Count Of Monte Cristo, The

Director: Kevin Reynolds
Writer(s): Alexandre Dumas Père (novel), Jay Wolpert (screenplay)
Category: Action / Adventure
MPAA: PG-13
Runtime: 131 min
Country: USA / UK
Language: English
Year: 2002
Tagline: Prepare for adventure. Count on revenge.

Plot:
A beautifully photographed rekindling of the classic Alexandre Dumas story. Edmond Dantes’ (Jim Caviezel) life and plans to marry the beautiful Mercedes (Dagmara Dominczyk) are shattered when his best friend, Fernand (Guy Pearce), deceives him. After spending 13 miserable years in prison, Dantes escapes with the help of a fellow inmate (Richard Harris), cleverly insinuates himself into the French nobility and plots his revenge.

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I Am Sam

Director: Jessie Nelson
Writer(s): Kristine Johnson, Jessie Nelson
Category: Drama
MPAA: PG-13
Runtime: 132 min
Country: USA
Language: English
Year: 2001
Tagline: love is all you need

Plot:
Sam (Sean Penn) is a grown man with the mental capacity of a 7-year-old. After fathering a child with a homeless woman, Sam raises the baby himself until an incident at a birthday party finds the Child Protective Services deeming him an unfit guardian. With the help of yuppie lawyer Michelle Pfeiffer, Sam attempts to regain custody of his daughter and prove that, despite his handicap, he’s a truly loving father.

Review: Better have a box of Kleenex for this one.

I saw this movie the same weekend that I saw John Q and I have to say that this was on the exact opposite end of the spectrum even though it’s in the same genre! How is it on the opposite? Simply put, the emotions that it illicit are genuine.

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John Q

Director: Nick Cassavetes

Writer(s): James Kearns
Category: Drama / Thriller
MPAA: PG-13
Runtime: 116 min
Country: USA
Language: English
Year: 2002
Tagline: Give a father no options and you leave him no choice.

Plot:Denzel Washington plays John Q, a luckless blue-collar workingman without the insurance needed to cover his son’s emergency heart transplant. Driven to desperation, he holds a hospital’s emergency room hostage until doctors agree to perform the operation. James Woods and Anne Heche are a couple of stubborn hospital staffers. Robert Duvall plays a no-nonesense hostage negotiator and Ray Liotta is a gung ho police chief in this gripping story about the possible consequences of real social ills.

Review: I delayed watching this movie from the simple fact that the previews gave me the impression that this was a “squashed squirrel.” There are two ways to elicit emotion: 1) provide a cliche device, such as a squashed squirrel (who won’t go “awwww” when seeing a small animal hurt?), or 2) earn your audience emotions by providing them with honest writing and believable situations. Unfortunately, John Q goes for the easy cliche almost every time.

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Death To Smoochy

Director: Danny DeVito
Writer(s): Adam Resnick
Category: Comedy
MPAA: R
Runtime: 109 min
Country: USA / UK / Germany
Language: English
Year: 2002
Tagline: Get ready for an unexpected hit.

Plot: Danny DeVito directs this dark comedy set in the dog-eat-dog world of children’s television. Kids’ show star Rainbow Randolph (Robin Williams) gets fired over a bribery scandal and is replaced by Smoochy (Edward Norton) — a puffy, purple rhinoceros. When Randolph discovers Smoochy is having an affair with Randolph’s ex-lover Nora (Catherine Keener), a top programming executive at the network, he plots his revenge.

Review: This is an odd little film. It’s funny, but in an off-center kind of way. If you found Fight Club funny (which I thought it was in parts), then you’ll probably find this movie funny as well. Not that they are the same in context, just that their humor is similar in the oblique way at which they approach it.

This is clearly a dark comedy that envelopes itself into a style that is much like the children’s television shows they produce. In fact, I’d venture to say that the style of this film is almost comic book in nature. The lighting is very stark and solid in it’s choice of colors and the characters are almost ripped from the pages of a Dick Tracy comic book, albeit a more modern one.

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American Pie 2

Director: James B. Rogers
Writer(s): Adam Herz, David H. Steinberg
Category: Comedy
MPAA: R
Runtime: 104 min
Country: USA
Language: English
Year: 2001
Tagline: This Summer It’s All About Sticking Together.

Plot: Jim, Oz, Kevin and Stifler are back — and hornier than ever! After their first year of college, the gang reunites and rents a beach house for the summer. Jim (Jason Biggs) prepares for a reunion with Nadia (Shannon Elizabeth), but finds he’s falling for band camp maven Michelle (Alyson Hannigan). Substitute Super Glue and a porno tape for the apple pie from the first movie, and you’ve got a helluva sticky situation.

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They Walk Among Us

I was just watching Conan O’ Brian on TV and they had Vin Diesel as a guest. He was promoting his new movie A Man Apart. The first time I remember seeing Vin was in Pitch Black, which I thought was an ok movie, but Vin’s performance was pretty cool. Then I saw him in The Fast And The Furious. The movie was ok and his performance was so-so, but it was XXX that did it in for me. That movie was complete garbage. So, my overall impression of Vin Diesel was pretty low.

Then, just 10 minutes ago, Mr. Diesel just admitted to being into Dungeons & Dragons (aka D & D). Not only that, but he created his own character whose name was tattooed on his stomach in XXX. I didn’t hear the name clearly, but I think he said it was Melcor. Don’t belive me? See for yourself.

Back before video games, there was D&D and it was a great game to use your imagination and have fun playing with friends. With pencil and paper we would map out dungeons on graph paper, roll 20 sided die to see if we killed an Orc and read books on what to do next. Think about that compared to playing games today. Imagine having to read entire books on how to play a game using a pencil and paper. With Gameboy Advanced SP flying off the shelves today, what I’m describing sounds like pure insanity! :O

To play D&D you had to be pretty committed to the game. It wasn’t Monopoly, or Clue where you could pick it up in a few minutes. D&D was a game that you had to really dig deep to learn how to play and you had to keep records in order to continue playing in the future. So, hearing that Vin Diesel was into this game bumped him up a notch in my book. I know that’s geeky, but watch out, or I’ll attack you with a level 4 poison missile spell.