Review – Nurse Betty

Renee Zellweger and Morgan Freeman head the talented cast of this odd little comedy about a woman who gets lost in a post traumatic stress fantasy world. After seeing her husband murdered by a couple of hit men (Freeman and Chris Rock), Betty (Zellweger) overcomes her shock by retreating into an imaginary life in which she is romantically involved with the male lead in her favorite soap opera. The plot divides up between our protagonist’s quest for the imaginary doctor of her dreams and the hit men’s quest for the drugs in the trunk of the car Betty drives from Kansas to Los Angeles. Though the movie is occasionally overcome by its own quirky and slightly too sentimental nature (especially toward the end), most of the jokes work well and the characters are easy to like. This is unlikely to be a big award winner, but it’s entertaining enough for a Sunday evening dead dog movie. Mildly amusing

Review – What Lies Beneath

What lies beneath my living room rug would have made a more interesting movie than this boring nonsense (which is saying something, because I actually swept recently). I guess after they were done paying Harrison Ford and Michelle Pfeiffer to head the cast there was only enough money left for really cheap plot twists. Our two mega-stars play a perfectly perfect couple who lead a perfectly perfect life until a ghost turns up in their perfectly perfect house. Honestly, this pair is so prosperous, proper and vacuous that they could have been afflicted with something a lot worse than ghosts without evoking much interest from me in their ultimate fate. Just in case you actually watch this stinker and care about the characters, I won’t spoil the plot for you. But be warned, there really isn’t all that much plot to spoil. See if desperate

Review – Tales from the Crypt

This is one of the best-known samples from the group of horror anthology movies made in England in the 60s and 70s. It owes at least part of its notoriety to its connection with William Gaines’ infamous Tales from the Crypt comic book series, consisting of five tales reproduced from the comics strung together with a bracketing story hosted by Ralph Richadson as a monk-like Crypt Keeper. The bracket reeks of director Freddie Francis’ previous effort, Dr. Terror’s House of Horrors, but the rest is pure EC. Three of the stories work fairly well. In the lead-off tale, Joan Collins murders her husband and is in turn slaughtered by a psycho in a Santa suit. The second is a silly but amusing zombie rework of It’s a Wonderful Life. And the final segment presents the amusing but over-wrought revenge visited upon the cruel manager of a rest home for blind men. The third and fourth segments are a little harder to take. The third tells the story of a kindly old man driven to suicide by his greedy neighbors. This segment suffers from its own quality; Peter Cushing does such a good job as the sympathetic victim that the story becomes more depressing than scary or amusing. The fourth story is a cheap reheat of “The Monkey’s Paw” (indeed, it practically admits as much), entertaining only during the “death rides a pale motorbike” scene. Overall this is a good example of its sub-genre but not much else. Mildly amusing

Review – Fail Safe

This would make a great double feature with Doctor Strangelove, a movie of almost identical theme that stole most of the thunder from this picture when it was released earlier in the same year (1964). Unlike Kubrick’s comedic end-of-the-world masterpiece, this round is a dead serious exploration of the hazards of the uneasy detente that ruled the nuclear world at the time. Oh, and this time around the catastrophe is triggered by an accident rather than by a madman. The plot often bogs down in extended dissertations on war and morality or digresses on the technical minutiae of nuclear combat. However fascinating such matters might be to Cold War buffs everywhere, they do tend to bring the plot to a screeching halt every time one comes up. Even the story line tends to play out like one of those hypothetical exercises they used to give us in junior high to help teach us to think about people in terms of political triage rather than as individual human beings. That aside, the movie’s only serious failing is that the comedic version is a lot easier to cope with. Mildly amusing

Review – Red Planet

Val Kilmer and Carrie-Ann Moss head the cast in this umpty-millionth retelling of humanity’s conquest of the fourth planet in our solar system. Sadly, the premise isn’t the only thing in this movie that’s been done before. Its worst aspect is that great cliché of action flicks that have to fill 90 minutes of screen time with 20 minutes’ worth of plot: the story depends for the most part on a seemingly endless parade of unlikely mishaps that keep our heroes hopping from one catastrophe to the next. It doesn’t help that the characters themselves are such cardboard cut-outs that it’s hard to care if they live or die even the first couple of times they’re imperiled. By the 20th or so I found myself praying for death (theirs or mine, I didn’t much care which). The special effects were good, but much more I can’t really say in favor of this stinker. See if desperate

