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Run Lola Run (1999) – Movie Review

19 years ago

Written & Directed by: Tom Tykwer
Starring: Franka Potente, Moritz Bleibtreu, Herbert Knaup, Norbert Von Au, Jutta Hansen

My Advice: Don’t miss it.

Lola (Potente) has just gotten a phone call. It’s from her boyfriend, Manni (Bleibtreu), who as a result of a couple of screwups has lost the 100,000 German marks he was supposed to give to his boss. Because he thinks he’s going to be killed when his boss finds out, it’s pretty evident that this is not a typical nine-to-five job he’s just pulled. It’s twenty minutes until the boss is going to show, and unless Lola can do something, Manni is effectively screwed.

The film begins with a kind of slow acceleration, letting you know exactly what you’re in for. After Hans Paetsch, a German orator of fairy tales, sets up the unworldly feel of the film with his narration (which for some reason eerily reminded me of Wim Wenders), the watchman Schuster (Armin Rohde) states essentially “90 minutes. One ball. Everything else is theory.” Then he launches a soccerball into the sky as the milling people form the title of the film. Wild stuff, people. And it’s a perfect setup for the mania that is to come. The film goes for 81 minutes and almost never lets up, while Lola runs about the city trying to save her boyfriend, maneuvering through an almost Joycean 20 minutes, fates and lives being altered in her wake.

Notting Hill (1999) – Movie Review

19 years ago

Widge

Reviews

Written by: Richard Curtis
Directed by: Roger Michell
Starring: Julia Roberts, Hugh Grant, Rhys Ifans, Hugh Bonneville, Emma Chambers

My Advice: Wait and Rent It.

William Thacker (Grant) runs a travel book shop in (yes you guessed it!) Notting Hill, and he’s not doing too well. He gets even worse when Anna Scott (Roberts) comes into his store and the two fall in love. But…what’s that you say, you thought this was a romantic comedy?

Well, it’s written by the same guy who did Four Weddings, so you’d expect it to be gut-bustingly funny–which it is. Roberts does a good job portraying the world’s most popular actress and getting her shots in at the media and at stardom in general. Grant is in fine Hugh Grant form, completely gabberflasted at the situation he finds himself in. The supporting cast, just like in Four Weddings, is to be commended, especially Grant’s flatmate in the form of Spike (Ifans), a buffoon’s buffoon. However–and you knew this was coming…

Star Wars, Episode I: The Phantom Menace (1999) – Movie Review

19 years ago

Widge

Reviews

Star Wars: Episode I: The Phantom Menace poster

Written & Directed by: George Lucas
Starring: Liam Neeson, Ewan McGregor, Natalie Portman, Jake Lloyd, Ian McDiarmid

My Advice: Matinee.

A long time ago in a galaxy far away, two Jedi Knight ambassadors, Qui-Gon Jinn (Neeson) and Obi-Wan Kenobi (McGregor), have been sent to try and help negotiations between the Trade Federation and the government of Naboo, run by Queen Amidala (Portman) and representated in the Republican Senate by Senator Palpatine (McDiarmid). Upon arriving to perform their duties, they find much more than they ever bargained for.

Well, it’s all over but the shouting and the cash registers clanging, and I have to say up front that I am not displeased with this film. Neither am I very pleased. Here’s the good things I have to say. First of all, let’s face it–this is a CGI fest of proportions we’ve never seen before–and they kick ass. The palatial expanses of Naboo, the stadium for pod racing, the Republican Senate–these are amazing images. Hell, a bit with two armies, completely CGI, facing off against each other was tremendous. The actors, having to work around all this generated stuff, are all well in their roles.

10 Things I Hate About You (2000) – Movie Review

19 years ago

Widge

Reviews

10 Things I Hate About You movie poster art

Directed by Gil Junger
Written by Karen McCullah Lutz & Kirsten Smith, based on the play The Taming of the Shrew by William Shakespeare
Starring Heath Ledger, Julia Stiles, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Larisa Oleynik, Larry Miller

My Advice: Wait and Rent It.

