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a beautiful mind
director: ron howard
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| I might be me, but I’m getting pretty sick of movies that come out at the end of the year whose only point in existing is to win awards. While competently made and performed I just couldn’t connect with this, I have too many problems with this one to cover in two sentences. |
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reviewed by: JohnLawton |
February 2002 [link] |
recommend 1 thumbs up
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a guy thing
director: chris koch
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| Paul (Jason Lee) has to choose between his square, controlling fiancee (Selma Blair) and her fun-loving, free-living cousin (Julia Stiles, who I have known was destined for me since the time I saw her on the 9) in this cartoony comedy driven by its stars' ample charisma. This is not exactly a "Lady or the Tiger" type situation, since most of us have done a lot worse than either of these ladies: rowr. |
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reviewed by: matthewS |
January 2003 [link] |
recommend
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a man apart
director: f. gary gray
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| Vin’s acting I must say has improved somewhat, he is now one-step above David Caruso (which still doesn’t say much). But that’s not the only thing wrong with this film, I mean come on an entire movie for Vin and NOT ONE scene of him TOPLESS, what the hell is up with that? |
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reviewed by: kelly |
April 2003 [link] |
recommend
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a mighty wind
director: christopher guest
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| I saw this film under impossibly biased circumstances, which means 'liquor-soaked sneak preview audience including many people who were in the film itself', but I tried to keep an objective mindset throughout the constant laughter. That said, it's silliness as usual from Guest and the gang, but it feels more rushed then 'Best In Show" & 'Waiting Guffman', with no real quality time spent on any one character, but as comedies go, you could still do far worse! |
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reviewed by: eric w |
April 2003 [link] |
recommend
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a.i.
director: steven spielberg
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| So I've got good news and bad news: the good news is there is half of a great movie in AI, the bad new is the other half is there too. Things start of promising enough but the film poses questions that it never bothers to answer, instead choosing to fall into sickly sweet sentiment (he couldn't resist); there was a reason Kubrick was working on this for 15 years.....it's not done yet. |
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reviewed by: JohnLawton |
July 2001 [link] |
recommend
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about a boy
director: chris & paul weitz
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| I really want to dislike Hugh Grant but that cheeky bastard keeps making it so difficult for me. The one-time Hollywood Freak is perfectly cast in this great adaptation of Nick Hornby's 1998 novel; the kid is amazing as well and the dialogue (the best of which is lifted straight from Hornby) keeps things moving along....very entertaining. |
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reviewed by: JohnLawton |
May 2002 [link] |
recommend
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about schmidt
director: alexander payne
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| Jack Nicholson will likely receive the Oscar for his portrayal of a lonely widowing retiree whose daughter (Hope Davis) lives in soulless Colorado with her goofy finance. Besides seeing JN deliver a near flawless performance, you get to see Kathy Bates' ming-bendingly saggy breasts from both the front and side views, but are left to wonder if she still has any pubic hair left in her special area. |
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reviewed by: tim |
January 2003 [link] |
recommend
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adaptation
director: spike jonze
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| This is a great movie with a nifty reality-based premise (screenwriter tries to write screenplay for 'The Orchid Thief', can't do it, so instead writes screenplay about how he can't write a screenplay for 'The Orchid Thief') that offers you a chance to see Nicholas Cage once again being a goofball (Raising Arizona) instead of an action hero (Con Air). Despite a third act that messes with said 'reality-based' perception, Adaptation is fun to watch and has some amazing masturbation/car crash scenes. |
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reviewed by: eric w |
December 2002 [link] |
recommend 1 thumbs up
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akira
director: katsuhiro ôtomo
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| Post-nuclear-blast "New Tokyo"--an overpopulated metropolis struggling with anarchic activities and cultists obsessed with "Akira"--is home to a young biker gang with two members named Tetsuo and Kanada. When Tetsuo gets into a motorcycle accident in the proximity of a strange blue-skinned child, he aquires some of "Akira's" intense psychic powers and threatens the welfare of New Tokyo, driving his former friend Kanada to oppose his self-destructive power trip. |
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reviewed by: victoria |
October 2004 [link] |
recommend 6 thumbs up
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ali
director: michael mann
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| Will Smith is pretty great and it looks great but this film is a little flat. It pretty much doesn't tell us anything we already didn't know about Ali; it's not without it's moments but they don't add up to a whole lot. |
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reviewed by: JohnLawton |
December 2001 [link] |
recommend
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all about my mother
director: pedro almodovar
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| 1999 brings us a kinder, gentler Almodovar with his stylistic fetishes intact, including vibrant colors and gaudy wallpaper; a woman who recently lost her son goes to Barcelona to tell the father and finds herself in the middle of other people's lives. While technically a melodrama the film never lapses into melancholy and is constantly a pleasant meditation on the notion of acting, as in theater and in the familial roles that we are sometimes forced to play. |
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reviewed by: JohnLawton |
July 2000 [link] |
recommend
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all the real girls
director: david gordon green
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While David Gordon Green's new movie "All the Real Girls" covers no new cinematic ground in terms of subject matter (love, loss, misunderstanding, identity and reflection), this movie approaches such recurrent themes with a freshness and "quiet documentary" style that even without the stellar acting of Zooey Deschanel, the slow beauty of this film is well worth the inevitable internal emotional turmoil you are likely to feel after viewing. The soundtrack rocks, too.
