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I’m happy to report, having now seen the movie that goes with the trailer, that my final disillusionment has been postponed, at least for a little while. Mystery Men is a dream of a summer flick: outrageously funny, unabashedly hip, totally cool, with just a hint of heart beating under a cynicism that’s well beyond skin deep — and I mean that in the best possible way.
Well, no. Wesley Snipes isn’t quite the actor Orson Welles was. And Stephen Norrington isn’t quite the director Welles was. Blade is ludicrous plotted and full of silly, self-important characters spouting inane dialogue. Still, I found it strangely, if only momentarily, diverting.
For the glut of Summer 2000 bombs, we can blame Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sanchez for being creative and inventive enough to knock Hollywood on its ass this summer with The Blair Witch Project, any deficiencies in which are more than amply made up for by its daring.
If Schumacher wants to make some porn, fine — First Amendment and all that. He can do whatever the hell he likes. But don’t pretend to make a statement against porn with a piece of voyeuristic and pornographic crap like 8MM. He’s not fooling anybody.
Though Twin Falls Idaho falters just a tad near the end into a bit of melodrama, for the most part it is free of emotional manipulation, asking us merely to accept Blake and Francis as they are and recognize how they are mostly just like everyone else. Beautifully shot, beautifully scripted, beautifully performed, this is the debut of triple-whammy film talent — writing, directing, and acting — in Michael and Mark Polish.
Pi straddles the line between brilliance and pretension to the point that it’s hard to know on which side of that line it eventually rests. Though it ventures into challenging, intelligent subject matter that few other films dare to, its pacing and visual styling is often jarring and inappropriate.
The only thing I can come up with that would even begin to explain the mess that is The Haunting is that director Jan de Bont (Speed II) and writer David Self started out to make a parody of horror movies and halfway through changed their minds and decided to go for cheesy funhouse bangs.
Episode of any sitcom. Think of puppies and flowery Hallmark cards and inspirational posters of kittens hanging from tree limbs. In a diabetic coma yet? The Opposite of Sex is your antidote.
A film about sexual obsession. That’s how writer/director Stanley Kubrick described his last film during its ridiculously long production. Sounds exciting, doesn’t it? Unfortunately, Eyes Wide Shut is not that movie. Instead, it’s a tedious, preposterous story about how men use, misuse, and misunderstand female sexuality. And it’s not even the least bit sexy.
When I dwell on what might have been, I find myself disappointed with Arlington Road. But what’s actually there on the screen is still a cut above the typical summer blockbuster. Insidious and thought-provoking — though not in the way I hoped it would be — Arlington Road is an intriguing film, a cautionary tale for our uneasy times.
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