Movie Reviews & More
Johnny Dangerously (1984)
Danny Devito, Michael Keaton, and Peter Boyle in a silly slapstick movie about 50’s gangsters. Michael Keaton is Johnny Dangerously and has a knack for being the shiniest guy in organized crime, with a big smile and an “everybody likes him” personality. He is able to buy almost anyone, except for his little brother, who he guides to become a lawyer, and the D.A. who ends up tracking down Johnny. But a little mix up happens and little brother tries to prove Johnny’s innocence.
Most notable for the un Americanized gangster that kept slurring his curses, he would say, “Ima gonna teer off yer arms and steek dem in yer isore you corksoocker.” That and all of the Keaton isms, like waxing turtles at his under cover pet shop to his dim witted good luck.
This movie goes good with a couple beers. It is early 80’s silly, and I think my parents would like it, but unless you really like Keaton’s style, you may not want to see this one with a whole cast of nobody’s.
Shall We Dance (2004)
I spent a good part of this movie chuckling, it just left a lot of actions and scenes completely unexplained.
Starring Stanley Tucci, Richard Gene, Susan Sarandon, and Jennifer Lopez this movie has two intermingled small ideas that are actually of note. First, Richard Gene starts to take dance lessons and doesn’t tell his wife, because he is ashamed that he wants to be even more happy when he already has so much. Second, that people get married as a witness and promise to one another’s lives, that they will take note and care even about the most mundane of intricacies. From there on out, the intelligence of the movie falls flat.
Real quick, Gene takes up dance lessons, his wife hires inspector to figure out if he’s cheating, he hits on Lopez without success and still comes back to class only to have a steamy dance with her later on, and then he gets mad when the wifey finds out what he’s been doing on Wednesday nights. Everyone loves him for some reason, and we just assume that it’s because he is decent looking, and begs him to come back for one last time, to see Lopez as she goes away to dance in England.
I can objectively watch, and enjoy at times, a good chick flick. This was just a weird movie. Jennifer Lopez was weird, Susan Sarandon was overly mad about something kind of strange without any build-up, and Richard Gene did a couple of those trademark smile-blinks, and show head shakes that repeated every performance he’s made since Pretty Woman.
I would recommend this movie to people who want to see a movie with some good dancing, especially different ballroom dances. Jennifer Lopez looks really good when she dances. But although this movie has more meat than just dancing, it really is quite weird, and doesn’t much qualify as a chick flick. So, watch for dancing and not about much else.
Sahara (2005)
A fun movie. You may be concerned about this being a knock off of other treasure hunting movies, but this is more about the action then it is about the spoils.
Starring Matthew McConaughey, Penelope Cruz, Steve Zahn, and William Macy, this is a story about a couple of ex-navy men who start out looking for an iron clad ship from the Civil War and end up stopping a global threat in Africa. The dictator is generating solar power and buckets of toxic waste that are being piled up and are leaking into the drinking water, and into the Nile. This polluted water is spreading disease, and if it filters to the ocean, it can pollute all of the water in the ocean in a matter of months.
Steve Zahn was really the stand out here for me. Not having been a sidekick in a major action film, he does a nice job of balancing dry, sarcastic quips, with some serious acting and pulls it off fairly well, with the guns, and the machismo and all that. The story itself starts out with a long dialogue that basically is just so perfect and unrealistic, just to give some back story on what is going on. But it picks up soon after with some interesting cinematics with a fight scene, and an unusual string of adventures that see these guys sled down sand dunes in a truck bed, fly a beat up old plane tipped on one set of wheels, and shooting a 150 year old canon ball right through a helicopter.
A fun movie, with not too bad of acting or dialogue, I would recommend this movie to most anyone. Not really graphic, not too much language, the only real downside is if you don’t like the stiffness of Penelope Cruz at times, or can’t really appreciate sarcastic humor. I gave it this rating just because I probably wouldn’t watch this movie a million times.
Bandits (2001)
Starring Bruce Willis, Billy Bob Thorton, and Cate Blanchett this is the story of the “Over night Bandits”, or in other words, Willis and Thorton found the best way to rob a bank, is to kidnap the owner the night before and walk in before the bank opens and their are other people to account for.
