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Film Clips
Reviews by Gene Armstrong, James DiGiovanna and Linsay Hernon.
BALLISTIC: ECKS VS SEVER. Director Kaos (short for his real name, Wych Kaosayananda) must have sensed the chemistry, or at least the photogenic appeal, of hottie actors Lucy Liu and Antonio Banderas when they appeared together in the 1999 boxing picture Play It to the Bone. Because they look really sexy in this new all-action film, which itself has an unwieldy mouthful of a name. And it's a misleading one, too. Ecks (Banderas) and Sever (Liu) are globetrotting ultra-spies who merely start out battling each other, each assuming the other is responsible for their respective missing loved ones. They soon realize they must work together to fight a common enemy (Gregg Henry) who purposely has pitted them against each other. Wild and wooly martial-arts action--Banderas and Liu trained extensively in preparation--and lots of pyrotechnic destruction can't mask that there's little in the way of story. Just two great-looking performers wearing black and kicking some butt. If that's your cuppa, drink up. --Armstrong
BANGER SISTERS. Screenwriter Bob Dolman (Far and Away, Willow) directs his first feature in this tale of two middle-aged women--played with professional skill and endless heart by Goldie Hawn and Susan Sarandon--and their clumsy but earnest reunion after 20 years apart. The catch is that the two women are ex-groupies from the 1970s, and now they couldn't be more different from each other. Hawn's character is still a rocker who, after losing her bartending job in a L.A. hard-rock nightclub, drives her El Camino to Phoenix to discover that Sarandon's character has become a gated-community soccer mom whose husband and kids are oblivious to her past. Geoffrey Rush bums a ride as an obsessive-compulsive writer traveling to the Valley of the Sun to commit fratricide--really. After some uncomfortable, fish-out-of-water interludes for both women, touching sisterly bonding ensues. Dolman's got a decent outline for a promising movie here, but he neglected to flesh out his character sketches with credible pathos. --Armstrong
BARBERSHOP. Homespun values, respect for community and the sturdiness of habit are emphasized in this new comedy-drama in which rapper-actor Ice Cube plays Calvin, a South Chicago fellow who inherits the titular business from his dad, initially finds it lacking in the hipness department, sells it to a shady street character, and then spends the rest of the movie trying to get the place back. Comedian Cedric the Entertainer (The Original Kings of Comedy) co-stars as the senior tonsorial technician, expounding on every subject under the sun, including those he doesn't know a thing about; his 'do, by the way, is a delightful sailboat of hair. Sean Patrick Thomas (Save the Last Dance) and chart-topping rapper Eve also contribute respectable jobs in this warm-hearted tale of life in the old-school neighborhood. It's sweet and non-threatening; following his stoner comedies and action-film roles, it marks a pleasant change of pace for Cube. --Armstrong
BLUE CRUSH. Would it be too hokey to call this entertaining final-days-of-summer flick as refreshing as a face full of sea mist? Maybe, but so be it. Not unlike a Gidget Goes Girl Power, this charmingly modest film--directed by John Stockwell, on the heels of his Crazy/Beautiful--concerns three surfing pals who live for the waves and who just happen to be young, attractive women. Budding blonde star of the moment Kate Bosworth plays Anne Marie, who hangs 10 with roomies Michelle Rodriquez (Girlfight) and Sanoe Lake. Tucson actress Mika Boorem plays Anne Marie's little sister. The Maui-based wave-crashing action is exciting and photogenic, and, duh, so are the women. Amid this summer of high-tech chases, big-time explosions and record-breaking box office, the fact that the major plot conflict in this movie comes down to something as simple and dramatic as a surfing contest is, well, refreshing. --Armstrong
CITY BY THE SEA. It's the compelling cop drama of NYPD Blue without the bare butts and shaky camera work, and the dysfunctional family of Roseanne without the controversial comedienne and her gyrating voice in this intense and witty biopic of Vincent LaMarca based on a 1997 Esquire Magazine article by Pulitzer Prize winner, Michael McAlay. Robert DeNiro stars as, you guessed it, a New York homicide detective whose troubled past catches up with him when the prime suspect in a murder case turns out to be his drug-addicted, street-walking estranged son (James Franco). Director Michael Caton-Jones skillfully juxtaposes a decadent family with a deteriorated city, as one steadily is restored while the other continues on its downward spiral. City by the Sea is a movie you must sea. --Hernon
