Review – Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone

I almost hate to admit it, but I kinda liked this movie. I went in with a strong sense of skepticism about the whole Harry Potter phenomenon and its attendant exploitation of sibling rivalry, resentful elitism and other forms of pre-adolescent anxiety. Throw in a bunch of new age, fantasy-ass foolishness and a hearty dose of English boarding school charm – or lack of same – and you’ve got the perfect recipe for a movie I’m going to hate. So I was more than a little surprised to find myself enjoying the whole thing in an inner-child sort of way. This doesn’t rank among the top ten films in history or anything like that. Indeed, I’m still glad I didn’t pay anything for the experience (HBO free weekend). But I’m far from sorry I watched it. Mildly amusing

Review – Men in Black 2

At least AC/DC doesn’t show up on the soundtrack. But that’s just about the only thing this mediocre sequel has going for it. Sure, there’s a funny sight gag here and there. Trouble is, most of them are past the midpoint of the movie, when the lackluster script and mailed-in performances have had a good hour or so to wear out the picture’s welcome. Further, just about the whole show assumes you’ve seen the first movie, so if you skipped the original you’ll want to skip this one as well. That notwithstanding, if you’re in search of something that cost a lot to produce and won’t challenge you mentally at the end of a long work week, you’ve come to the right place. Mildly amusing

Review – The Unholy

Poor Ben Cross. Just a few measly years before he made this dud he was starring in Oscar-quality stuff. Now he’s playing second fiddle to a half-nekkid bony demon chick. For those who are easily amused by female nudity, I expect this will be as entertaining as any one of dozens of other representatives of its ilk. Beyond that, though, there just ain’t much here. I wanted to see it because it featured a priest (Cross) squaring off against a demon (nekkid chick). But the plot’s too meandering and stupid to provide much amusement, and the effects are way too cheap to do much justify an otherwise lackluster entry in the sub-genre. The dog death around midway through didn’t help matters any. Wish I’d skipped it

Review – Ripper: Letter from Hell

Movie from Hell is more like it. The only connection between the story here and the legendary Jack the Ripper murders from Victorian England is that people get killed. Supposedly there’s some kind of modus operandi link, but given the movie villain’s lack of discrimination regarding tools and victim genders, it’s hard to regard the connection as anything more than superficial. That tie severed, all we have here is yet another tiresome, who-done-it-why-done-it-who-gives-a-crap slasher movie. Final nail in the coffin: copious use of trite “think outside the box” cliché. Wish I’d skipped it

Review – Eight-Legged Freaks

Wow. A horror comedy that turns out to be neither scary nor funny. That’s a shock. Honestly, the most entertaining moment in the entire movie is when the sinister soundtrack picks up the melody from “The Eensy Weensy Spider.” Otherwise this is a tedious parade of clichés brandished at the audience with nary a trace of genuine irony. The picture depends primarily on the digital spider effects for its appeal, which would have worked a lot better if the quality had been a bit more consistent or the giant arachnids had been employed for chills rather than comic relief. Wish I’d skipped it

Review – Rose Red

This is Stephen King’s best screen effort since Creepshow, which is saying something considering we’re talking strictly about the small screen. Viewers seeking the cutting edge of horror should probably seek elsewhere; the screenplay is highly derivative of a number of sources ranging from Shirley Jackson and Richard Matheson right down to some of King’s earlier work. But I suppose a little unoriginality is to be expected for just about any haunted house story. Sure they’re clichés, but many of them work. The apparent obligation to make this into a mini-series probably contributed to some trouble with the story’s pacing, including an excess of supporting characters and sub-plots. The two-disc set also includes a fun fakeumentary that puts a Blair Witch spin on the tale. Overall anyone seeking a good ghost story should be able to derive plenty of fun from this lengthy example of the sub-genre. Worth seeing

Review – Sexy Beast

Honestly, the FTC should force Fox to remove the word “Sexy” from the title of this stinker, if for no other reason than the fact that the limited supply of sex here all involves flabby, pasty Englishmen. Rather than erotica, this is a poor excuse for an over-arty caper movie whose cast universally delivers their slang-ridden lines in such thick accents that my wife finally turned on the subtitles just so we could figure out what was being said. Not that comprehension contributed much to enjoyment of the movie. Ben Kingsley is a particular stand-out; his character is supposed to be evil and menacing, but his obscenity-laced tirades are so witless they’re almost funny. The final kicker was the soundtrack, which alternated between lounge tunes and grating industrial noise. Wish I’d skipped it

Review – Waiting for Guffman

Unless I’m forgetting something somewhere, this is the last movie I actually saw twice in a movie theater. Christopher Guest (who also directed and co-wrote) stars as a flamboyant dramaturge relocated from off-Broadway to way-off-Broadway in small town Missouri. This is neither the first nor the last time Guest has used the fakeumentary format, and he employs it here to great effect to tell the tale of a group of earnest but inept thespians staging the town’s sesquicentennial pageant. Though the overall story never rises much beyond the level of silly farce, a few of the jokes are absolutely priceless. Good acting and fairly even pace help a lot, too. The disc comes with some good extras, including several deleted scenes that fill in a few gaps in the plot. Buy the disc

