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100 Word Reviews
Untitled Document
[ NEW REVIEWS ]
Around the Bend
Director: Jordan Roberts
Starring: Christopher Walken, Michael Caine, Josh Lucas
When the patriarch (Caine) of a family dies, three generations of men begin to
explore a dark family secret. At the center of the mystery is why one of them
(Walken) suddenly abandoned his family more than three decades earlier.
Any time you’ve got Christopher Walken in a film, it can’t be too boring – but
Around the Bend sure does try. The entire movie smacks of Sundance-wannabe syndrome.
While it fishes for deep psychodrama, it only catches formulaic life lessons.
Yawn.
Friday Night Lights
Director: Peter Berg
Starring: Billy Bob Thornton, Lucas Black, Derek Luke
An action packed and emotionally involving sports movie (even for people who
only watch the Super Bowl for the commercials), Friday Night Lights tells the
true stories of the well-paid coach (Thornton), pensive quarterback (Black)
and cocky star (Luke) of a late ‘80s Texas high school football team.
Football is the core of this film, but the emphasis is less on the mechanics
of the sport and more on the opportunities it could provide for the town’s
mostly poor players. Thornton plays the coach in this football-obsessed town
as having one eye on what’s best for his team and the other on the community’s
high expectations. The rest of the young, largely unknown cast gives equally
impassioned performances, particularly Luke, who commands attention in every
scene.
P.S.
Director: Dylan Kidd
Starring: Laura Linney, Topher Grace
Disjointed pacing distracts from the otherwise interesting premise of P.S.:
A divorced university admissions officer (Linney) begins a heated relationship
with a much-younger applicant (Grace) who shares the same name and bares an
uncanny resemblance to her dead high school sweetheart.
It’s hard to follow the semi-surreal aspects of P.S., but even the simple
storytelling is often quite confusing. (In one scene, Grace’s arrogant
artist contemplates moving into Manhattan and in the next he has not only found
an apartment but has apparently already moved in.) Linney puts in a strong performance
as an emotionally restrained woman doomed to repeat her mistakes, but Grace
shows none of the likeability he routinely displays on That ‘70s Show.
One has to wonder why Linney didn’t notice her high school boyfriend was
a total jerk, too.
Raise Your Voice
Director: Sean McNamara
Starring: Hilary Duff, John Corbett, Ashlee Simpson, Jason Ritter
A 16-year-old girl (Duff) from a small town is accepted into a prestigious summer
performing arts school in Los Angeles after the death of her brother (Ritter).
A touching film revolving around family, death, social circles and music, Raise
Your Voice does a fantastic job of capturing the emotions of a teenage girl.
While this flick is targeted towards young girls and wannabe performing artists,
it remains entertaining throughout, with just enough drama to keep it real and
just enough energy to remain uplifting.
Shall We Dance? 1/2
Director: Peter Chelsom
Starring: Richard Gere, Jennifer Lopez, Susan Sarandon
A lawyer (Gere) spies a beautiful, forlorn dance teacher (Lopez) from his train
and suddenly decides to sign up for ballroom dance classes – without telling
his workaholic wife (Sarandon).
Shall We Dance? is formulaic and tugs at your heartstrings in the most obvious
ways, but darned if Gere doesn’t make you root for his quietly desperate
character, so ashamed of his longings for a more exciting life he can’t
even confide in his own wife about his newfound passion. J. Lo does the I’m-hot-and-I-can-dance
thing well, but her deep, dark subplot is superfluous and uninteresting, as
is an equally un-involving plotline concerning Sarandon and a private eye. With
those kind of half-realized performances, it’s no wonder Gere waltzes away
with the film.
Taxi 1/2
Director: Tim Story
Starring: Queen Latifah, Jimmy Fallon
Not even cool stunt driving and the presence of the always watchable Queen Latifah
can save the car wreck that is Taxi, an almost aggressively unfunny comedy about
a brassy cabbie (Latifah) who helps a screw-up cop (Fallon) solve a series of
bank robberies.
When the only laugh-out-loud scene in this alleged comedy centers on the two
leads getting stuck in a room filling with nitrous oxide, director Story (Barbershop)
should’ve known he had problems. Add Fallon’s irritating presence
in almost every scene to the list of the film’s numerous shortcomings,
and even royalty like Latifah gets dragged down a notch or two.
Team America: World Police
Director: Trey Parker
Starring: Voices of Parker and Matt Stone
An occasionally hilarious, but ultimately disappointing, action movie parody from
the South Park creators, Team America takes place in an all-marionette world where
terrorists like Kim Jong-il find support from Hollywood liberals and the only
group who can save the planet from destruction is a brash all-American police
squad.
