Movie Review

(In theaters, July 1999) Wildly uneven pseudo-documentary about a small-town beauty pageant that turns really ugly (the pageant, not the movie). Often wickedly funny in a mean-spirited black humor way, with gags that go all the way from slapstick to social satire. The mockumentary approach is unconvincing, with its occasional jump-cuts, multiple camera edits and other contrived techniques. Not as subtle as it should have been. Should have used a narrator-driven approach, like Bob Roberts or Fear Of A Black Hat. Kirsten Dunst is adorable. Goes on for at least ten unnecessary minutes. A marginal rental choice, but a late-night movie treat.

(On TV, July 1999) The lovely Joanna Pacula (The Silence Of The Hams, Virus) continues her streak of being the most watcheable element in otherwise disappointing movies. This straight-to-video SF thriller mixes elements of detective fiction (a Pi, tortured by remorse, accepts a protection contract) with SF gadgets (nano-enhanced unkillable characters) and ends up as a film without the means to accomplish its goals. Though not without potential, Deep Red loses itself in incoherencies, unresolved plot threads and too-convenient developments. Maybe they could have saved on one of the three explosions and hired another writer… Besides Pacula, Michael Biehn (The Terminator) and John De Lancie (Star Trek: TNG) also star.

(In theaters, July 1999) Now that’s what’s a summer action movie is all about. Ignore the bad dialogue. Ignore this curious impression of déjà-vu. Ignore the bargain-basement Frankenstein lesson. Focus. Focus on the wonderfully-written action scenes. Focus on the unrelenting tension. Focus on the superbly coherent editing. Deep Blue Sea, despite its lack of intelligence, is a very clever movie in what counts; the action and the suspense. Scarier than most horror films despite not being billed as a scary movie, Deep Blue Sea redeems all of its significant flaws by been exceedingly good at pleasing the audience. It does what it has to do and does it very, very well. Special mention must be made of a totally unexpected scene that completely took our theatre by surprise. I laughed, I whooped, I gasped, I clapped: What more would I want?

(On TV, July 1999) At its heart, a one-joke sketch stretched out over ninety minutes and thirty minute’s budget: To bolster weapon sales, a capitalist convinces the United States to declare war on Canada. Starring John Candy, Alan Alda and Rhea Perlman, this intermittently funny movie paints far too good a portrait of Canada, though most Canadians will appreciate the effort. A mildly pleasant late-night movie, obviously more interesting to Canadians than Americans… A good double feature with Wag The Dog.

(On TV, July 1999) Long before David Cronenberg’s Existenz, Brainscan -superficially- explored the issues surrounding the nature of reality in an age of Virtual Reality games. Of course, this being a low-brow horror film, the result wasn’t as interesting. Still, there are a few interesting elements, though it progressively gets sillier as it advances. Besides being “all a dream”, Brainscan can’t be bothered to adhere rigidly to the rules it sets for itself, and so we get a senseless script that pretty much boasts of its senselessness. The weak payoff at the end doesn’t redeem the movie. No nudity and few good one-liners make this a marginal choice for late-night TV viewing.

(In theaters, July 1999) This didn’t work for me. Widely over-hyped as being one of the scariest movies ever made, this ultra-low-budget film is a pretty good illustration of how a clever premise can be far more intriguing than the end result. (It’s also a study in how originality and web-savvy marketing can lend itself to a boffo opening-weekend promotional push.) Unfortunately, as I’ve lamented elsewhere, originality must not be confused with entertainment and artistic merit. The Blair Witch Project is, all things considered, a fairly ordinary film that quits before getting really unnerving. (What would I have considered really unnerving? How about the true self-destruction of the trio without resort to artificial means like the witch?) The constant shaking of the handheld camera footage is immensely distracting in theatres. Charges that “this movie stimulate your imagination, you barbarian” are laughable, considering that written horror has been doing that for… oh… more than a hundred years now. While I won’t deny the effect of The Blair Witch Project on many viewers (especially those gullible enough to believe it’s “a true story”), I simply couldn’t muster any lasting feeling about it; I slept well that night. For me, the scariest thing about this film is the prospect of endless rip-offs…