Review – The Godfather Saga

Here’s a real trade-off: you can see the whole Godfather story (at least the good parts, i.e. one and two) re-cut in chronological order, plus a load of new footage. However, you’ll have to give up the original aspect ratio and anything considered too risqué for TV, at least unless and until they ever release an uncut Godfather Saga disc. Fans will certainly want to take in both versions, because at least some of the extra scenes add character development or make minor plot points work a little better. My only real disappointment was that the Cuban sequences featured little if any new material. Otherwise this was a nice way to spend a couple of evenings. Worth seeing

Review – O

If Taming of the Shrew became an entertaining teen movie after a little modernization of plot and dialogue, then naturally we should be able to do the same thing with Othello, right? Wrong. The guys who made this irritant of a movie even went so far as to get Julia Stiles (late of 10 Things I Hate About You) to play “Desi.” But it just flat out doesn’t work. To begin with, the plot’s heavy reliance on basketball-related twists make the movie inaccessible to the non-jock audience. And worse, the interracial sex themes that might have been provocative even as late as ten years ago now seem at best trite and at worst downright mawkish. The final nail in the coffin is the juvenile sense of morality that pervades the entire show, particularly the kindergarten-level “just say no” drug references. Maybe if I hadn’t wanted this to be a better movie I would have been more tolerant of its faults. See if desperate

Review – Insomnia

Which is what the people who made this should suffer from. I know I’ve said this before, but once again it applies all too well: they should have spent a lot more on the script and a lot less on the actors. As it turns out, however, we get Al Pacino playing a dedicated but subtly crooked cop trying to track down a killer (Robin Williams cast against type in a thou-doth-protest-too-much sort of way). The plot features the usual blend of cloudy motives, annoying subplots and the like. Indeed the only novel element here is the protagonist’s overpowering inability to sleep, brought on either by his own guilty conscience, the midnight sun of northern Alaska, or both. The locations are pretty, and the cinematographer works well with them. But inasmuch as this is supposed to be a murder mystery rather than a travelogue, I’d hoped for a little more. Mildly amusing

Review – Richard III (1995)

My biggest gripe here (aside from the play not exactly being my favorite Shakespearian effort) is that Ian McKellen’s performance in the title role is so delightfully over-wrought that it ends up making a loathsome character just a little too adorable. Some of the celebrity casting is a little inappropriate as well; for instance, Robert Downey Jr. doesn’t quite seem up to even a supporting role. However, all that’s more than made up for by the genuinely interesting art direction. The language is pure Elizabethan England, but the sets and costumes are far more evocative of the reign of Edward VIII, providing an intriguing parallel between the semi-fictional Richard’s Nazi garb and the real-life Edward’s Nazi sympathies. And if nothing else, it’s nice to see a modern film adaptation of anything by the Bard that isn’t clogged with witless teen stars who seem as if they’ve learned their lines the same way ABBA was rumored to have learned their English lyrics. Worth seeing

Review – Vampires: Los Muertos

You might want to sit down for this one: Jon Bon Jovi is the best actor in this whole movie. Seriously. The female lead has to be the director’s girlfriend or something, because she pretty much makes Mariah Carey look like Meryl Streep. And speaking of people finding jobs for their friends, Tommy Lee Wallace should count himself darn lucky to still be good buds with John Carpenter. Though Wallace has done good work in the past, he isn’t exactly keeping a streak alive here. His awkward screenplay and prosaic direction run a neck-and-neck race for worst element of the movie, which is saying a great deal considering the stiff competition from the stiff cast. All that set aside, however, the thing that really floored me was that they managed to set the movie in Mexico during the Day of the Dead festivities, yet the art direction was so mediocre that the whole thing looks like it was shot in San Diego over a long, boring Memorial Day weekend. Bad as the first John Carpenter vampire movie was, this one actually manages to top it in the stink competition. See if desperate

Review – Titus

I know this is commonly considered one of Shakespeare’s lesser efforts, but it’s got so much blood and guts and other unpleasantness that it’s hard not to get at least a minor kick out of it. This particular version features even more scenery chewing than usual, due in large part to the mastications of Anthony Hopkins in the title role. Though he plays the lead, he can scarcely be considered the star; that honor belongs to the art direction. This is one of those half-interesting, half-annoying productions that attempts to lure in contemporary audiences by supplying the cast with modern trappings such as motorcycles, video games and shotguns. Further, the sets are monolithic, sometimes adding effectively to the drama while at other times distracting and thus detracting from the action. Further, the director seriously needed to shave the prologue and epilogue sequences off. That notwithstanding, there’s enough nastiness and misery to be found here to keep the production entertaining for the most part. Mildly amusing

Review – The Brotherhood of the Wolf

Somewhere between the atmospheric horror movies of Cocteau and Polanski and the frantic action flicks of Luc Besson lies this odd tale of an 18th century French village terrorized by a ravening Beast. As a mystery movie it doesn’t work at all, but fortunately the film-makers appear to recognize this shortcoming and compensate by throwing in a fair measure of sex and gore. Production values are solid, and this might have been a better picture (with a slightly better rating) were it not for the decision to include racism of a sort even Hollywood has started to move past, sexism that wasn’t even consistent with the plot, and oh way far too much animal suffering. See if desperate