[guest review - Miss Anthropy] |
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reviewed by: guest review |
April 2003 [link] |
recommend 1 thumbs up
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almost famous
director: cameron crowe
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| It's a fine line between nostalgia and mawkishness, this movie doesn't even attempt to walk that line, instead it falls flat in the backyard of sickly sweet sentiment. The only time it attains more than one flat note is the anytime Phillip Seymour Hoffman is on the screen as Lester Bangs, the rest of the time we follow our protagonist (who seems nowhere near as smart or in love with music as exposition would lead us to believe) as he reacts to a world of stock characters and cliched saints, too much is played for laughs and it doesn't come off as, the words of one character, "real". |
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reviewed by: JohnLawton |
October 2000 [link] |
recommend
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amelie
director: jean-pierre jeunet
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| I'm a sucker (most of you are probably nodding right now but please let me finish the sentence first) for stories about the role fate plays in our lives. So this light little gem was straight up my proverbial alley; a beautifully made confectionary charmer that held me from start to finish...intelligent eye candy. |
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reviewed by: JohnLawton |
November 2001 [link] |
recommend 1 thumbs up
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american beauty
director: sam mendes
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A man reaches a mid-life awakening and realizes he is living
some sort of lie. Sharp writing and a terrific cast make this
film a personal favorite of mine in 1999, there are scenes in
this film I will never forget. |
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reviewed by: JohnLawton |
July 2000 [link] |
recommend 1 thumbs up
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american movie
director: chris smith
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| So far, my favorite film of the year, a wonderful documentary about a man in Wisconsin and his 3 year quest to make a 30 minute straight to video horror film. It never pokes fun of it's subjects, it shows their lives for what they are and relishes in their triumphs. |
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reviewed by: JohnLawton |
July 2000 [link] |
recommend 1 thumbs up
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american pie 2
director: james b rogers
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| If you saw the first one and laughed you should go see this one and laugh too. If you saw the first one and didn't laugh then maybe you are dead on the inside, I don't know. |
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reviewed by: JohnLawton |
October 2001 [link] |
recommend
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american psycho
director: mary haron
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| The first hour is a really funny social satire, the performances are great (especially Christian Bale in the lead) and the film recreates those go-go 80's with nauseating precision; I found the corporate guys who hang out with the lead character to be as scary as the lead character (who, btw is a serial killer). The film falls apart a bit towards the end and tries to make up for it with some gore: in short, this is a decent film that works better when it's trying to be subtle. |
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reviewed by: JohnLawton |
July 2000 [link] |
recommend
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american splendor
director: shari springer berman and robert pulcini
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At the risk of sounding like mediocre rivals to Mozart's genius "Too many notes"-- this award-winning original film's giant ambition is a jarring blend of "behind the scenes" scenes of the real-life Harvey Pekar, et al, and animation, just I was enjoying actor Paul Giamatti's portrayal. I admire these two Columbia film school grads for creating a work people will call Brechtian and Meta, but I wanted to watch a plain old movie about the life of a guy who made a comic about his life and at one point goes to LA to watch a play based on the comic book based on his life, which is plenty meta in itself.
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reviewed by: john ball |
August 2003 [link] |
recommend
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american tail: fievel goes west, an
director: phil nibbelink, simon wells
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I was recently discussing AN AMERICAN TAIL with a girl I know, and how weird it is, what with its furry animal retelling of the immigration experience of Russian Jewry, and its feline Cossacks, and its cat-on-mouse pogrom, and we got to wondering if the sequel had similar socio-historical pretensions, and maybe featured Chinese lizards building the trans-continental railroad or something.
It doesn't.
BONUS 2-SENTENCE EXCERPT FROM ANOTHER REVIEW POSTED ON ANOTHER (INFERIOR) WEBSITE:
I know Fievel was a cowboy but wore a cowboy hat and they went to Green River. FIEVEL - YOU WENT WEST & I love this video and I loved this movie which was cartoon and I love this video and they played a violin and there was a fiddle tune they played on the violin called Eight of January!
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reviewed by: matthewS |
April 2003 [link] |
recommend
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anchorman
director: adam mckay
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| I didn't really want to see this but majority rules so i bought my ticket and had a romping good time in a movie about a 70s era news network full of chauvinistic, hairy men. the flick was full of typical will ferrell humor which means i laughed my ass off at talking dogs, poop jokes and funny outfits and was not even embarrassed about it - lots of fun cameos by ben stiller, tim robbins, luke wilson (or is it owen?) and vince vaughn. |
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reviewed by: lisa may |
July 2004 [link] |
recommend 1 thumbs up
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anger management
director: peter segal
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| There are too many cameos, and the ending is too hokily nonsensical, but this is the way of things, and will only disappoint viewers the way they expect to be disappointed. On a scale of THE WEDDING SINGER to HAPPY GILMORE, ANGER MANAGEMENT ranks about a WATERBOY.5 (on the strength of John Turturro's funny, funny performance). |
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reviewed by: matthewS |
April 2003 [link] |
recommend
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argo
director: ben affleck
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| Even though I knew how this very tense thriller set during the Iranian hostage crisis would end, I still sat at the edge of my seat with my arms folded across my chest and wondered why these guys didn't just use cell phones; then I remembered it was 1980, a time when you could also smoke on airplanes. Star Wars fans, check out the cool action figures. |
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reviewed by: jen |
October 2012 [link] |
recommend
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atonement
director: joe wright
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| I went to see this movie not really knowing what it was about but I was promised a tragic love story claiming to be "one of the year's best films." Other than the beautiful costumes and stunning scenery this movie left me totally bored and uninspired. |
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reviewed by: kelly |
January 2008 [link] |
recommend
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avengers assemble
director: joss whedon
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| For the first time in two months, I stepped into a cinema and experienced this wham bang boom super hero extravaganza. Afterwards, I wasn't sure what I saw, but I had to wear sunglasses on a cloudy day. |
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reviewed by: jen |
May 2012 [link] |
recommend
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