kerridv

I like Egyptian archeology but this was heinous. Completely disrespectful to the dead and the glee shown by Dr. Hussein was disgusting. Where does anyone get off opening a tomb and then extracting the mummy, as if we are any better than the tomb robbers they kept mentioning. It's one thing to find artifacts for a museum, it's another entirely to remove human beings for the sake of television. Disappointing.

NG stick to Dr. Albert Lin and his beloved LIDAR, at least he shows reverence and respect for ancient cultures.

As a movie-viewer you have the responsibility to suspend some disbelief and let movie magic, improbabilty, and fairy-tale take over to some extent; the studios, in turn, have the responsibility of making a film that will let you do that. Some films pull this off flawlessly; others don't. Guess which category The Majestic falls into.

This movie had more sap than a Vermont forest in fall. While I was willing to let some things slide, the ultra-predictiblity of the film and the hounding "life is art" message was too much. Jim Carrey plays Pete Appleton, a screenwriter who gets blacklisted from Hollywood during the McCarthy witchhunts. He drives off in a car, crashes into a river (a scene in which too much time is spent), and loses his memory. The citizens of a small town find him and believe him to be a long-lost hero of theirs, who dissapeared nine years earlier in WWII. Martin Landau plays the owner of a dilapidated old movie theatre who thinks Pete, now "Luke," is his son. Together they rennovate the theatre, Luke picks up his relationship with his old girlfriend Adele (Holden) where it left off, and life is rosy.

Even though it's your basic memory-loss story inserted into a thin shell of anti-communisim, it isn't so bad thus far; until we see the McCarthy bad guys determined to find Appleton and slay him as the king of all communists. Here the plot crosses that line from comedic screenwriting 101 to just dang ridiculous. Every cinematic plot point ever made in history is paraded across the screen, leaving the second half of this film more limpid than the first.

What's ironic is that this film starts with Appleton sitting in a room twitching his face while the producers mangle his script to make it more hollywoodesque. I guess we are supposed to laugh at the fact that these producers (recognize the voices? Garry Marshall, Carl Reiner, Rob Reiner, and Sydney Pollack) are inserting every stupid plot trick into Appleton's script; however, because the movie itself did just that, I was groaning, not laughing.

And the point was? This movie was so bad I don't know where to begin. The only saving grace was that John Cusack's in it; otherwise skip it altogether. It's really unfortunate because I'm a fan of Billy Crystal usually but this one bombed.

It didn't really seem to have a plot; something was going on about Eddie (Cusack) and Gwen (Zeta-Jones) being famous actors who were married but had a bad breakup. In order to promote a new film and save both their careers the studio makes them put on an appearance of reconciliation; in the meantime Julia Roberts as Gwen's sister Kiki falls in love with Eddie and blah blah blah. The jokes fell flat and the message was silly. Are we supposed to feel bad for two obviously spoiled actors who break up? Boo hoo. The title doesn't even make sense.

Can't really say much about Julia Roberts or Catherine Zeta-Jones; I don't think their parts required any acting ability whatsoever. John Cusack was good only because he is John Cusack.

Don't even bother renting it. I only saw it because I was stuck on a plane for 9 hours.

I normally hate time-travel movies. They are usually very formulaic: Put someone in the past/future and then weave 2 hours of slapstick around not knowing how to drive a car or ballroom dance. If Meg Ryan wasn't starring in this I might not have bothered to see it.

However, I was pleasantly surprised because this movie is more about romance than time-travel. Hugh Jackman plays the Duke of Albany Leopold, who inadvertently follows Stuart (Liev Schrieber) through a time-travel portal into the future. Here he meets Stuart's ex-girfriend Kate (Meg Ryan) and falls in love. Rather than resorting to watching Leopold bumble around the 21st century, the movie centers on Kate's distrust of men and Leopold's capabilities with them. Breckin Meyer plays Kate's brother Charlie and adds the humorous elements to the film. As we watch Kate and Leopold fall in love, the story does take a few twists and turns that kept me grinning. Hugh Jackman is just charming in this role and you can't help but fall in love with him as well (what's a few centuries difference, anyway?)

Not much is spent on the technical aspects of time travel, and the few instances of learning to make a toilet flush or marveling over a toaster you see in the trailers is all you see. Leopold embraces the future with the same suave he does socially; so in that respect you can

believe it when he runs the dishwasher with no difficulty. Like most Meg Ryan films, the ending is fairy tale enough to justify the silly plot. I enjoyed it very much.

My biggest beef with this film was the blantant product placement! It was so bad I started counting and made it up to 10 major placements in the first 40 minutes. Note to Ms. Ryan: Take a stand on this. Having your character dump a latte all over her white shirt only to have her coleague call up Barneys and order a Donna Karan shirt is beneath you now. I don't think Starbucks needs to pander to such antics.

My other complaint is to the movie theatre that has the nerve to charge eight bucks for a matinee with a screen the size of a postage stamp and a sticky floor. When will this madness end?

