Movie Log

In the modern adaptation of Charles Dickens' classic novel, Great Expectations, Ethan Hawke plays Finn (named Pip in the original novel). Finn grows up an orphan in a poor Florida neighborhood, and finds himself in the service of Ms. Dinsmoor (originally Ms. Havisham), a wealthy but vengeful old woman determined to get revenge on all men; her fiance stood her up 22 years earlier at their wedding, and she has lived a life of bitter solitude ever since. She carefully manipulates the situation as Finn falls in love with Estella, the girl in her care. Estella (played by Gwyneth Paltrow) leads him on, but inevitably betrays Finn's affection, abandoning him without a word, leaving him devasted. Several years later, Finn recieves financing from an anonymous source to move to New York and pursue a career as an artist. In true storybook fashion, he bumps into Estella, and weathers her repeated enticements, always to be let down and brushed aside, while at the same time trying to cope with fitting into New York's high society.

I loved the cinematography in this film. A lot of the scenes early in the movie at Ms. Dinsmoor's mansion were unforgettable. Finn, a small child wandering with wonder through the garden filled with decaying wedding furnature, chairs and tables nearly covered with vines; white tablecloths, expensive dishes, and wine glasses, still in place after all those years; what a haunting scene! Estella kissing Finn at the fountain, neither of them more than ten years old, was simultaneously cute and tragic; the innocence of first love, scarred by the already budding seed of cold manipulation, foreshadowed the inevitable betrayals which would later follow.

Alright, time to hit the breaks. When I start writing sentences like that last one, I know it must be getting late. :) So, I'll end this by saying that I found the movie inspiring and thoroughly entertaining. A great love story, and a lot else besides.

There is one thing which takes this movie above most action/serial killer movies: Morgan Freeman's supurb acting ability. Going against it were a few too many movie-cliches, along with some not-so-believable behavior by characters in some sections. It is a good two hours of suspenseful serial-killer psycho drama.

Morgan Freeman plays Alex Cross, a forensic psychologist. In the opening scene, we are treated to watching him skillfully convince an abused spouse who has killed her husband not to commit suicide. Despite its purely expository function as far as the plot goes, this is perhaps one of the most intense scenes in the movie. Cross comes home to find that his daughter is missing, kidnapped by a psychopath who "collects" attractive women who are especially gifted in some way, and kills them if they try to escape.

There is a lot of good suspense in this movie, and I considered it well-worth the $1.75 I paid to see it.

When I told my friends I was thinking about going to see Spice World, they reacted with horror and dismay, attempting to persuade me to do otherwise. After all, the Spice Girls known to be are the antithesis of sincerity, musical innovation, and good taste. But, because I consider myself a student of popular culture, the media, and modern society, I decided it was my obligation to go and see this movie. Besides, I must admit that I was curious. What could a movie starring the Spice Girls possibly be about? What would the plot be? Would there even be a cohesive plot, or would it just be nothing but out-takes and hype to feed frenzied fans? I couldn't stand not knowing.

Ten minutes into the movie, I was wishing I had listened to my friends. The movie opened to shots of the foolish five doing a rather poor job of lip-syncing to their own vocals. (or were the vocals really their own?) I had also been treated to tacky, disjointed scenes of the Spice Girls rehearsing, meeting a crowd of fans on the way to their tour bus, and making inane comments to each other about their makeup and clothes. All the while, the cameras kept going back to focus on a couple of filmmakers trying to make a documentary of the Spice Girls. Why? Even if I was a Spice Girls fan, I wouldn't want to keep seeing these dorks who looked like PBS rejects lugging their cameras around in an attempt to document the Spice Girls. Was this just a really bad rip-off of Truth or Dare? Oh well, $4.50 down the drain and a wasted evening, I thought. At least my curiouslty had been allayed.

As the movie went on, though, it started to become funny, in it's own self-deprecating way. When I realized that Spice World was not supposed to be about anything, per se, I started to laugh. The movie is not meant to be taken seriously. Its satiric depiction of the media world is funny enough in and of itself; the fact that it chooses to use itself as the subject of ridicule makes it downright hilarious. If this movie has a central plot focus, it is about a bunch of producers trying to create a movie which would star the Spice Girls. After all, they must capitalize on this and every other commercial success. Their delima is what the movie should be about. (Confused yet?)

