Month: June 1998

Get past Duchovny’s good looks, and you see that he’s a terribly interesting actor. On the surface, his Eugene seems too together to have succumbed 1) to drugs and then 2) to crime. But Duchovny uses this apparent strength as Eugene’s weakness — it’s his hubris and overconfidence that leads to his downfall.

It’s all dark alleys and furtive conversations with mysterious informers and twisted paranoia that’s not paranoid enough. And cool aliens and secret cabals and lots and lots of FBI windbreakers. And scads of unresolved sexual tension between Our Heros.

You know all that prattling on I’ve done about characters, and how lack of attention to them can make for a pretty boring flick? Well, whaddaya know: ‘Breakdown’ couldn’t give two figs for characterization, and it doesn’t matter.

Hah! You thought I was going to discuss whether Anne Heche, world-renowned lesbian, can possibly convince the world she’s hot for sensitive macho man Harrison Ford. Well, she can — she and Ford send some nice sparks flying. The problem is, the movie won’t let those sparks ignite.

If I’d known beforehand that Ben Stiller directed The Cable Guy, I might have been more excited by the prospect of seeing it. And I’d have been all the more disappointed in the end.

Vegas Vacation Boy, I thought Trainspotting was enough to put me off drugs forever. Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas puts Trainspotting to shame when it comes to exposing the glamorous drug culture: the daily vomiting, the wallowing in your own filth, the insane paranoia, the sickening hallucinations, the waking up with a lizard tail … more…

At first glance, it would seem to offer the perfect role for Paxton: that of a sturdy, all-American kinda man not too strung out on testosterone. But A Bright Shining Lie rarely lets Paxton express in action the passion he keeps talking about.