Review – The Mexican

I was pleasantly surprised by this picture. Usually when Hollywood packs this level of star power (Brad Pitt, Julia Roberts, and that’s just to start) into a quirky little caper movie like this, the producers make up for overspending on actors by under-spending on script. Oddly enough, the script here is probably the high point of the movie. The dialogue is clever, the story (the tale of a hapless petty criminal who must retrieve a priceless antique pistol from Mexico for his mobster boss) flows fairly evenly, and the running gags keep running throughout. I was particularly tickled by the recurring presence of a vicious dog with a deflated football for a chew-toy. Even the romance between the leads almost works. There aren’t a lot of knee-slapping funny spots, but it maintains a nice, even tone of clever, offbeat humor from beginning to end. Mildly amusing

Review – Reaper

Fear the reaper. Or at the very least, fear having to sit through this boring stinker. This is one of those whodunits that goes on so long and makes so many contrived twists that ultimately I lost interest in the crimes, the investigation, the suspects, and the whole nine yards. Chris Sarandon plays a mystery writer who secludes himself in a motel in a small Maine town in an attempt to clear a bad case of writer’s block. Naturally someone starts committing crimes in the general vicinity that mimic the slayings in our hero’s most recent best-seller. Is the author himself – off his meds and drinking too much – killing young women? Is it the gruff, misogynist sheriff? Is it the odd, nerdy deputy? Some other character who gets hauled into the plot late in the game? How long til the movie ends? Now how long? Is it over yet? See if desperate

Review – Blair Witch 2: Book of Shadows

The nicest thing I have to say about this effort is that at least it’s not quite as terrible as the original. But then what is? This time around we get a bigger budget, a slicker production, and a plot (or at least something that sort of passes for one). Once again a group of young folks heads into the woods in search of the supernatural.  At least this time they remember to take plenty of cigarettes and manage not to get lost. After suffering a series of mishaps our heroes return to civilization only to discover that the forces of darkness have taken possession of their lives. Like the first one, this outing’s clearly intended for the teen market. And even then only the more easily-amused members of the audience are likely to get much of a kick out of it. See if desperate

Review – Voodoo Academy

Wow, and I thought going to school at Sumner Academy (my old high school) was a dull experience! Who would ever have guessed that the world of drinking, sex and other forms of evil corruption could turn out to be so completely uninteresting? The basic plot here is that a small Bible college – or, more precisely, a six-student startup that teaches a contrived blend of Christianity and Scientology – is actually a front for some sort of satanic sacrifice operation. Perhaps I would have been more impressed if the sacrificial lambs weren’t a set of six teenage boys. Apparently the guys at Full Moon have lost their touch for cheap rubber monsters, buckets of blood and copious tit shots, all of which are just about completely absent from this outing. Inasmuch as they don’t stir anything new in to replace what few assets they used to incorporate, only the extremely easily amused are likely to get much out of this stinker. Wish I’d skipped it

Review – The Faculty

Oh, rats. The students are onto us. I figured it was only a matter of time before they finally realized that teachers everywhere are actually vicious space aliens out to pull an Invasion of the Body Snatchers routine on them. Guess it was just too good to last. Seriously, though, I suppose the film-makers here think they can get away with a dull reheat of the whole body snatchers thing – with a hearty dose of The Thing thrown in for good measure – based on the assumption that aiming it toward high school students will give the movie an audience not yet familiar with the clichés. Some of the effects are kinda cool, good for an occasional shot that works. Otherwise most folks over the age of 17 or so will probably get more out of the original films than this repetitive outing. See if desperate

Review – Rapid Fire

Brandon Lee is beyond question the highlight of this movie, his all-too-brief career taking a pit stop here to brighten up what otherwise would have been an extremely run-of-the-mill crime-and-international-intrigue movie. The plot rambles, the script is abysmal, and the supporting cast, headed by Powers Boothe, provides very little support. But stuffed in between the ham-handed dialogue and boring plot twists, the Lee family legacy of outstanding martial arts work adds value to an otherwise valueless production. Mildly amusing

Review – Hamlet (1990)

This time around Mel Gibson takes the lead, and oddly enough it doesn’t turn out anywhere near as bad as it might have. Glenn Close (Gertrude), Helena Bonham Carter (Ophelia) and a pack of other hams share scenery with Gibson as the abbreviated version of Shakespeare’s classic unfolds. Though the celeb-intensive casting suggests a movie designed to appeal more to the masses than to highbrow drama fans, the actors take their jobs seriously and put on a reasonably good show. If you’re trying to get around an English class assignment by watching the video rather than reading the play, you could do a lot worse (though be warned: some scenes – including at least one that’s easy test-bait – are missing from the production). Mildly amusing