Cameron (Gordon-Levitt) is a new student at Padua High, and while being given the guided tour by his trusted lackey Michael (David Krumholtz) he runs into Bianca (Oleynik). Hopelessly smitten, he vies for her affection only to learn that according to her father (Miller), Bianca can’t date until her sister, Kat (Stiles), does. The problem is that Kat is known around school for her, to put it mildly, caustic personality. They work a deal to get Kat’s opposite and fellow mutant, Patrick (Ledger), to take her out so that Cameron can get his chance.

The Matrix (1999) – Movie Review

19 years ago

Widge

Reviews

Written & Directed by: The Brothers Wachowski
Starring: Keanu Reeves, Laurence Fishburne, Carrie-Ann Moss, Joe Pantoliano, Hugo Weaving

My Advice: Matinee.

Meet Thomas Anderson (Reeves), by day mild-mannered software programmer, by night “Neo,” a hacker extraordinaire. His life seems to be going fairly well, until he meets someone he was never expecting to: the uberhacker to end all uberhackers, the legendary Morpheus (Fishburne), and the man has a secret which will change Neo’s world forever. But the change is a hard choice that once made is nothing you can walk away from and potentially quite lethal.

Okay, here’s the few items of bad news I can impart. First of all, Reeves’ acting prowess hasn’t increased any. Second, the setup of Reeves’ character before the fit starts hitting the shan is measured in nanoseconds. Third, parts of the ending struck me as hurried and cheese-ridden.

Ravenous (1999) – Movie Review

20 years ago

Widge

Movie Reviews

2 Comments

Written by: Ted Griffin
Directed by: Antonia Bird
Starring: Guy Pearce, Robert Carlyle, Jeffrey Jones, David Arquette, Jeremy Davies

My Advice: Wait for cable.

It’s 1847, and Captain Boyd (Pearce) has just been promoted and awarded due to an act of cowardice he performed on the field of battle. Part of his award is to be relegated to a fort in the middle of Nowhere. Rather than sit around and do nothing, Boyd finds a mysterious stranger (Carlyle) near death, who tells a story of atrocities committed during a trek through the mountains.

The saddest part of this film is it that it’s, year to date, the best horror film I’ve seen. It takes what is a premise with some promise–cannibalism–and manages to take it absolutely nowhere. The opening half of the film is enough to draw you in with its cast of bizarre characters at the fort. Robert Carlyle, who incidentally is the only reason to see this movie at all, delivers his story (and the rest of his performance) with studied manic creepiness. However, shortly thereafter the whole film goes straight to hell, and I wish I could tell you why–but it’s the only excuse for a plot twist the thing has. Pearce is wasted, Jeffrey Jones is miscast, and David Arquette is given absolutely nothing to do.

Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels (1999) – Movie Review

20 years ago

Widge

Movie Reviews

Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels movie poster

Written and Directed by: Guy Ritchie
Starring: Nick Moran, Jason Flemyng, Dexter Fletcher, Jason Statham, Vinnie Jones

My Advice: Don’t Miss It.

Four amigos in London’s East End decide to pony up a wad of cash and send in their best card player, Eddie (Moran), to a high stakes game in order to bring home the gold. However, Hatchet Harry (P.H. Moriarty) has rigged the game to rook the lads for all they’re worth and then some. If the four don’t get the money back to Harry before a week goes by, then they’ll have to deal with the other half of his name. What ensues is a caper that I can’t even begin to explain here because of its intricacies, but rest assured that it is a farce with guns.

Let me go ahead and cut through it and tell you straight: this movie blew me away. I’m not used to films this good being released in the first quarter/first half of a year. This is normally where studios throw unwatchable formulaic crap and wait for Oscar season to roll around again. Which means the really good stuff shows up at Christmas. However, this film is the exception to that rule.

