FILM: Mini-reviews of a bunch of random movies

[Catch-22]

Okay, here we go....
My Big Fat Greek Wedding Teula is a 30 year old Greek women who lives at home and works in her father's restaurant. You could say her life is a little dull. No excitement, no suitors, no career....only her big Greek family to keep her busy. She decides to enroll in some computer classes, get a new job....and oh, wow she meets a guy. A nice WASP-y guy. Wonder what her Greek family will think when they want to get engaged? Well, there you have all the makings of a nice little romantic comedy. This makes the perfect date movie. Some people overcoming their own awkwardness, a spinster (in the making) finding true love, men and women from different ethnic backgrounds, the unreasonable pressure that parents can put on their children....all those relevant themes packed into one movie. But rest assured, My Big Fat Greek Wedding is not nearly as corny as it sounds. The movie handles the topics in just the right way, revealing small insights without letting the "message" become overbearing. The movie was obviously made on a small budget with a cast of either character actors or unknowns. This is not really my favorite subject matter, but The Big Fat Greek Wedding succeeds where many others have failed. I give it a 7/10 just because I am not a big fan of romantic comedies.
[ 30 August 2002: Message edited by: Catch-22 ]

 

[Catch-22]

Okay, time to turn off your brain and blow shit up! I think that was actually a line of dialogue from XXX.
XXX Samuel L. Jackson needs a new agent to infiltrate a dangerous group known as Anarchy 99. This very dangerous group enjoys excessive tattoos, whack haircuts and lots of bad music played very loudly. Instead of approaching the bald-headed steroid freak (known as Vin Diesel to the rest of you) and proclaiming him the ideal man for the job, he rounds up a bunch of bad-asses and puts them through two tests. The bald-headed steroid freak wins the contest (lucky him?) and is put on a plane to Prague. He infiltrates their group in about 30 seconds, because another person with lots of shitty tattoos is just what this anarchist group needed. Mr. Diesel plays kissy-kissy with Asia Argento(*) along the way, and Anarchy 99 enjoy wild debacles (PG-13 style!) at their fortress in the mountains. But Anarchy 99 is actually working on a dangerous biological weapon that will destroy the world! And despite orders from Samuel Jackson, the bald-headed steroid freak decides to singlehandedly foil their rotten plans. Well, silliness aside, if you want a lot of explosions and stunts, you have you come to the right place. A decent action sequence breaks out at least every five minutes. People get shot with darts and drive around in nice cars. My personal favorite was when the bald-headed steroid freak jumps out of a helicopter, uses explosives to start an avalance and then snowboards down a mountain trying to outrun scary boulder-sized snowballs. Almost as cool as when he earlier drove a car off a bridge and then parachuted to safety at the last possible second. Oh, and someone gives him a pair of binoculars that let him see through a brick wall. So, if this is what you want to see, then pay $7 and go watch XXX. Expect extreme action, but the sex is just PG-13. 5.5/10
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*Hey, the chick did photo shoots for Rolling Stone and Maxim, so I am just trying to get her some much needed additional exposure. I don't usually care for skinny girls, but since she is off-beat and has a jaded attitude, I can sort of dig her.

 

[Catch-22]

Swimfan Ah yes! I went into this movie expecting the worst. I figured that at least I would have another chance to check out the cute girl from Traffic. The story revolves around a high school swimmer who is trying to win a scholarship to Stanford. He has a nice girlfriend and a multi-cultural group of friends. Then the Traffic girl starts flirting with the swimmer and giving him the attention he doesn't get from his nice girlfriend. He is intrigued, plays right into her hands and lets her fuck him in the pool. Oh yes, then comes the stalking! She sends him 84 emails and shows up unannounced to his house. He begins to realize that maybe she is not exactly girlfriend-material. If that isn't enough, she gets him fired from his job and kicked off the swim team. The final confrontation is predictable. Just how is Swimfan different from Play Misty for Me or The Crush? Hmmm...it's not. I guess they are counting on a fresh crop of movie viewers who don't know any better. Anyway, there are some funny moments and at least the male character sort of behaves how a normal kid in his position would act. Makes it a touch more realistic. Don't really know what else to say about Swimfan except I give it a 3.5/10.
[ 16 September 2002: Message edited by: Catch-22 ]

 

[Physix Media]

^^^ and the lead guy is HOOOOOOOT!
The only reason to see this movie is the eye candy.
Now, last night I had the fortunate pleasure of watching ONE HOUR PHOTO....
I love creepy movies, but I hate movies about obsessions... the person doing the obsessing is usually always so stupid about it with their long glares at their target and the uneasy approach they take towards them... at any rate...
Robin Williams is brilliant in this movie... he is creepy when needed (which is most of the time)... yet he pulls off the super-friendly vibe and he pulls off the anger tremendously. I **sear** i've met someone JUST LIKE this character before! Creepy.
The plot of the movie is fairly obvious....
Robin Williams is a 1 hour photo clerk that takes his job seriously... he has an inflated sense of importance of photos and actually CONVINCES you that his view on photos and snapshots are correct...
A family has been bringing their pictures in to him for years, since the birth of their first and only child..... and he has obsessed over them ever since day one...
At first you think he may be in love with the mother or even the son... but that is not the case... he simply loves what they have as a unit...
I will not spoil anything for you, but there is a cool ending and the characters are intwined in a scandal involving the husband that brings the characters in a very suspenseful ending.
Because of the NATURE of Williams' character, which is mis-leading (you assume alot of things), the first 3/4 of the movie is slow... VERY slow... but the last 20 minutes more than make up for it.
A fine cast of characters that are well portrayed and a REALY fuckin' creepy kid with a fishbowl shag haircut... it makes this movie worth ONLY the matinee fee (or if you make a habit of sneaking into a second movie)... do NOT pay more than matinee for this movie.
-physix
[ 16 September 2002: Message edited by: Physix Media ]