FOUR FEATHERS. Following at least five earlier films of the titular Victorian novel by A.E.W. Mason, The Four Feathers has the ingredients of a sweeping, old-fashioned epic, including starched-lip British soldiers bonding in richly brocaded English ball scenes and over brutal violence in the Sudan. Directed by Shekhar Kapur (Elizabeth), it obsessively explores traditional concepts of honor, bravery and friendship, adding a juicy love triangle for spice. The cast includes attractive young performers such as Heath Ledger, Wes Bentley and Kate Hudson, managing not to embarrass themselves. But, as a result of a perfunctory script, supremely sloppy editing and a lack of overall vision, nothing in the picture seems to hang together. One thing just happens after another, and how we get from there to here seems to be missing. But Aussie heartthrob Ledger, as conflicted hero Harry Feversham, looks very cool and almost Jesus-like in Lawrence of Arabia mode: long hair and beard, dirty face and a turban. --Armstrong
THE GOOD GIRL. This is being hailed as Jennifer Aniston's breakout film, and thank God, because it's about time she became a star. Actually, the movie belongs to the minor characters, including Zooey Deschanel as a potty-mouthed department store clerk, and screenwriter Mike White as a wimpy, Christian security guard. When not making fun of shoppers and the religious, the film is a rehash of the old middle-aged-woman-unsatisfied-with-her-life story. Aniston plays Justine, whose stoner husband doesn't seem so cool now that she's not in high school. She falls for young Holden, a sensitive writer manqué who comes off as the exact opposite of her unwanted spouse. Shockingly, things don't work out swimmingly, and drama ensues. You'll probably have fun anticipating the next plot twist, as they're all telegraphed with the urgency of Titanic S.O.S. Still, as standard and safe as it is, the film is well made and passably funny, and I guess that's all we're looking for in this brief interim between bloody Asian conflicts. --DiGiovanna
MOSTLY MARTHA. Writer-director Sandra Nettlelbeck helms this charming, German-language romantic comedy that should delight foodie fans of such foreign and independent fare as Big Night, Like Water for Chocolate and Babette's Feast. Martha Klein (Martina Gedeck) is a meticulous, detail-oriented head chef in a chi-chi restaurant. For her, everything has its proper place. Martha's life becomes marginally more complicated when she takes charge of her orphaned, 8-year-old niece Lina (Maxime Foerste), who has come to live with her. Things really heat up in the kitchen, though, when the restaurant's new sous chef turns out to be a laid-back, eccentric and eventually hot-blooded Italian named Mario (Sergio Castellitto)--he is everything that the buttoned-down Martha is not. You'll be able to guess the results of this recipe long before the movie's end, but it goes down like a light, delicious crepe. --Armstrong
ONE HOUR PHOTO. A visual stunning movie about visual imagery, One Hour Photo tells the tell of Sy Parrish, who lives only to develop photographs. Sy becomes obsessed with the Yorkins, a young family whose snapshots indicate perfect happiness. When he finds that the reality behind their Kodak moments is not all it's cracked up to be, Sy himself cracks up a bit, and things spiral into super-creepville. Shockingly, Sy is extremely well played by the normally notoriously annoying Robin Williams. Even more shocking, this beautiful, understated film is directed by a guy whose only previous work was a bunch of Madonna and Nine Inch Nails videos. By placing many of the important thematic elements in the style and color of the visual compositions, director Mark Romanek makes the best possible use of cinema. Though there are a few false notes, and the story isn't terribly ambitious, this is an extremely compelling first film, and is, so far, one of the year's best. --DiGiovanna
POSSESSION. Gifted director Neil LaBute (In the Company of Men, Nurse Betty) gets all literary and costume drama on us by tackling this adaptation of A.S. Byatt's 1990 novel--LaBute co-wrote the screenplay with noted playwright David Henry Hwang--about a mystery in which two entirely too sexy academics (Gwyneth Paltrow, Aaron Eckhart) discover a forbidden epistolary love between a pair of Victorians (Jennifer Ehle, Jeremy Northam). The juxtaposition of a period romance and a modern one is sorta cool, but a novel about reading letters doesn't necessarily make a compelling motion picture. And it's telling that the two buttoned-up lovers from 100 years earlier create more heat than the modern pair. As movies about literary suspense go, it's much better than Roman Polanski's The Ninth Gate, a horrible cinematic version of Arturo Pérez-Reverte's The Club Dumas, but it's no great shakes either. --Armstrong