(On TV, July 1999) The last gasp of the “buddy-cop” series of movies produced by Hollywood between 1984 and 1995. The ingredients are simple; two policemen protagonist with opposing personalities, drug dealers as antagonists, sunny weather, big guns and a bunch of action sequences. What makes Bad Boys special isn’t so much the rehashed plot or the Florida locale, but the dynamic direction of Michael Bay and the ineffable charm of Will Smith. Otherwise, the characters of Téa Leoni and Martin Lawrence are annoying, and so are the alleged “comedic” moments. The can-you-possibly-be-more-clichéd demise of the villain is also pretty weak. In summary: Check out the action scenes and fast-forward the rest.

(In theaters, June 1999) This has a very good central idea. The problem is that it has basically just one, and that it is fairly obvious to experienced SF readers. Thirty minutes in the movie -if not earlier-, the astute viewer is way ahead of the characters; fifteen minutes before the end, he can write the remainder of the script himself. Still, The Thirteenth Floor is very well-done, and develops in a way that far more subtle than the usual media-SF histrionics. Plus, the central concept itself is really thought-provoking. Any other year, and The Thirteenth Floor would have garnered raves everywhere. But in 1999, right after Dark City, The Truman Show, The Matrix and Existenz, understated dishes like that taste like leftovers.

(Second viewing, on DVD, June 2009): Generally overshadowed upon release by the showy pyrotechnics of The Matrix and the weirdness of Existenz, this third virtual-reality film of 1999 nonetheless holds up pretty well today: The nature of 1930s Los Angeles is blended with nineties L.A. to produce a glossy piece that plays up drama rather than techno elements. It’s undemanding SF, and it’s perhaps more intriguing because of it. Dramatically, there are a few clichés and a Big Revelation that’s Really Obvious, but no major fatal missteps: The actors do well, the revelations are held in check, and there’s a little bit of sense-of-wonder to top it all off. This isn’t a big or complicated film and however good it is, there’s a limit to how much discussion it can sustain. But it’s still worth a look, and the DVD edition presents a decent amount of deleted scenes, production notes and a decent audio commentary focused on the making of the film.

(On TV, June 1999) In this era of silly big-budget high-profile movies without a shred of redeeming value, there’s something to be said about a silly cheap B-movie that knows exactly what it is. (It does star Jean-Claude Van Damme…) Writer/Director Stephen de Souza isn’t as clever as he thinks he is (and could have done much better anyway), but adults and kids alike can watch Street Fighter without too much embarrassment. A few good one-liners, and some visual gags (like Kylie Minogue’s Cammy progressively evolving from straight-laced British major to blue-latex videogame heroine) pepper this rather enjoyable-in-a-silly-way film. A shame that Raul Julia’s career had to end with this. Oh, and Ming-Na Wen is… er… wow… Is it any wonder I’m developing an Asian fetish?

(Second Viewing, On TV, June 1999) I had first seen this film on video in 1993 or 1994, and kept mostly good memories of this SF drama. It’s a measure of either malleable memory or evolving tastes that a second viewing several years later provoked an almost exactly opposite impression: Many special effects look cheap in this era of computer-generated imagery, the acting is laughably bad, the plot is beyond ludicrous and the dialogue plain silly. The science is so wrong that it’s charitable to suspect that the writer hasn’t got a clue. While some sequences do crank up the tension effectively, they’re almost immediately overshadowed by the remainder of this lousy film. If SF is a genre that provokes speculation, the best that Solar Crisis can do is to make one wonder what the flaming heck were Charlton Heston and Jack Palance doing in this piece of celluloid trash.

(On TV, June 1999) Let’s establish right away that Adam Sandler and I have nothing in common. According to rumor, I read more books in a month than he’s read in his entire life. I flatter myself by thinking myself superior to his intended frat-boy audience. I was unable at first to sit through more than five minutes of Billy Madison. And yet, I found Happy Gilmore to be adequately amusing. Why was this tale of a reluctant golfer trying to do good so funny? Was it the hockey jokes? The non-sequitur humor? The cartoon violence? The (Subway) unrepentant (Subway) product (Subway) placement (including Subway)? Or the fact that I was high on a buzz of chocolate chip cookies? Whatever the reason, I might try to watch Billy Madison again. After a cookie binge. And a lobotomy.