Willis and Thorton escape from jail together in the beginning of the movie, an unusual pairing with Willis being a tough guy, and Thorton a obsessive compulsive. I have determined I either don’t like Thorton in anything since Slingblade, or I don’t like Obsessive’s other than Jack Nicholson in “As Good as it gets”. These two guys are bouncing all over the US, without an end in sight, a perfect plan that can’t be stopped until they accidentally kidnap Blanchett and both men fall in love with her. Things start to unravel, and they pull off one last heist to put them in the black for good.
What I liked about this movie was Blanchett, I haven’t seen in her a movie where she wasn’t a weirdo, instead she was desirable in this movie as a feisty, intelligent redhead. I also loved the ending of this movie, I did not expect it at all, especially after how most of the movie was told in one big flash back. The movie starts out pretty slow, but builds to a good ending and drama between the three characters.
An ok movie, if you like any of the cast, you might try this one. Not too vulgar or violent, this is a comedic movie, just don’t expect to be blown away.
The Interpreter (2005)
This movie was a great surprise. Starring Nicole Kidman and Sean Penn, this movie shows how sometimes, in the end, no matter how good a person can become, their past can haunt them, or vice versa.
Nicole Kidman was smart and believable as The Interpreter, with an upbringing in southern Africa she is able to speak a tribal dialect that only a few others on the earth can speak as well as English. While returning back to the UN building to get some of her things, she overhears an assassination plot spoken in this language and fears for her life. She has people all around watching and tracking her, most of them wanting her dead.
Sean Penn does a good job as usual, always with emotion right at the surface. Penn is an FBI agent that wants to help, but tries not to get too close, as he investigates the accusations she is making. As he digs deeper into Kidman, he finds a painful and sorted past that includes half of her family killed in the war in Africa and photos of her at rebellion rallies to overthrow the country.
Everyone should see this. You never know how it will turn out, whether she is really evil and hiding it, or if the FBI will find the killer among so many people that happen to be in one city, all at once. Kidman and Penn do excellent jobs, without too much foul language or too much gory violence.
I Heart Huckabees (2004)
Oh Boy, where to start. I think it is Jason Schwartzmann. Maybe it is Dustin Hoffman, he has been in a ton of weird roles lately, or maybe it is Naomi Watts, who is in a bunch of oft kilter movies herself. But this movie is philosophical and weird, and will make you laugh if you step back and think about what you just saw. From Lilly Tomlin and Hoffmann running around with their spy equipment looking through garbage cans, or Mark Wahlburg and Jason riding bikes around in a fireman’s suit and suit respectively. About finding deeper meaning to things in life, Schwartzmann hires an agency to help investigate a coincidence he has had, running into a Nigerian man on three separate occasions. The movie kind of takes off into strangeville from there with commentary on capitalism, beauty, and development.
If you like movies Schwartzmann has been in, you will like this. Otherwise, stay away from this unless you are drunk and feel like thinking way too hard about things. This isn’t one of those enjoyable weird movies. Like his breakout role in Rushmore from 98, you wonder why there was any acclaim for this movie, I just was a sucker for a cool graphical marketing campaign.
Hostage (2005)
Wow! This was one heck of a movie. Hostage, as you would get from the previews, has a dual meaning. Bruce Willis is a retired negotiator whose family is taken hostage so that he may negotiate the proper setting in a hostage situation with a family to help out your corrupt bad men.
Three boys on what seems like a joyride end up at a mountain side home of a rich man, and two of them decide to steal his car. But as it always happens, this escalated very quickly into something much more. Soon they were in the house, taking a family hostage, and then a cop checking on the house is killed and an alarming situation is taking place.
Bruce Willis, haunted by his past, haunted by the people he believes he has let die, is a sheriff in a small town. He gladly turns over jurisdiction on the hostage situation to state authorities. But then some corrupt men who need information out of the house take his family hostage and he is forced to take hold of the situation, and make sure that the area is secure until more evil men can arrive.
This movie is extremely violent. On the edge of your seat, nervous, I was never sure what was going to happen. One of the boys inside turns out to have some sociopath ic qualities and quickly becomes more than anyone can handle. Bloodthirsty and beyond creepy, Ben Foster really steps it up to make this character unbelievable, after his first couple of movie roles where he played wimpy characters.
Bruce Willis gives such an emotional performance, as does the whole cast, the whole thing seems a little to believable. An awesome movie, that is hardly a warm and fuzzy but more of a jaw dropper, if you can take the violence, this is a really sweet movie with an original story.