I got this movie for Christmas and watched it four times in two days. Then I watched the director's commentary, the behind the red curtain featurette, the making of..., the star interviews, the HBO special, the music videos, and the promotional material before watching the whole thing again for a fifth time. And then I bought the soundtrack.

What I'm getting at here is that you'll either hate this movie or become obsessed with it. The movie is a package of brillant colors, whimsical costumes, catchy showtunes, and heart-wrenching emotion. It takes place at the Moulin Rouge in Paris, 1899, at the height of the Bohemian era and dance-hall scenes. Nicole Kidman plays Satine, a courtesan and star of the shows; Ewan McGregor plays Christian, a penniless writer who falls in love with her. There's an evil duke, an opportunistic owner, a piano player with four hands, a green fairy (Kylie Minogue!), a narcoleptic actor, and the dwarf artist Toulouse-Latrec (Leguizamo, on his knees the entire time).

If that weren't zany enough, the songs are modern songs reworked into a dance-club/showtune extravaganza. Christian stands on top of a 60-foot elephant, trying to convince Satine to love him, when all of a sudden he belts, "Feels a little bit fuuuunny, this feeling insiiiidee..." Did I just hear Elton John? Was the owner just singing to the duke "Like a Virgin"? I guarantee you'll get a chuckle out of a can-can version of "Smells Like Teen Spirit" and a tango set to "Roxanne", which incidentally, involved 60 dancing couples. Bring it on!

Director Baz Luhrmann explains that he likes to tell stories using a device; in his previous work it was through dance (Strictly Ballroom), iambic pentameter (Romeo+Juliet), and here in song. Who knew Nicole Kidman and Ewan McGregor could sing? And I mean really sing; there's more emotion in some of their 30-second ballads than in all of some movies. The film is as crazy as it sounds, with one second being entirely funny and the next tear-jerking. All of the characters are just that; the look and feel of this production takes you right to the Moulin Rouge of yesterday--it's like you are part of the play yourself. If I could sum up this flick in any other way, I'd compare it to hitting a big gaudy cinematic pinata and having all the great film tricks fall out; you'll find yourself surrounded by pure eye candy.

Don't let the long list of Hollywood stars put you off; this movie was pure fun with a great soundtrack to boot. When Danny Ocean (Clooney) is let out of prison, his goal is to knock off three of the largest Las Vegas Casinos. With his pal Rusty (Pitt), they put together a team of eleven experts to carry off the most elaborate heist in history. Throw in a little Las Vegas groove, a beautiful girl (Roberts), a powerful nemesis (dark and sexy Garcia), some awesome explosions, and you have a good, old-fashioned Hollywood flick.

I thoroughly enjoyed every minute of this film. It had enough camp and humor to keep it light-hearted. Two-thirds of the story involves the group getting their heist together and I was fascinated by their shenanigans. The last third involves the heist and it has some good tricks. Surprisingly, I thought Brad Pitt had the best part, and I always enjoy Elliot Gould in everything he does. The cast seemed to fit the movie perfectly, and for those of you out there with a real disdain for Julia Roberts, never fear; her part is not very big and they shine her in unflattering lighting the whole time. My only complaint is that Andy Garcia didn't have much of a role. If nothing else, go see this for Carl Reiner alone.

I didn't feel that this version competed with the original, so if you're a fan of the 1960 Rat Pack version, don't let this scare you away. All in all, I highly recommend this movie and can't wait to see it again.

http://www.moviepie.com

In New Foundland the horizon is marked with grey clouds, snow covers the ground through May, and automobile accidents are second only to boating mishaps. This is the life of a little town in Northern Canada where beaten-down, broken-hearted Quoyle (Spacey) begins a second life with his daughter Bunny. Judi Dench plays his aunt who arrives to visit the ashes of her father and finds her nephew distraught over the death of both his parents, his missing (and later revealed dead) wife, and kidnapped daughter. She whisks them away to a small village "where our people are from."

Here Quoyle must make a life out of an old family home; find his way as a novice reporter with the local paper, get over his unloving and deceased wife, and the indifference of his screwed-up child. Everywhere there are secrets; the house harbors some, his past harbors a few, and dear old Aunt hides a few family secrets herself.

This is one of those basic movies with a good storyline and deep acting and a lovely, non-memorable soundtrack that will win a few great reviews and then fade out of existence like the clouds forever dotting the horizon. There was nothing edgy or exciting about this film, yet I still recommend it because both Kevin Spacey and Judi Dench are remarkable actors. There's some obvious gaps in the storyline that I can only guess are fleshed out in the book; however the story moves along fittingly. The little girl (played by triplets Kaitlyn, Alyssa, and Lauren Gainer) steals half the scenes; the carpenter (Jason Behr) may rise to stardom some day himself.

While this certainly isn't the best movie I've seen I say it's the perfect movie to see on a dreary rainy day, with a first date, or simply as a rental with your family.

