michael's movie reviews
2001
These are the movies I reviewed in 2001.
reviewed 2001.12.29
What other rating could I give this flick? To see as large and rich a book reduced to a feature film with its tone and depth intact was a refreshing surprise...
reviewed 2001.12.12
This is a flick about two robbers (played by Robert De Niro and Edward Norten). It iss supposed to be slick and it's supposed to be tense. It is neither.Seens that should be tense - such as the actual robbery - are sapped by being drawn out way too long...
reviewed 2001.12.11
This is a 25-year-old flick by the writer/director of Taxi Driver. It's a drama starring got Yaphet Kotto, Harvey Keitel and - surprising - Richard Pryor as three guys on the auto line in Detroit. They're working for a union that's become complacent and corrupt, and are making so little that the characters played by Keitel and Pryor have night jobs.The trio are convinced that the union is scre..
reviewed 2001.12.04
This is a musical flick by Baz Luhrmann set in Paris in 1900...
reviewed 2001.11.28
This is a Sci-Fi flick, and quite a good one...
reviewed 2001.11.20
This is an animated flick from Pixar. It stars the voices of John Goodman and Billy Crystal as monsters who work for the power company. Their job is to travel to the bedrooms of human children (via closet doors) and scare them. The cries of the children are then captured and converted into energy in the monster's world.All is well with this setup until a devious colleague (Steve Buscemi doing..
reviewed 2001.11.10
This is a Jet Li ultraviolence sci-fi flick...
reviewed 2001.11.08
This is a movie about three escaped convicts and their adventures in the small town of Happy, Texas...
reviewed 2001.11.07
I finally saw this...
reviewed 2001.11.06
This is a ghost story, set in the English Channel island of Jersey in the post-war era...
reviewed 2001.11.04
This is a movie about Jack the Ripper. It's got a heroine addict as a protagonist, a prostitute with a heart of gold, and Robbie Coltrane. Sprinled with some extremely unpleasant scenes, and shot almost entirely at night in London's Whitechapel district, it's one damn dark film.It's well paced, well cast, and the plot even managed to surprise me...
reviewed 2001.10.28
Well, I finally did it. I walked out of a movie. We went for Heidi's birthday, but gave up after half an hour.If at all possible, I heartily recommend avoiding this film at all costs...
reviewed 2001.10.20
The Mexican is a tale about an antique Mexican pistol and the pack of thugs and losers who try to obtain it once it turns up. Brad Pitt plays yer loser, Julia Roberts plays his common-law-wife, and James Gand*lfini plays one of the thugs.This was far more entertaining than I'd expected. It was by now means a great movie, but it was actually well worth watching.It has a plot, it has formulaic M..
reviewed 2001.10.15
This is a Morgan Freeman flick, where he plays a cop specialising in serial killers...
reviewed 2001.09.29
This is the second time I've seen this, and aside from a couple of movie making shortcuts I noticed this time around, I still think it's an outstanding movie from the points of plot, cast, setting(s), and pacing. It just hooks you in.The casting in particular was genius...
reviewed 2001.09.16
I'm well pleased that we saw this at the discount cinema for $4...
reviewed 2001.09.11
Sequels are never as good as the originals, and this is yet another sequel...
Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back
reviewed 2001.09.10
This is Kevin Smith's latest flick...
reviewed 2001.09.10
I thought this might be cute, because I like its stars...
reviewed 2001.09.07
This is about as good as it gets when the predictable hand of Adam Sandler has touched a movie...
Planet of the Apes (the remake)
reviewed 2001.09.03
I'm not sure what it is about Tim Burton...
reviewed 2001.09.01
This is the longest write-up I have ever (or will ever do). Enjoy/Endure as desired.I've just finished watching a downloaded copy of "AI" that appears to have been filmed in a movie theatre in Singapore (perhaps). It seems to have subtitles in Chinese and something like Malay or Thai or Bahasa Indonesian (in roman charactes).Anyway, I have to strongly advise that you never see it, if it isn't..
reviewed 2001.08.31
I was disppointed by this one. But, I suppose you get what you pay for.The story was disturbingly pat, the animation a touch out-dated, and the characters couldn't find a place between raunchy caricatures and realistic people.I'd heard that Shrek was supposed to lampoon a lot of teh old fairy tale shtick, but I suspect they were trying to dumb the whole thing down for the kids, because the hum..
reviewed 2001.08.18
This is an excellent flick that I'd been wanting to see since I was in Sydney. It's set in the early 70's, and is about a young (15 year old) writer who wants to be a rock journalist. He hooks up with an up-and-coming band called "Stillwater", and stays with them from a concert in San Diego to a near-fatal plan ride out of New York.It's simply an outstanding flick...