Some of the action movie spoofs in Team America really are hysterical, but in
Parker and Stone’s attempt to mock every single cliché, they pushed
this intermittently funny film from a sensible 80 minute-run time to 100 minutes
– way too long to watch marionettes blow things up. As usual, the duo excels
at songwriting, from spot-on parodies of jingoistic country tunes to the Team’s
high-energy theme song, “America! F—k, yeah!”
[ PREVIOUS REVIEWS ]
Anacondas: Hunt for the Blood Orchid
Director: Dwight Little
Starring: No one you know
Forget everything you know about formulaic, trite and utterly predictable horror
movies, because Anacondas has lowered the bar to the point where writers, directors
and producers are no longer required.
This movie is so bad, we’re going to spoil it for you in the next sentence.
The four people that you think are going to not get eaten by the giant CG snakes
all live, and it’s so sad. They were part of a larger group of drug developers
that went to Borneo in search of a rare blood orchid, the pollen of which is
believed to prolong life or whatever. Unfortunately, 50 minutes goes by until
the eating starts. For a cheaper, but equally entertaining, time, get a rubber
snake from Hot Topic and have a friend shriek at it for 20 minutes.
The Bourne Supremacy
Director: Paul Greengrass
Starring: Matt Damon, Franka Potente, Joan Allen
Former government-sponsored assassin (and amnesiac) Jason Bourne (Damon) comes
out of retirement with a vengeance when a Russian hitman hunts him down and old
memories begin to resurface.
The Bourne Supremacy has everything you could possibly want in an action movie:
thrilling car chases, international intrigue, innovative escape scenes and –
best of all – a hero who speaks softly and carries a big sniper rifle.
Damon effectively plays Bourne as a man of both purpose and confusion. Allen,
as a cool, collected and self-assured CIA team leader, is a welcome addition
to what is sure to become a franchise series.
Collateral
Director: Michael Mann
Starring: Tom Cruise, Jamie Foxx
A play-by-the-rules L.A. cab driver (Foxx) has a life-changing evening when a
late night fare turns out to be a hitman (Cruise) hired to kill five federal witnesses
before the next morning.
Collateral’s success as a gripping, involving suspense story rests both
on the highly charged interplay between Cruise and Foxx, and director Mann’s
compellingly gritty visual style. The three men keep us wondering what’s
going to happen next for most of the film, but unfortunately the ending reverts
to a standard Hollywood storyline. Cruise is charismatic, as usual, but makes
a major misstep in playing a cold-blooded killer who is also a very vocal nihilist;
his philosophical musings have no place in a high concept thriller.
First Daughter
Director: Forest Whitaker
Starring: Katie Holmes, Marc Blucas, Michael Keaton, Amerie Rogers
First Daughter is a pretty ho-hum story about the president’s only daughter
(Holmes) going off to college, dealing with a party-animal roommate (Rogers) and
(spoiler alert) her relationship with an undercover Secret Service agent.
First Daughter has flat characters, an especially shallow plot and cutesy punchlines
seemingly stolen from The Powerpuff Girls. This painfully sweet flick doesn’t
even give you the satisfaction of a true happy ending. Oops. Ruined it for you.
The Forgotten
Director: Joseph Ruben
Starring: Julianne Moore, Dominic West
A distraught mother (Moore) mourning the young son she lost in a plane crash is
convinced by her therapist and husband that the child never existed.
The Forgotten has an engaging premise, but about halfway through the film you
discover it’s just a really long episode of The X-Files. Moore uses a mix
of vulnerability and determination to deliver a believably desperate character.
It’s just too bad she’s stuck in a movie that focuses on political
paranoia and startling special effects, instead of the complexities of delusion.
Garden State
Director: Zach Braff
Starring: Zach Braff, Natalie Portman
Based on his first film, Garden State, actor Zach Braff may also have a bright
career ahead of him as a writer/director. This Sundance favorite is a character-driven
dark comedy about a heavily medicated wannabe-actor (Braff) who returns to his
New Jersey home for the first time in nearly a decade to attend his mother’s
funeral.
Braff is best known for his over-the-top antics on NBC’s Scrubs, so it’s
a pleasant surprise to see him so convincingly inhabit a character slowly returning
from an antidepressant-derived emotional coma. He’s found a game romantic
interest in Portman, who happily tosses off the regal restraint of Queen Amidala
to play a young woman living life to the fullest, even as she deals with her
own considerable health concerns.