 

[Catch-22]

^Damn, I saw One Hour Photo last night, too! And yes....I didn't exactly pay ticket price. LOL
One Hour Photo I had read a short story where a serial killer picked his victims when he developed their film. The previews sort of suggested that Robin Williams was continuing the creepiness he started with Insomnia. Well, in One Hour Photo he takes on a whole different kind of creepy in the character of photo tech Sy. Dressed in a shirt and tie while wearing squeaky rubber shoes, Sy certainly loves his job at SavCenter--which closely resembles a Wal-Mart, if you ask me! Sy becomes too involved in the lives of his customers, caring much more about their photographs than any reasonable person would care about their own. Sy focuses on a young couple, and watches the growth of their nine year old boy. His preoccupation becomes creepy. I like the way Sy is not painted as a "misguided but helpless loser." He is manipulative and deliberately intrusive. His stark/barren apartment and the over-attention to detail at work reveal the detached nature of his character. His passive conformity with his supervisor show his deceptiveness and awareness of right & wrong. I thought there were some elements that missed, such as his dream where he is back at the now-empty SavCenter. I enjoyed One Hour Photo but if you like this genre, there are probably other (better) movies you would prefer to see. 5.5/10

 

[Physix Media]

My only concern was that the dream would have NORMALLY signified that he had an underlining self-resentment for what he was doing... that he in fact hated himself for what he was doing. There was no such indication that he felt that way at all. In fact, even in the end, he felt what he did was right and that he didn't see anything wrong with what he did.
SPOILERS!!!!!
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WHat was cool, was the last 10 minutes... when you thought he killed them... when in fact, he didn't.... even in the end, the director kept up with the 'alleged dis-placed reality' that we ASSUME Sy suffers from .... we think, up until the end, that he's killed both the husband and the mistress... "I only took pictures!!!" and then we see the misstress in the shower, we STILL assume that the husband was killed... he wasn't
EVEN STILL, after we've been proven wrong in the above asusmption, we ASSUME that he took pictures of all the poses that he made them do...... when in fact, he took pictures of various objects in his own hotel room.
That part was brilliant... it made me think about how little and low I think of humanity that I would assume such things.
I was wondering why the cop was so gentle with him, even in the beginning.
-physix

 

[Catch-22]

Okay, I am waaaaaaaay behind on my movie reviews. Let's start with most recent and work backwards.
The Knockaround Guys Okay, I saw this one earlier today. The story revolves around the son of a mafia bigwig. At a young age he had a chance to prove himself, but that "failure" cemented the impression that he was not mafiaso material. Now he is a young man with a college degree trying to make it in the legit world. Unforunately, no one wants to give him a job. Woe is him! His good friend is also the son of a mobster, sharing his frustration about the family name being a curse. They have a couple of other friends, an airplane pilot with a slight drug problem and....well, I don't know what Vin Diesel's situation was, but there was something blocking him from being a full-fledged mobster. When Dennis Hopper (playing a semi-bland mobster) needs an errand performed, they send the aiplane pilot to go pick up the package. John Malkovich, Dennis Hopper's advisor, encourages him to give the son a second chance to prove himself. Uh oh, the half a million dollars ends up getting lost. The four young men converge on a small Wyoming town to find their money. The previews sort of explain the situation: The money falls in the hands of crooked cops and they try to get it back. I don't know, this movie just never really got clicking. The dialogue was bland, the story was bland....I didn't really care about any of the characters. Obvious room for comedy was unexplored, yet other sources of humor seemed forced. There was no real scenery or use of Brooklyn or Wyoming. I don't understand why some characters were loyal to each other but not to other characters. The Knockaround Guys was far from horrible, but it just did not stand out from the pack. Solid, but save for a video rental....if you like the genre. I give The Knockaround Guys a 4.5/10.
[ 15 October 2002: Message edited by: Catch-22 ]

 

[Catch-22]

....And that is how the show closed!

I became an administrator, stopped posting so much....but this thread is still a (somewhat) cool stretch of movie reviews from December 2001 to October 2002.

Right now I am semi-active at IMDB and I post an occasional review at another message board. I still watch two movies a week in the theaters but no longer type up mini-reviews of everything.

Reading through this thread again was a blast! My ratings system was so much shit! lol

Regardless, thanks to all who played along.

(puts thread out of misery)