ROAD TO PERDITION. Based on a graphic-novel by crime writer Max Allan Collins, this is the second movie directed by Sam Mendes, whose first was the Academy Award-winning American Beauty. It marks an about-face from that post-modern dysfunctional-family epic. Set in the wintry Depression-era Midwest, Road to Perdition gives us instead a functional and happy family in which the stern-though-loving father, Michael Sullivan (Tom Hanks, effortlessly discarding his stereotypical nice-guy image), just happens to be a hit man for the Irish-American Mafia. Some internecine complications and the dishonorable son of mob boss Paul Newman result in the murder of Sullivan's wife (Jennifer Jason Leigh) and youngest son. So he and his 12-year-old son (Tylor Hoechlin) embark on a picturesque road trip of revenge and, believe it or not, spiritual redemption. Jude Law contributes a decent job as a sleazy photojournalist-cum-assassin. Beautiful period settings, a well-paced plot and understated acting make this a film to savor. For once, the hype about Oscar expectations seems warranted. --Armstrong
SERVING SARA. There's the great and compelling movie you'd rush to theaters to see immediately. Then there is the mediocre one that sparks a hint of interest, but you'd rather wait to see it when it's released on video. And then there is the rather pathetic movie that you'd only watch if you were completely bored, had nothing better to do, and it just happened to be airing on cable TV. Well, this cat and mouse hodgepodge by director Reginald Hudlin is one of those cable TV losers. Matthew Perry stars as the Chandler Bing of James Bondian process servers whose wannabe suave and intensity is as real and convincing as Pamela Anderson's breasts. However, the Friend's performance is at least more forgiving than the exceedingly bouncy and bubbly trophy wife of an adulterous cattle rancher, played by Elizabeth Hurley, who needs her own set of pompoms to make her overzealous cheerleader-esque personality complete. Together the two misfits team up and become entangled in juvenile competitions, monster truck rallies and impotent bulls as they play Who Can Deliver the Divorce Papers First. Writing duo Jay Scherick and David Ronn collaborate on the screenplay for I Spy, due out later this year, which does not bode well for that TV series adaptation after the likes of this big screen disaster. --Hernon
SIGNS. M. Night Shyamalan delivers a gorgeously filmed family drama with a witty script and a tight, suspenseful plot. How did he do it? He took all the money that Hollywood was throwing at him, and he decided not to spend it on special effects. Instead, he makes the best and most careful use of camera possible, he trained his actors into a weird and mannered style that is both creepy and funny, and he spent some time writing a script that focuses on plot and dialogue instead of explosions and gadgets. It's not a deep film, nor will it challenge your conceptions of faith and self and love. What it is, more than anything, is a well-done version of a 1950s ultra-low-budget sci-fi/horror film. Still, well-done anything beats half-baked and over-priced hands down. --DiGiovanna
SPY KIDS 2: THE ISLAND OF LOST DREAMS. The Cortez family is back in action as writer-director Robert Rodriguez (Desperado) stands to make a bundle from this second installment in his family-oriented espionage-action franchise. This time, Carmen and Juni (Alexa Vega and Daryl Sabara) are off to the titular isle where they find mutated animals and a Dr. Moreau-type mad scientist (Steve Buscemi). Their goal? Save the world from an energy crisis, I think. The plot tends to take a back seat to the gadget-heavy action. In fact, Rodriguez seems to have made up for the slim story with lots of cool bells and whistles in the form of computer-generated effects. Carmen and Juni bicker and cooperate with the charm of real siblings, though. And you can't help but appreciate the Latino heroes whether pint-size or grown-up--it should be noted that the gorgeous Cortez parents (Antonio Banderas, Carla Gugino) return with their star appeal, as well. --Armstrong
STEALING HARVARD. Remember Dog Park, Superstar, or even Dick? Didn't think so. Well, director Bruce McColloch was responsible for those easily forgettable catastrophes as well as for this latest cinematic shortcoming that earns the futile filmmaker yet another failing grade. But at least his track record is still intact, right? Jason Lee stars in a wasted effort as a pitiful worker bee at his father-in-law's medical supply factory and has finally saved enough money to buy his first home with his gift basket-making girlfriend. However, his free-spirited trailer-trash sister with Peg Bundy hair (Megan Mullally) reminds her absentminded sibling of his promise to pay his niece's college tuition, which just so happens to be the same amount as his hard-earned nest egg. Just when the film couldn't get any worse, it does when the unfunny funny-man, Tom Green, steps in as the pathetic landscape architect with an obnoxious sense of humor. He manages to attract lonely widowed judges with kinky sex fetishes and gun-wielding liquor store clerks while trying to swindle a cool 30 grand for his needy friend. With the erudition of Hollywood's fall term underway, it is a mystery as to why dumb summer flicks such as this have graduated to the next grade, and why Freddy Got Fingered's leading man hasn't flunked out yet. --Hernon