The best thing you can do for yourself before you see this movie is to stay away from all reviews! There is an element of surprise that is essential to this flick that the reviews are all giving away. If you haven't seen it yet, then don't read the rest of this. * * * * * *

This is a biopic of celebrated math scholar and economics Nobel Prize winner John Forbes Nash, who suffered…(here's the spoiler…) from paranoid schrizophrenia. The film opens with his foray into school at Princeton, where is is already a social outcast, a quirky genius, and an excessive worrier of finding `that one orginial idea.' It is here he meets his best friend, roomate Charles (Paul Bettany), and his wife, Alicia (Jennifer Connelly). He gets his idea, impresses the professors, lands a plum assignment at MIT, and marries Alicia. Life seems to be rolling along.

Suddenly John finds himself in the middle of a plot to keep the Russians from obliterating America because he's an expert code-breaker. His life becomes a turmoil of secrecy and paranoia as he feverishly works to find conspiracies in magazines. When he fears danger, his paranoia gets out of hand, until Dr. Rosen (Christopher Plummer) commits him to an institute and declares him crazy.

Here's where the bulk of the film begins, and why it was important not to know whether he was crazy or not before seeing this. As you're watching this film, you're wondering, too, what is real and what is not. Is he really part of government work and is America in danger? Or are they delusions in his own mind? Not knowing anything about the film before I went it, it was exciting to watch; it is essential that the audience doesn't know what's real or what's made up because then you understand to some extent what John is going through. Had I read the synopses beforehand, I would have been robbed of this brillant cinematic trick.

I don't know if the producers meant for that to happen, or didn't care if we were let in on the joke, but I do give them credit for not giving it away in the trailers. Jennifer Connelly gives an excellent performance as the backbone of the world crumbling around her; Ed Harris and Paul Brittany steal the show, and it doesn't hurt that Adam Goldberg is in it, either. Russell Crowe may see yet another Oscar nomination his way…(though a particular gripe of mine is that how many math geniuses have the good looks or the physique of Russell Crowe? Hubba hubba). He does portray John with amazing emotion and wit throughout. I did find a few flaws with some of the scenes but it's Hollywood afterall. I thought it did a remarkable turn from your basic social-outcast-genius story to one of intrigue, excitement, and human spirit.

Say what you will about the hype the fact stands that Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone was indeed, a fabulous book. Insightful writing, dry wit, spine-tingling action, heart-tugging emotion, and fantasy action fill the story; naturally the anticipation for the movie matched the reader's love for J.K. Rowling's masterpiece about a boy who attends wizardry school.



One of the biggest complaints about movies made from books is that they don't follow the book. The pressure to keep Harry Potter true to form was immense: here is a story every kid and adult not only has read over and over but knows every minutae by heart. There would be no foolin' those kids this time around. Any detail left out, any stone left unturned, would be noticed and bemoaned. This is a big factor as to why the movie clocked in at 152 minutes. (What are they going to do when book four rolls around? There will have to be an intermission to pick up one's senses from the theatre floor.) So it was director Christopher Columbus' big challenge to stay true to form, capture the essence of the Harry Potter story, and not alienate every crazed and charmed fan out there. While he succeeded at all of these things, did he make a good movie?



It's hard to say. The movie is certainly entertaining, sticks to the book like glue, and is a work of art and special effects. But does it capture the magic of J.K. Rowling's superb storytelling is a good question. Oddly it doesn't. It almost sticks to the book too much. If you have read the book more than once and oozed in the characters and plot line like I have, there's nothing in this film that surprises you. And that, unfortunately, is the element missing from making this a masterpiece of a film. You know what is coming around the corner. You know what Hermione is going to say before she says it. You know that Professor Quirrel is up to something.



However, the all-star cast is wonderful, and the special effects are perfect-they don't overshadow the film and yet add just the right touch to spark your imagination. I was not particularly impressed with any of the three children's performances but they portray the characters just fine. Everyone portrayed the characters a little too well. They seemed like cardboard, in a way-the exception being a surprise cameo by John Cleese.



My recommendation is to certainly go see it, especially if you have read the books. It's fun just to bring a well-loved book to life, even if there are no sparks to the movie version. There may be some scary bits for young children, but hey, afterall the book is supposed to be for those age nine and over anyway. If you are one of the two people out there who have not read the books, you may just find it more entertaining.

I hardly recognized Willem Dafoe in this biopic about T.S. Eliot and his mentally ill wife Vivian. His face was very long, thin, and gaunt; with every lean on his cane Dafoe managed to capture the weariness Eliot must have felt. Miranda Richardson plays his wife, his poetic inspiration, his chief critic; however she suffers from an illness given a ridiculously silly name and tries to kill herself often. Today she would have been put on prozac and given a spot on Ricki Lake. But since this was post WWI-era, we instead get to watch Viv wave a gun around and pour melted chocolate into a mailslot. The movie takes place for the most part in London, moving to America when Eliot takes a position at Harvard. The other characters, a priest, a family friend, and a few socialites, seemed cardboard and uninteresting. This is not a fast-moving film; at times the sound was terrible and the plot a little confusing. We're never really quite sure what is making Vivian nuts; but then, I guess that reflects real life. It made for a great rainy afternoon flick, especially for poetry lovers, art lovers, and biography lovers.