(In theaters, June 1999) This belongs to the “twists and turns” school of black comedy, where the plot and the reversals are far more important than any of the other aspects save, perhaps, for the dark cinematography and intense direction. The genre does have built-in limits, which is where this movie flounders. At least two huge plot holes can be uncovered without effort, and the crucial test of your enjoyment is based of whether you’ll be able to ignore these flaws or not. Otherwise, Goodbye Lover includes the requisite kinky sex, well-paced deaths, cynical law representatives (Ellen Degeneres, in a good role), adulterous characters, psycho killers and sarcastic one-liners. The direction starts out great, then becomes ordinary. Not a first choice for a rental, but a good film to catch on late-night TV.

(In theaters, June 1999) This film has its moments of inspired amusement, though it’s hard to avoid being funny when dealing with a mobster going to a psychologist. Thought perhaps a bit less fun that I had been led to believe, the script is undoubtedly aimed to a more mature audience that the usual comedy. Some weird shifts in register (like the bizarre other wedding ceremony) give us a glimpse of a comedy that could have been less realistic but more hilarious. In any case, Robert De Niro turns in a good mobster performance despite unconvincing sobs, and Billy Crystal is tolerable as the psychiatrist.

(In theaters, May 1999) Gee, what can I say? This film is about review-proof as they come. Still, here are a few random impressions: The visual effects are simply awesome in the purest sense of the term “awesome”. The movie doesn’t take thirty seconds to make scientific errors. I’m feeling vaguely ashamed of my lecherous reaction to Natalie Portman. Jake Lloyd isn’t really annoying, though Jar Jar Binks is. The film is a failure at telling a good, original, independent story. The pod race is very exciting. You’re seen most of the movie elsewhere (including in the other Star Wars stories), sometime even twice in the case of Skywalker-blowing-up-enemy-bases-at-the-end. Was that A> ET, B> a chromed SR-71, C> A Trackball racquet, D> All of the above? I don’t find Darth Maul cool even if George Lucas has spent 2.5$ per man, woman and child in America to make me believe so. It wasn’t worth standing in line for. I can just see hordes of geeks without anything better to do creaming their shorts about the new bits of trivia from the movie; the horror, the wasted time of their lives! I’ll maintain that The Matrix was the coolest movie of Spring 1999, not Star Wars. Your handy guide to know who’s Natalie Portman: her two beauty marks on her cheeks. Me wanna see Samuel L. Jackson in big fight next movie. George Lucas should not only hire professional screenwriters, but also a scientific expert, a military advisor (because his tactics suck) and a director who knows what he’s doing. Immaculate conception? Maybe she was just drunk. “Mito-chloridian”… Is that the sound of rationalization I hear from you, George? Despite everything, Star Wars is loads of fun and will probably make my Top-10 list of 1999. Oh, heck, just go see it; it’s worth your money.

(Second viewing, On DVD, April 2002) Upon initial release, I was cautiously positive about “Episode I”; good eye candy can compensate for many flaws in my own evaluation scale, and it was hard to argue against another dose of Star Wars goodness. Granted, it doesn’t recapture any of the original trilogy’s magic; George Lucas won’t take that kind of chances any more, and won’t allow better craftsmen than he to improve his silly ideas. On DVD, The Phantom Menace isn’t much more fun, but neither is it much worse. In fact, the added supplemental material is so plentiful that it transforms a marginal SF movie in a recommended purchase. From the audio commentary to the unusually candid making-of (without even discussing the special effects vignettes), this DVD edition is a treasure trove of glimpses in uber-technological filmmaking. It’s fascinating material for fans and techno-geeks like me. (Don’t feel any shame, though, if you start laughing out loud during the segments where they praise Lucas’ writing abilities.) Make no mistake; the film is as dull as it was originally, but unlike in the theater, you can fast-forward through most of Jar-Jar’s scenes.