[6] [Warning: This review contains spoilers.] Spike Jonze directs this meta tale of a screenwriter losing his mind trying to adapt a book called The Orchid Thief. While his twin brother moves in and begins mirroring him in many ways, he decides he needs to find the author of the book to excavate its meaning. If you can’t already tell, Adaptation is a very hard …
[7] This film and Top Gun are the ones that really launched the Simpson/Bruckheimer brand of action/comedy that would dominate the box office through the late 80s and 90s. (Even after Simpson’s death in ’96, Bruckheimer is still a top name in action today.) Whether that’s a good or bad thing, I won’t get into. I’ll just say that at least it was a fresh …
[5] Working from a stale script that comes too late in the Tarantino wake, this dark, violent ‘who’s conning who’ comedy is made tolerable by its flavor-of-the-week casting. If you like Jesse Eisenberg, Danny McBride, and Aziz Ansari (like I do), you’ll find it worth your while. If you don’t, you won’t.
[5] A Princeton admissions clerk takes a chance on an ‘alternative school’ kid when she discovers he may be the child she gave up for adoption many years ago. Despite the intrinsic charm of both Tina Fey and Paul Rudd, this movie is neither funny nor romantic, and the stakes are never high enough to keep you from dozing off. The third act, in particular, …
[5] In the first film, Mick Dundee (Paul Hogan) was a fish out of water in New York. This time around, the action is transported largely to the Australian Outback, with Linda Kozlowski’s character being more of the fish. Unfortunately, this sequel is short on laughs and anti-climactic, but Hogan and Kozlowski are charming enough to make it worth a gander for those who enjoyed …
[5] Visually striking but emotionally hollow, Warren Beatty’s film version of Chester Gould’s comic creation is an underwhelming would-be blockbuster. The only character you can get invested in is Madonna’s Breathless Mahoney. Everyone else, including our strong-jawed hero, is as two-dimensional as the comic strip they came from. It’s kinda fun to spot well-known actors in cameos throughout the movie — keep your eyes peeled …
[6] A handful of fun musical numbers and charismatic performances make Grease an entertaining ride. John Travolta, Stockard Channing, and Jeff Conaway are the ones who really shine. Olivia Newton-John is better when she’s singing than when she’s acting, but the fact that she was able to pour herself into those skimpy leather pants at the end should surely count for something! I wish the …
[8] This version of Hairspray disarms you from the very beginning notes of “Good Morning, Baltimore” and builds to one of the most joyful finales of any movie in recent memory. The musical numbers are all superbly choreographed and staged by director Adam Shankman, but it’s the last half-hour of this movie that really seals the deal for me. The climactic performance of “You Can’t …
[5] A business man (Paul Rudd) is invited to a clandestine ‘dinner with idiots’ in which he’s encouraged to bring the weirdest, most bizarre guest he can find for the rest of the business partners to gawk. Everyone brings a weirdo, and whoever brings the weirdest person, wins a substantial prize. Rudd manages to find an IRS employee (Steve Carell) who spends all his free …
[4] Queer cinema pioneer Gregg Araki (The Living End, Mysterious Skin) serves up a brightly colored teen sex comedy by way of Twin Peaks with a Dr. Strangelove finale. Like most of Araki’s films, there are nice scenes here and there, and a raw, primal quality to his storytelling that allows him to get away with lack of subtlety better than most filmmakers. But I’d …
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