Review – Komodo

Remember when you were a kid and giant, man-eating lizards killed your parents and your dog? No? Well, neither does the young, amnesiac hero of this strange little tale. To help the boy confront his repressed trauma, his therapist takes him back to the scene of the crime, the family homestead on a small island off the coast of Florida. Unfortunately for the shrink, the boy, and half a dozen or so members of the supporting cast, the place is still infested with a cache of Komodo dragons. I guess it sort of goes without saying that things go badly for actors and CG lizards alike, especially when the protagonist starts having a Lord of the Flies moment. Considering that the bulk of the budget probably went into the monster effects, this didn’t turn out anywhere near as badly as it could have. Mildly amusing

Review – The Court Jester

This is one of those musicals that may look a little different to adults than it does to children. I remember seeing this movie as a kid and getting a real kick out of Danny Kaye’s skill at physical comedy. Even all these years later I get more than just a little chuckle out of the scene where Kaye, a poor jester forced by circumstance to become a knight, gets rushed through the knighthood ceremony. Even a basic summary of the twisting plot of this comedy of errors is well beyond a capsule review, so suffice it to say that the story is a bit on the sappy side, at best serving as a means to tie the goofy gags and musical numbers together. So if you’re in the mood for a little brain candy and can tolerate classic Hollywood musicals, this one’s a winner. Worth seeing

Review – Quills

Rare indeed is the movie that leaves me glad I braved the art house crowds to see it. But this one pulls it off. Geoffrey Rush does an outstanding job as the perverse and talentless yet oddly compelling Marquis de Sade, imprisoned in the Clarenton asylum and forced to smuggle his writing to press via a chambermaid (Kate Winslet). When a new, authoritarian “alienist” arrives on the scene, the Marquis finds himself bereft of writing instruments. And herein lies the true genius of the production; the plot actually proceeds from that point rather than merely wallowing in bathetic bemoaning of the evils of censorship. Our “hero” seeks alternative ways of sharing his tales, with results that ultimately prove disastrous. Who is to blame? The forces of censorship? The author? The criminals themselves? Thankfully, the film-makers provide no clear-cut answer. My only regret about this experience is that I didn’t manage to catch this film in a theater screening a decent – or at the very least non-barbecued – print, and perhaps with better speakers and fewer art-posing rubes in the seats around me. Worth seeing

Review – Explorers

For the most part this one’s strictly for the kids. The plot centers around three boys – a dreamer, a brain and an ordinary joe – who happen upon some tasty little nuggets of alien technology. After considerable pre-teen-oriented high-jinks, they manage to construct sort of a treehouse-looking ship that takes them into outer space to meet their ET benefactors. The all-too-brief encounter with the visitors from another planet is the most amusing part of the movie, at least from the perspective of anyone above the age of 12. However, as kids’ movies go this isn’t half bad. Mildly amusing

Review – Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure

Who would ever have thought that there would be such a fine line between absurdism and simple stupidity? The concept here is that humanity’s future depends on whether or not two slackers pass their history class. So an emissary from tomorrow gives our heroes a time-traveling phone booth that allows them to collect a squad of historical figures and take them back to San Dimas to aid in the presentation of a make-or-break final report. To be sure, most of the jokes here are pretty dumb, along the same order as Wayne’s World and Beavis and Butthead, though Bill and Ted came first by a few years. What saves this from being just another stupid slacker movie is the ironic interaction between the lofty icons of yesteryear and the lack-wit future of the human race. Worth seeing

Review – The Contender

This movie isn’t easy to categorize. For the most part it’s a political thriller about the back-room games played in an attempt to get a female senator confirmed to the Vice Presidency against strong opposition armed with a host of dirty tricks. However, there are a few comedy elements in here as well. And in the end, when honesty, justice and integrity triumph inside the beltway, of course the thing just becomes a fantasy. The star-studded cast does a solid job with a solid script. In fact, the movie’s only serious fault is that it does tend to preach a bit, particularly when it comes to liberal political issues and the sanctity of the private lives of public officials. Mildly amusing

Review – Mutiny on the Bounty (1962)

In this retelling of the long-familiar tale, Marlon Brando plays a foppish Christian to Trevor Howard’s tyrannical, arrogant Bly. Though this probably isn’t anyone’s finest work, Brando’s performance stands out as especially bad. For openers, he’s the only actor in the cast who’s merely pretending to be British. Further, his portrayal of the leader of the mutineers makes it seem for all the world as if the character is motivated solely (or at least primarily) by his distaste for Bly as a social inferior who dares lord his military rank over an aristocrat. That would have been acceptable, I suppose, but it’s hard to reconcile with the tortured soul Christian becomes once the mutiny has been accomplished. The movie “adjusts” some facts and invents others to keep the story going, but then what movie doesn’t? In the end (which is a long time in coming) this isn’t a bad version of the classic tale. It’s just not especially enthralling. Mildly amusing