The biggest irony of Spice World is that it makes a point of relentlessly poking fun at corporate culture, the very entinty which brought the Spice Girls into being. There is the frantic manager, always appearing to be on the brink of a nervous breakdown. Whenever he tries to muster the courage to confront his boss, the executive, and tell it like it is, he inevitably wimps out. The boss, a nutty caricature of a corporate executive, sits in an oddly decorated room with no visible doors or windows, and communicates only by phone while feeding his pet pig from a baby bottle. There are others, the tabloid owner, the photographer he hires, the movie producers. (All of whom happen to be men. I'll leave it to others to discuss the implications of the movie as it relates to gender.)

At the center of this circus ride the Spice Girls; always carefree, taking life as it comes, seldom thinking about what the world thinks of them. At the same time, they are very fashion-conscious, full of wise cracks, and often put on aires of cluelessness, and end up getting what they want as a result. Contrasted against a backdrop of media goofballs, who are always falling all over themselves in the game of power and money, the Spice Girls seem to transcend their surroundings.

I think this movie's crappy beginning is intentional, to set itself up to be made fun of. Once I realized that, watching the antics of the Spice Girls and their entourage became light-hearted entertainment.

With Anastasia, Fox has leaped into the Disney-created genre of cartoon musicals, and done a good job at it. Anastasia (voice by Meg Ryan), a Russian princess, is a child when the communist revolution breaks the family apart. After growing up as an orphan, having lost memory of childhood, she longs to find the home of which she was deprived. Along the way, she runs into Dimitri (John Cusack) and Vladimir (Kelsey Grammar), who think she is the perfect candidate to impersonate the lost Princess Anastasia and collect a large reward. They train her to behave like royalty, and since she really is the princess, learning it comes naturally. The evil Rasputin (Christopher Lloyd) is out to thwart their plans and destroy Anastasia, as he was the one who brought about the death of her parents by way of a curse placed on the night of the Russian Revolution. (Do I sense a bit of historical revisionism here? ;)

Anastasia has lots of great visuals (both rendered and hand-drawn), music on par with recent Disney cartoon releases, and a star-studded cast of voices. The story is entertaining, if unrealistic. A movie worth seeing.

Sphere is the sci-fi disappointment of the season. With a cast of such great actors, Dustin Hoffman, Samuel L. Jackson, and Sharon Stone, it's hard to believe that this movie could go wrong. But it does.

The acting is competent, but the script is so bad that it's hard to care. There are many half-developed side-plots, such as the past romance between Dustin Hoffman's character, Norman, and Beth, played by Sharon Stone. The story seems fragmented.

Actually, I guess the concept of the thing could have been good, but it was so poorly done. So much didn't make sense. Why would the military send this rag-tag team of seemlingly unqualified civilians to the buttom of the ocean, espeically if it involved something so big as the possibility of finding an alien species. One of them had a history of mental illness. Doesn't the Navy do background checks? Apparently, in the "Sphere" universe, they do not. They just blindly sent the team, based on a paper of dubious merit written for a former White House administration by the Norman Goodman character.

Even the editing and cinematograpy was lousy. The special effects were nothing spectacular. Ther are a lot of fuzzy underwater shots, which lack visual detail when they need it most. The characters would be expound about the size of the craft, and I guess we were supposed to gather from their words that it was big, becasue the images sure didn't convey it.

Desperate Measures, starring Michael Keaton and Andy Garcia, is a movie about a father who will do anything to get an organ transplant for his son, including coming to the aid of a psychopathic murderer. While the story did present some interesting ethical questions, it failed to explore them with much depth, opting instead for action sequences galore.

If you can manage to suspend disbelief repeatly, you will enjoy the movie. I had mixed success with this. Somehow, it just doesn't seem possible that a hospitol swarming with police would be able hide someone like our convict for so long without them catching up and apprehending him. During the last half-hour, the movie degenerates into a cliched run-of-the-mill action flick. The action was well done, but the movie could have been so much more if it had maintained some degree of believability.