SUNSHINE STATE. Writer/Director John Sayles juggles an ensemble cast and several subplots using timely editing and fluid handheld camera work in this charming yet temporarily memorable film. When a large developing corporation threatens to transform a quaint little Florida beach town into a money-making mess of strip malls, resorts and tourist attractions, the local townsfolk let us glimpse their complex lives and personal beliefs concerning the politics of progress that have both racial and social origins. An independent business owner (Edie Falco) exhausted at the helm of her family-owned motel/restaurant, an ostracized daughter turned infomercial diva (Angela Bassett) now aware of the sentimental importance of her hometown, and genealogy and a determined local man proud of his African-American heritage yet disgruntled by the Civil Rights repercussions are just a few of the colorful characters that skillfully feed the corporate versus kindred theme. Despite the poignant plot and subplots, this lengthy drama ultimately leaves you indifferent and in a cloudy State. --Hernon
SWEET HOME ALABAMA. Should you marry the hopelessly romantic preppy do-gooder of high society who will be the next President of the United States with deep pockets and a poofy pompadour hairdo, or your childhood sweetheart, the downtrodden kick with a 12 o'clock shadow, ripped jeans and a broken past? Melanie Carmichael, New York's up-and-coming fashion diva, who turned her back on her small town roots and delinquent past of feline explosions for a life in the fast-paced big city, must choose between the man of money and materials from the personification of true love and happiness. The cute and bubbly little Meg Ryan, aka Reese Witherspoon, steals every scene as the perplexed woman in this light-hearted, yet overtly cartoonish, all-around feel good fun flick by director Andy Tennant. --Hernon
TRAPPED. When filmmakers do not show an advanced screening for critics, it is usually because they realize the true Ed Wood quality of their product, as was the case with box office dud Autumn in New York. However, with the recent real-life onslaught of child abductions, Columbia Pictures chose to avoid the pre-release of director Luis Mandoki's film adaptation of Greg Iles' novel entitled 24 Hours, which portrays a fictionalized kidnapping of a young girl, played by Dakota Fanning. With just the right amount of eerie creepiness, Kevin Bacon plays a good bad guy in the role of the wicked snatcher who has a dual motive of deep-seeded revenge and twisted family counselor charging $250,000 per day. But his performance may be the only redeeming quality of the action thriller since Stuart Townsend makes a feeble attempt to make light of the improper casting choice as the upper class anesthesiologist. The shaky hand-held camera work leaves you screaming for Excedrin at the end of the 99 minutes, with Courtney Love's hairdresser all together failing to finish the job. In the end, the high stake finale succumbs to utter absurdity. Whatever the real reason was for a failed pre-screening opportunity, it's a shame that I couldn't warn you off from this film that is trapped in Ed Wood quality. --Hernon
THE TUXEDO. Why, oh why, do American producers insist on tossing Jackie Chan (a martial arts superstar and estimable comedian in his own right) over and over into a series of annoying buddy pictures? It's the money, stupid! With Chris Tucker in Rush Hour and Owen Wilson in Shaghai Noon, Chan has built two formidable franchises in which the impressiveness of the martial arts action (Wow Factor) decreases in direct proportion to the amount of inane situational humor (Groan Factor). The makers of The Tuxedo can't even decide who's supposed to be Chan's instantly marketable buddy. First, it's Jason Isaacs as Chan's boss, a Brit secret agent named Clark Devlin and whose tux contains hidden powers. When Devlin gets knocked out for a few days and Chan dons the monkey suit, it's Jennifer Love Hewitt as a junior-grade spy who thinks Chan is Devlin. They must foil an evil billionaire who wants to--more with the groans--poison the world's water supply. And since when does Chan need invisible wires and camera effects to do his stunts --Armstrong
XXX. Admit it: Whenever you see or hear the title of this new flick--showcasing ultra-buff Vin Diesel as extreme-athlete-turned-secret-agent Xander Cage--you half hope it refers to the rating. No such luck. In this film by Rob Cohen (who directed Diesel in last year's hot-rod spectacular The Fast and the Furious), X Games collide with a James Bond for the '00s. Stunt fans will love this picture, in which Diesel does such things as ride a metal tray down a handrail, flee from snowmobiles on a snowboard and has a fire fight in a bona fide castle. The story has something to do with some rogue Russian soldiers starting a terrorist team in the Czech Republic. The exotic locations, including some nice views of Prague, are a plus. Super-bad Samuel L. Jackson and eye candy Asia Argento add to the movie's appeal. As for Diesel, he couldn't be more Diesel: all fueled up and with everywhere to go. Action-film fans could do worse than this. --Armstrong
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