In Dreams (1999) – Movie Review

20 years ago

Widge

Movies, Reviews

Written by: Neil Jordan & Bruce Robinson
Directed by: Neil Jordan
Starring: Annette Bening, Aidan Quinn, Robert Downey Jr., Paul Guilfoyle, Stephen Rea

My Advice: Wait for MST3K

At the beginning of this film, we are told that a town was evacuated back in 1965 in order to flood the area and make a reservoir. When (if, rather) you see this film, mark the words on the screen well, because it’s the last interesting thing you will witness for the next 95 minutes.

Claire (Bening) is a loving mother who has a loving (sort of) husband (Quinn) and an endearingly cute daughter (Katie Sagona). Oh, and she’s been psychic her entire life, dreaming about things that either are happening or will happen. Which exasperates Quinn’s character to no end, but hey, don’t you hate it when your wife waits to tell you she’s psychic until AFTER the marriage? I digress. It seems that there’s a killer on the loose in their undetermined geographic locale, grabbing little girls and spiriting them away to be killed. Claire keeps dreaming more and more of the killer until she’s sure she is being given the information she needs to stop him, and sets out to try, despite being thought insane by everyone around her.

The Thin Red Line (1998) – Movie Review

20 years ago

Widge

Reviews

Written & Directed by: Terrence Malick, based on the novel by James Jones
Starring: James Caviezel, Ben Chaplin, Sean Penn, Elias Koteas, Nick Nolte

My Advice: Wait for Cable.

For the record, I don’t think I’ve ever seen a better acted piece of overblown, pretentious, self-important cinema in my life. Also for the record, I have never seen a film more in need of an editor…in my life. Let me try to summarize this monster for you. It’s World War II, and you’re at Guadalcanal. Private Witt (Caviezel) has gone AWOL again only to be given a second chance by Welsh (Penn), a first sergeant. He is a member of Charlie Company, led by Capt. Staros (Koteas), who is getting his ass chewed out perpetually by Lieutenant Colonel Tall (Nolte), who is in turn busy kissing the ass of a brigadier general (John Travolta). In the meantime, we have Private Bell (Chaplin), who is pining for his wife (Miranda Otto). Somewhere else in there we have a bunch of other soldiers who I can’t remember (98% of the cast) and a bunch of people who did have roles but were edited out (name any actor in Hollywood). Confused? Good. I don’t feel so alone now.

The Prince of Egypt (1998) – Movie Review

20 years ago

Widge

Movies, Reviews

Written by: Kelly Asbury & Lorna Cook along with 14 other people, based on the book of Exodus
Directed by: Brenda Chapman, Steve Hickner, & Simon Wells
Starring: Val Kilmer, Ralph Fiennes, Patrick Stewart, Michelle Pfeiffer, Sandra Bullock

My Advice: Wait and Rent It.

To escape a culling of Hebrew firstborns, Moses (Kilmer) is placed in a CGI basket by his mother and set adrift, only to wind up in the arms of Egypt’s Queen (Helen Mirren) and become a…prince of Egypt. He flees the kingdom once he learns of his true heritage and finds peace in Midian and winds up marrying Pocahontas (Pfeiffer). Content at first, he’s called on by God (Kilmer) to go into Egypt and lead the Hebrews out of slavery.

That’s right, it’s the book of Exodus. They’ve thrown in some unnecessary action sequences, i.e. a Ben Hur chariot race down the scaffolding of a monument whilst the nose of said monument is a close third, but all in all, you’ve got Exodus. And therein lies the problem with this film: it tries too hard to do too much. The story is big and broad enough as it is, it doesn’t need add-ons. It’s almost like they set out to out-Disney Disney. For example, apart from the opening “Deliver Us,” the songs are all unnecessary and painfully intrusive. Every time somebody needs to explain something, suddenly–! There’s a song going–and I’m cringing.