reviewed 2001.08.17
This is a low-budget German flick about a hard-boiled, homosexual detective's fight against a carnivorous condom. It is every bit as good as that sound, I assure you. Right from the opening scene - where a University professor on the make is attempting to 'pass' a student at a sh*tty hotel, only to have his penis bitten off by a complementary condom - you know that this is entertainment.With an ..
reviewed 2001.08.07
This movie is about the filming of the German horror classic Nosferatu...
reviewed 2001.07.20
This movie surprised me; it was better than I expected by a fair margin. It's about a small-town waitress (Zellwegger as Betty) who witnesses her husband's brutal murder and loses her grip on reality. Unhappily, there's an alternate reality waiting in her favourite soap.Believing that she's destined for a wonderful life with a fictional character, our girl Betty takes a car borrowed from her h..
reviewed 2001.07.16
This is Atom Egoyan's latest movie. It revolves around a pregnant young woman from Ireland, who's searching for her boyfriend. He's told her he's left for England to work in a lawnmower plant. In reality, he's joined the British army (something he can't have them knowing, back home).Her search lands her in the clutches of Hoskins's ageing bachelor, a chef who watches tapes of his late mother'..
reviewed 2001.07.15
I've only seen Li in one or two other (N. American) flicks, butbetween them, I'm starting to get an image of a someone wth a taste for making movies about violence.This is a fairly bare-bones action flick, in which Li - as an agent of mainland China - turns up in France to aid in a drug-smuggling investigation...
reviewed 2001.07.14
This is the first completely computer-animated movies I've seen...
reviewed 2001.06.24
This is a Cohen brothers flick, which means it finely blends a tight plot, a host of surreal characters, and substantial philosophical meanderings.It's the most ambitious of their movies from the standpoint of the narrative and montages that slide in from out of left field from time to time, but it works quite well.One part that remains funny after the years since it came out is how closely Je..
reviewed 2001.06.18
This is, of course, the third in the Prophecy series starring Christopher Walken. In this chapter, our angel-who-fell-to-earth is keeping an eye on the unfortunate half-man, half-angel that's been sired to lead a revolution against God. It's the weakest of the movies, though Walken is at his leathery best.Since the VCR I watched it on was a 25-year-old clunker, I think I missed a fair bit of the..
reviewed 2001.06.08
Just before Benicio Del Toro won an oscar for his part in the strange movie Traffic, he co-starred in this gangster flick with Ryan Phillipe. The two of them are small time hoods who stumble upon an opportunity for a kid-napping, and leap in before looking.Their kidnappee is a pregnant surrogate mother (played by the seemingly unaging Juliette Lewis) who is in way over her head wit..
reviewed 2001.06.08
This is a surprising flick from Germany. It is essentially the telling of three variations on the same troubled day in the life of our heroine, her parents, her lover, several peripheral characters, and a certain bank.It's a fast-paced flick, with the lead character actually running extensively throughout much of the film, and the dialog running throughout...
reviewed 2001.05.11
This is - surprise - a Japanese flick. In Japan, there are a number of people who have immigrated from South America. These people are the children of Japanese emigrants who left Japan in the years following WWII.One of the main characters in this movie is such an immigrant...
reviewed 2001.04.14
This is an unbelievably bad movie. It's not purposefully "bad" in the way that Rocky Horror Picture Show is, or even entertainingly bad Anaconda is bad.I mean, it's not Armageddon bad, mind you (only one movie is that bad), but it commits the following atrocities:
reviewed 2001.03.11
Saw Traffic last night. Good flick. But long. And too many stars. It's certainly got its paint-by-numbers moments, and I rather felt that some of the actors might not have been sure of their direction but a number of the younger cast in particular really carried it.God knows the drug situation needs attention...
reviewed 2001.02.02
Today, Sara and I went to see "All about my Mother" at the outdoor cinema by Lady Whatsit's Chair, along with Jo and Rob...
reviewed 2001.01.15
This is a surprisingly well-filmed flick with a decent plot, good acting, and an interesting premise...
reviewed 2001.01.15
This movie surprised my, mildly...
reviewed 2001.01.04
I was really stunned by how much I liked this movie. It strikes a perfect note, somehow. I've always enjoyed the Coen brothers' stuff (if not Clooney's), and I'd say this one is their best yet. I was drawn into this one hook, line, and sinker.Now I have to read Ulysees...
reviewed 2001.01.03
Ah, the sixties...