I thought the characters could have been developed better, but oh well. It's still a decent movie.

Set in a seemingly endless labyrinth of skyscrapers, we follow John Murdoch through this twisted world as he searches for his lost identity.

What I love about this movie is the continuous attention given to visuals. The city's cold soullessness is conveyed with bleak, harsh lighting and drab yet gothic sets. The special effects are excellent, and the plot kept me hooked from beginning to end. I don't want to spoil the story, so I won't reveal any more of it here. Suffice it to say that Dark City is a great treat for the eyes, the mind, the subconscious, and the intellect.

I finally gave in to all the recommendations from friends, critics, and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. I decided I had to see As Good As It Gets. Actually, I think the impression it made has grown in the hours after seeing it. Upon first walking out of the theater, I was like, "Ok, the acting was excellent, the screenplay was interesting, and the movie held my attention, but is that all there is?" The ending seemed odd, incomplete. Maybe that was the point.

Jack Nicholson plays Melvin, a grouchy writer with a negative comment for everyone and a phobia of stepping on cracks in the sidewalk. Each day, he eats at the local diner, bringing his own plastic silverware. He will only accept food from one waitress, Carol (Helen Hunt), who tolerates his brash antics.

He also gets into conflicts with his gay neighbor Simon (Greg Kinnear), and reluctantly ends up babysitting Simon's dog while Simon is hospitalized from being beaten up during a burglary. During this time, Melvin develops an attachment to the dog, and we see how truly lonely his life is when it's time for the dog (whose name I forget) to go back home.

I won't spoil the rest of the plot. This was a good movie which got me thinking for a while, and I'd recommend it to anyone interested in examining human relationships.

Starship Troopers is a comical parody of the science fiction genre. Under attack from gigantic alien bugs, Earth's coed military sets out to invade the bug planet. There are lots of wacky special effects, blood and guts, a formulaic plot, and outright silliness. Good old fashion American entertainment.

Three teenage guys are traveling to Paris in search of a good time and a chance to best each other in a contest of daredevil stunts. While there, they encounter -- you guessed it -- werewolves. Nothing brilliant here, but an entertaining way to waste a couple hours.

Denzel Washington plays a cop who chases a demon. The demon, named Asazel, controls people's bodies, moving from person to person through physical touch. It had a good story, but I thought some of the characters were insufficiently developed.

Titanic is awesome a second time. Spectacular in every way.

Jackie Brown is one hell of a movie, even the second time around. Brilliant filmmaking.

Sex, money, corruption, and deciet. No, I'm not talking about the Whitehouse. These scandelous subjecs are the bread and butter of "Wild Things," starring Kevin Bacon, Matt Dillon, Neve Campbell, and Theresa Russel. The plot is so convoluted with twists and reverses that it becomes laughable, but I doubt the story is the main draw for most of the people going to see this movie anyway (myself included).

Who are we kidding? The real attraction of a flick like this lies in seeing a few of our favorite teen-idol movie stars engaged in acts of hot sex. Given that criteria, this movie ain't bad. Not wonderful, but not bad either. Some of it was also mildly funny in a rather tasteless way. If you're looking for a couple hours of shallow, adolescent sleeze, Wild Things would make a good choice.

Filled with eye-popping special effects, Lost in Space takes us on adventure through a galaxy filled with elaborate space ships, giant spiders, and even a cute little teddy bear-like alien. The opening dog fighting sequence in space was especially impressive; almost like watching Star Wars, except with 90s-grade CGI special effects.

I thought some parts of the story could have been better explained. Who were the "bad guys" who tried to sabotage the mission? According to the narrative, world peace had been achieved, so I thought the cause of their presence deserved some explanation. The plot had some other loose ends, but I won't go into them for fear of spoiling the story. Nevertheless, Lost in Space is an entertaining family movie and was well-worth the watch.

The Replacement Killers is a fun action movie. It does its job of creating intense, heartpounding shoot-em-up thrills with competence. If that's all you want in a movie, The Replacement Killers is for you. Well-engineered cinematography and sound add to the enjoyment. While this movie doesn't provide any grand revelation or deeply philosophical meaning, I enjoyed watching it.