jbachrach Reviews

The Island (2005)

Yzerman billboard

[12 September 2006]

I finally got around to watching this movie, mostly out of curiosity because I work in downtown Detroit and watched a few scenes being filmed. I was amused to see that while the special effects people filled the skyline with modernistic buildings to supplement the retro\art deco architecture that already exists, they forgot to remove a 20 story Nike billboard of Red Wing Steve Yzerman from the background. Something tells me that as good of a player as he was, that in the Los Angeles of 2019, he probably won't be appearing on many blank spaces on downtown L.A. office buildings. But, as Dennis Miller would say, that's just my opinion, I could be wrong

Rumor Has It... (2005)

An imaginary and unfunny update and twist on The Graduate

[1/10 · 27 December 2005]

I was predisposed to like this movie: A good cast and an accomplished director. Unfortunately, there was also a terrible script, bad pacing, poor editing and, except for Shirley MacLaine, not very good acting and very few laughs. I would not recommend this movie to anyone. A complete waste of my time and money. I know this observation has been made elsewhere. but Rob Reiner should make a choice between full time movie making and full time political activism, because he clearly cannot do both at the same time. The problems with the movie became apparent in the first few moments during the airplane sequence. There was no chemistry between Jennifer Aniston and Mark Rufalo, and while that may have worked to emphasize the point that she was reluctant to get married, it also meant that the viewer had no rooting interest in seeing them get together in the end, although true to romantic comedy form, that ending was bound to happen. Frankly, the dull, humorless beginning was the real foreshadowing of the entire movie, which was also humorless and dull. The film only picked up its pace on the few occasions when MacLaine was on screen. She could have been giving a masters class in acting to her fellow cast members, but obviously they weren't paying attention, The real bottom line is that while there was a kernel of a good idea in this update of The Graduate, the script was unfunny and the characters were unsympathetic.