Review – The Tailor of Panama

Author John LeCarre and director John Boorman try their hands at British-style black comedy with this Our Man in Havana-flavored offering. Geoffrey Rush stars as a tailor with politically prominent Panamanian clients, a mass of bad debts and a checkered past. Enter Pierce Brosnan as a smarmy MI-6 agent exiled to Panama and looking to use his charm to pull off a money-making scam and make a clean break out of the business. Rush complies with Brosnan’s demands for information about his clients by inventing a make-believe revolutionary movement that the spy then persuades his handlers and their American counterparts to fund. Most of the resulting humor and irony are pretty old hat, buoyed up only marginally by solid production values, decent acting and a passable script. Mildly amusing

Review – The Mummy Returns

As does the bulk of the cast from the 1999 original – less the characters who were irrevocably killed in the first round – supplemented by The Rock (virtually line-free, by the way) and a handful of other disposable supporting roles. The plot and the special effects are back again as well. Sadly, this time around the script leaves a bit to be desired. The story isn’t exactly what you’d call tight, suffering from several twists that come and go without contributing much to the overall tale. Still, I suppose it does its job, assuming that job is to glue the action sequences together. For the most part the fights, chases and scare shots work well. I particularly enjoyed the evil warriors despite wondering why they decided to model them after relatively benign Annubis rather than the actual Egyptian god of darkness, Set. On the other hand, I could have done without the mini-mummies that looked like bizarre combos of fetuses and the Zuni Warrior Fetish Doll from Trilogy of Terror. Though the first one was better, this one’s not a bad way to kill a couple of hours. However, DVD viewers be warned: the “Collector’s Edition” disc is poorly assembled, including extra features of poor technical quality and no option for widescreen viewing. Mildly amusing

Review – Evolution

Here’s unfortunate proof that you can have a decent script, competent direction, expensive effects and a collection of A-minus-list stars and still come up with something that doesn’t last in the theaters. To be sure, this isn’t a great movie; don’t look for it in any categories at the Oscars. Further, it lacks a solid hook. There’s no sex, only bush-league, harmless violence, and none of the heroes or monsters seem like they’d make marketable action figures. And sure, the plot’s an overblown, fauna-rather-than-flora reheat of “The Lonesome Death of Jordy Verrill” (or Die, Monster, Die! or any one of a dozen other stories and movies that have used the same general plot line). Despite all that, the movie’s clever and entertaining, certainly more so than many more successful efforts. Of course, maybe I just liked it because the heroes were a couple of community college professors. Worth seeing

Review – Psycho 4: The Beginning

A radio psychologist devotes a show to boys who killed their mothers, and who should call in but our old pal Norman Bates. The tale that unfolds is primarily made up of flashbacks to Norman: the early years. As it turns out, Norman’s mother wasn’t the old crone we thought she was. Instead, she’s an attractive if slightly insane young woman who enjoys an intensely Oedipal relationship with her son, a relationship even more physically Freudian than implied in the first three Psycho movies. The back-story might have worked quite well if the presentation had been a little more even, but the flashbacks appear to show up out of chronological order. The result is a story that’s interesting but occasionally a bit hard to follow. The script also relies heavily on slasher movie clichés (the villain that won’t die, and so on). This isn’t a bad example of the genre, but it might have been better. Mildly amusing

Review – Moulin Rouge

Inasmuch as I’ve never had much of a fondness for either Busby Berkley movies or for crack, it should come as no surprise that I didn’t get much out of this 21st-century parade of the former under the influence of the latter. Nicole Kidman and Ewan McGregor star (and John Leguizamo squeaks around the set as Toulouse Lautrec) in this odd blend of traditional musical, simple boy-meets-girl-boy-loses-girl-boy-sorta-gets-girl tale and MTV-style music video. When the production seems to be having fun free-basing jump-cuts, fin de siecle decadence and lyrics from inane pop songs, it’s actually a surprisingly amusing experience. Unfortunately toward the end the movie appears to want to be taken seriously, something it might have worked harder to merit. So once again the axiom is demonstrated: the line between irony and stupidity is all too fine. Mildly amusing