Ladder 49
Director: Jay Russell
Starring: Joaquin Phoenix, John Travolta, Jacinda Barrett
As a Baltimore firefighter (Phoenix) trapped in a burning building awaits rescue
from his crew, he thinks about his life, career and marriage.
While Ladder 49 does a great job of depicting life in a firehouse, the fire
sequences are a bit overdramatic. And when we say overdramatic, we mean clichés,
artificial tension and storytelling that is unoriginal and repetitive. This
film is entertaining at times, but definitely lacking depth.
The Motorcycle Diaries
Director: Walter Salles
Starring: Gael Garcia Bernal, Rodrigo de la Serna
The Motorcycle Diaries is the (based on a true) story of two friends – one
a biochemist (De la Serna) and one a med student (Bernal) – who travel South
America while romancing women, treating lepers and learning about the struggles
of the continent’s indigenous people.
This would be just another buddy road movie – albeit gorgeously shot and
well acted – if that med student didn’t later become revolutionary
leader and long-time dorm room fixture, Che Guevara. Director Salles weighs
even Guevara’s smallest interactions with such importance that some scenes
seem forced, and the tactic ultimately takes away from the complex character
Bernal creates.
Resident Evil: Apocalypse
Director: Alexander Witt
Starring: Milla Jovovich, Sienna Guillory
A sexy fighting machine (Jovovich) once again battles the undead, this time with
the help of biogenetic enhancements and a tough, near-naked cop (Guillory).
Appropriately enough, this zombie movie is completely mindless. There’s
plenty of action, explosions and whatnot, but you’ll get the sense pretty
early on that the non-stop violence is just a shiny object designed to distract
you from dull pacing and an unimaginative script.
Shark Tale
Director: Vicky Jenson, Bibo Bergeron
Starring: Voices of Will Smith, Robert De Niro
A little fish with big dreams (Smith) lies his way to fame and fortune when he
claims responsibility for the accidental death of a mafia don’s (De Niro)
shark son.
Shark Tale is Dreamworks’ attempt to steal Pixar’s thunder, but the
creators don’t seem to realize simply placing animated celebrity voices
underwater and adding a bunch of pop culture references does not a Finding Nemo
make. This film has a few laugh-out-loud moments, but Smith basically plays
himself as a fish, and De Niro once again trots out his “godfather”
voice for an uninspired performance.
Sky Captain and The World of Tomorrow
Director: Kerry Conran
Starring: Gwyneth Paltrow, Jude Law, Angelina Jolie
This comic book for the big screen follows an NYC investigative reporter (Paltrow)
who teams up with an old boyfriend/fighter pilot (Law) to figure out who has been
stealing the world’s scientists.
First-time writer/director Conran does an excellent job using his all-digital
backgrounds and special effects to create a glamorous, thrilling, streamlined
world that has much less to do with the real Manhattan of the 1930s than the
one created in movies like King Kong and sci-fi comic books of the era. Perhaps
for that reason, the characters, while lively and smart, are too iconic to empathize
with, let alone put the movie’s outcome in question.
Vanity Fair 1/2
Director: Mira Nair
Starring: Reese Witherspoon, Gabriel Byrne
In the costume drama Vanity Fair, the movie’s strengths lie more in the costumes
than the drama. This over-two-hour film centers on a clever governess (Witherspoon)
willing to do whatever it takes to climb to the top of 19th Century London’s
social ladder.
The costumes and scenery are so intricate and lush that you almost want to overlook
Vanity Fair’s faults… almost. But when characters change personality
from scene to scene, or do things for seemingly no reason, or are dropped completely
only to resurface a decade later, there’s not much that a few wigs and
peacock feathers can do to distract from it. Credit Witherspoon for pulling
off the film’s best lines and looking great in all her corseted glory.
Wimbledon
Director: Richard Loncraine
Starring: Kirsten Dunst, Paul Bettany
One of the better romantic comedies this year, Wimbledon follows a low-ranking
British tennis pro (Bettany) whose love life and game get a boost when he meets
a highly motivated American tennis star (Dunst).
Dunst is her usual cute and spunky self, but the movie succeeds because of Bettany
– whose perfectly self-depreciating performance suggests he may end up being
known for something other than marrying Jennifer Connelly. As in most romantic
comedies, there’s the obligatory Meet Cute and wacky supporting characters,
but director Loncraine keeps it fresh enough that we don’t feel like Wimbledon
is the same movie we’ve seen a million times before, even if – aside
from some bullet-time action on the courts – that’s exactly what it
is.
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