around a distant relative (Dennis Price) knocking off all the cousins between him and the family title. All of the relatives are played adroitly by Guinness. The movie loses some steam once all the relatives are gone, but it does keep it going, with the new earl facing "a not-so-amusing irony." A gem of a movie and well-worth discovering.