Review – The Company of Wolves

If ever a film deserved an E for effort, this one should get it. How many other horror movies explore the sexual dimensions of lycanthropy from a woman’s point of view? Though there’s a fair amount of gore-intensive effects work to be found here, for the most part this production is a sober treatment of werewolf legends – ranging from witchcraft and pacts with Satan right down to Little Red Riding Hood – loosely woven together by an adolescent girl’s dreams. Thus the ambiguous, frightening yet alluring experience of sexual awakening becomes the main theme of the picture. And if nothing else, you have to love the “wolves” the film-makers use; most if not all of the live canines in the movie are obviously fluffy dogs, occasionally menacing but more often than not merely cute. Worth seeing

Review – Monkeybone

This silly little romp almost literally drips Tim Burton, though his name appears nowhere in the credits. In fact, it’s hard not to think Beetlejuice in relation not only to the art direction but also to the plot and some of the characters. Unfortunately, this outing doesn’t fill the shoes it has decided to put on. Brendan Fraser plays a cartoonist who – thanks to a car wreck – ends up with his body in a coma and his mind imprisoned in a bizarre limbo called Downtown. Every once in awhile there’s an amusing bit, usually some form of goofy physical comedy. Mostly it’s just silly, diverting but not much more. Oh, and that bit in the rating card about nudity: Dave Foley’s butt (so Bridget Fonda fans needn’t get their hopes up). Mildly amusing

Review – Psycho 3

Norman Bates is back up to his old tricks again. This time around the love interest is an ex-nun looking for a little kindness and finding it in a very dangerous place. The antagonist side is shared by a no-good drifter and a nosy reporter eager to dig up Norman’s past. Unfortunately for all concerned, Norman has already dug up his own past and has it sitting in a rocking chair in the usual spot upstairs. Though Anthony Perkins does a good job in his typecast role, by this point the series has devolved to the level of run-of-the-mill slasher flick, a genre easily recognized by the heavy reliance on gore and nudity. See if desperate

Review – Cliffhanger

Yes, indeed it is. One cliffhanger after another, as a matter of fact. But even without the brutal honesty of the title, what else would one expect from a Sylvester Stallone mountain climbing movie? There’s a weak excuse for a plot here someplace, some nonsense about estranged buddies versus evil skyjackers, but the story and characters are so obviously mere excuses for the action sequences, effects and vistas that it’s hard to criticize them for being bad. Some of the thrills are mildly thrilling, and I’m sure the endangered wildlife accidentally killed by the film crew would gladly have laid down their lives knowing that the mountainscapes were going to be so attractively photographed. See if desperate

Review – Swordfish

Here’s yet another one of those sad attempts to imitate John Woo that falls miserably short. This time around John Travolta plays an out-of-control shadow government operative who’s spearheading an obscure plot to steal more than nine billion bucks’ worth of DEA funds and use them to finance a covert war against terrorism. To pull off his scheme, he enlists the help of the world’s best computer cracker, enticing him with Halle Berry and blackmailing him with threats against his daughter. As with most movies in this particular genre, this flick depends heavily on effects and action sequences to carry it (though a chortling moron a few rows down from me in the theater evidently thought a lot more of the script than I did). The action stuff’s not bad, but it isn’t especially good either. And really, that sums up the production as a whole. Mildly amusing

Review – Proof of Life

If you’re in the mood for some seriously formulaic action movie mix, then you’ve come to the right place. We’ve got plenty of shooting and explosions for the guys, and for their dates we have Russell Crowe as a security consultant / hostage negotiator / mercenary who makes it his mission in life to help helpless Meg Ryan recover her husband from Latin American guerrillas. Though the plot includes a couple of holes big enough to drive a tank through, for the most part this is an amusing romp through the world of testosterone-driven political intrigue with a hearty dose of the whole someone-to-watch-over-me thing thrown in for good measure. If you like this sort of thing, this is an excellent example of it. Mildly amusing

Review – Grim

When they were questing around for an adjective to use as the title for this outing, they probably should have gone with “Cheap.” Or perhaps “Boring.” Or maybe just plain ol’ “Stupid.” The story – to the extent that there is one – centers around a big rubber monster that lives in some caves below a housing development. If I understood the beginning of the movie correctly, the thing was somehow brought to life by a seance or something like that. Once revived, the latex baddie goes on the rampage, sucking people right out of their living rooms and carting them off to his underground lair. Unaware of the specific nature of the problem, a group of disgruntled landowners goes spelunking. And on and on the cave exploration goes, occupying endless minutes of thoroughly uninteresting screen time. Bad thing is, even after the hapless victims run up against the vicious monster, the movie doesn’t get radically more interesting. I guess I’ve seen worse “attack of the men in rubber suits” movies, but at the moment no examples are coming to mind. See if desperate