mashby

Director: Matt Dillon
Writer(s): Matt Dillon and Barry Gifford
Category: Thriller
MPAA: R
Runtime: 116 min
Country: USA
Language: English
Year: 2002
Tagline: Where you go when you can’t turn back.

Plot: Jimmy Cremming (Matt Dillon) is headed to Bangkok, where he hopes to hide out after getting tangled in an insurance fraud investigation. While there, he discovers that his mentor and partner in crime, Marvin (James Caan), is in Cambodia with the loot. All Jimmy wants is his fair share ? but the closer he gets to Marvin and his world, the crazier — and more dangerous — life turns.

Review: I really wanted to like this movie, but it just falls flat. I had the opportunity to view this at a pre-screening in New York. Palm, Inc. was sponsoring the event and I was lucky enough to be invited. Given the pre-party and the potential for celebrities to attend (there were none), I was pretty hyped. Loving movies like I do, this was the one of the best of all possible worlds in which to see this movie – it didn’t help.

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Director: Adam Shankman
Writer(s): Pamela Falk and Michael Ellis
Category: Romantic Comedy
MPAA: PG-13
Runtime: 103 min
Country: USA
Language: English
Year: 2001
Tagline: A romantic comedy about love, destiny and other events you just can’t plan for.

Plot: Mary Fiore (Jennifer Lopez) is a very successful wedding planner. She is very organized and wants to control everything. During a chance encounter she meets the man of her dreams Steven James ‘Steve/Eddie’ Edison, M.D. (Matthew McConaughey). It’s only later when she realizes that she Steve is the groom in the biggest wedding of her career. Will she let him walk down the isle with his tycoon fiancee, or will she break the cardinal rule of wedding planning by falling in love with the groom?

Review: This is one of those movies that you rent/watch for your significant other. I rented it for Holly since most of my movies as of recent have been mostly for me. However, I tried to keep an open mind and give it a fair shake. Unfortunately, this movie just sucked. First time director and first time screenwriters, what can you expect?

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Director: Mark Romanek
Writer(s): Mark Romanek
Category: Thriller
MPAA: R
Runtime: 96 min
Country: USA
Language: English
Year: 2002
Tagline: There’s nothing more dangerous than a familiar face.

Plot: Seymour ‘SY’ Parrish (Robin Williams) is a one hour photo lab technician at a SavMart discount pharmacy. His entire world is based around this job and he takes it very seriously. His perspective on the rest of the world is based on the snapshots that he views through his customers photographs. Of course, these photos only show the good times, because no one takes photos of things that they would like to forget. He has taken a keen interest in the Yorkin family and has followed their life through their snapshots. He envisions himself in many of their photos, because their life looks so idyllic. However, the Yorkin’s life isn’t as perfect as it appears in their snapshots and Sy’s world comes crashing down as he uncovers their imperfections.

Review: I’m a big fan of Mark Romanek’s work as a video director. I think he’s a lighting genius and his hyper reality style makes the artist look ultra-perfect. Mark bring this artistic style to his directorial debut. Although I’m a big fan of it, I did find it a bit distracting in a movie format. According to the director’s commentary on the DVD, his intention was to make the movie somewhat hyper realistic, but everything is just a bit too squeaky clean.

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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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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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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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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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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. Continue Reading