Dude, Where’s My Car? (2000)
[7] I don't like the vast majority of comedies. So why I fancy this one is beyond me, but there you have it. Granted, I do often find Ashton Kutcher and Sean William Scott adorable. Here they play pot-smokers who…
Spider-Man (2002)
[7]
Sam Raimi (The Evil Dead) takes the reigns and casts Tobey Maguire as the famous web-slinging superhero. The script is ripe with pointed dialogue, but I’ll be darned if the cast don’t pull it off more often than not. Raimi’s approach is decidedly ‘comic booky’, full of color and frenetically paced, with all the grace notes and emotional high points bent toward operatic. As Peter Parker and Spider-Man, Maguire, with his big, soulful eyes, is easy to empathize with. His take on the character is more introverted than you might expect, but inviting. (If I wanted to watch a douche bag save the day, I’d re-watch Iron Man.)
About a Boy (2002)
[7]
An aimless playboy and a dorky middle-schooler become friends through serendipity in About a Boy, based on the book by Nick Hornby and directed by Chris and Paul Weitz of American Pie fame. Hugh Grant plays the playboy, coasting on royalties from a famous song his father wrote. Nicholas Hoult, who would later grow up to later star in X-Men: First Class and Warm Bodies, plays the kid. I have a soft spot for surrogate father/son relationships in movies (and I don’t think I’m alone), but Grant and Hoult do a commendable job playing the parts believably and steering clear of cheese. The film manages to incorporate some real drama into the mix, especially regarding Hoult’s suicidal mother (Toni Collette), without getting too weighed down.
Adoration (2008)
[6] A high school student (Devon Bostick) causes a community uproar after conspiring with his teacher to present a fictitious report identifying his deceased father as a terrorist. Writer/director Atom Egoyan (The Sweet Hereafter, Exotica) is playing with religious and…
The Mothman Prophecies (2002)
[5] After the mysterious death of his wife sends him on a hunt for clues, a journalist ends up in a small West Virginia town where a series of strange events and sightings of a shadowy, supernatural character portend an…
Me and You and Everyone We Know (2005)
[7]
Writer/director Miranda July also stars in this Cannes and Sundance Film Festival winner about people trying to connect with each other in an age when culture and technology make that connection more challenging. The film seems to be saying that we are all experiencing this difficulty, but July’s characters are so quirky and awkward that Me and You and Everyone We Know is as much an absurdist fairy tale as it is social commentary. Either way, it’s an interesting film full of bizarre relationships mined for greater truth than for exploitation. Take a six-year old boy’s on-line relationship with a mysterious woman who agrees to “poop back and forth” into each other forever. Or a grown man’s sexually explicit window signage for two teenaged girls that pass by his apartment every day. July doesn’t play these up for laughs, but instead takes them to realistic and surprising conclusions. When the teenaged girls become curious and knock on the man’s door, he hides in fear. And when the boy agrees to meet his sexting partner, the potential nightmare is revealed to be something sweet and tender.
Rachel Getting Married (2008)
[8] Anne Hathaway and Rosemarie DeWitt star as sisters who duke it out when the former returns from rehab for the latter's wedding. Rachel Getting Married is a low-budget departure for director Jonathan Demme (Silence of the Lambs), a chance…
Cecil B. DeMented (2000)
[6]
In this opus from writer/director John Waters, Stephen Dorff (Blade, The Gate) plays the title character, a cult movie director who gathers a flock of teen drug addicts and whores to join him in a literal war against mainstream film making. Their efforts attract media attention when they kidnap a Hollywood star (Melanie Griffith) and force her to be in their underground flick. I can certainly appreciate the desire to obliterate an industry that markets drivel to the masses, but I’d have preferred a little more meat on these bones. Griffith’s character in particular is hard to get a handle on, her transformation from bitchy diva to Demented acolyte fitting too conveniently into the needs of the plotting. And I’d like for Waters to have pushed Dorff further over the edge as well. Everyone is a neat stereotype and things are played strictly for laughs. But, hey – that’s the Waters way.
Veronica Guerin (2003)
[6]
Cate Blanchett stars as the real-life Irish journalist who paid the ultimate price for exposing the burgeoning drug problem in mid-90s Dublin. Outraged after discovering children playing in streets littered with used needles, Veronica Guerin decided to bring the epidemic into the national limelight, risking the life and safety of not only herself but her family as well. Blanchett, always reliable, does a great job portraying Guerin as a woman with a brave public face, even after a shot is fired into her home and a drug lord punches her repeatedly in the face for daring to step foot on his property (the film’s most brutal and disturbing scene).
Willard (2003)
[8]
In this remake of a 1971 film, Crispin Glover (Back to the Future, River’s Edge) stars as the title character, a socially misfit momma’s boy with a telepathic connection to the colony of rats collecting in his basement. With his bed-ridden mother and condescending boss constantly picking at his self-esteem, it’s just a matter of time before Willard snaps and sends his army of furry friends to do his bidding. But the rats are a bit like the genie out of his bottle, which complicates this straight-forward little story quite nicely. Willard sews discord into his rat army by favoring the adorable white rat, Socrates, over the very large and envious Ben. So it’s a love/hate relationship between Willard and the rats, and though they may leap at the opportunity to murder for their master, they may also end up being his undoing.