This is the film that made Reese Witherspoon a Hollywood mainstay and a household name. It also, inadvertently, created a type for its star to work against during at least the next decade of her career. While it’s nothing terribly original, Legally Blonde manages to inject enough cultural awareness and genuine humor to make it an enjoyable affair.
Witherspoon plays Elle Woods, a stereotypical dumb blonde. She’s pretty, she’s popular and she’s a sorority girl. Instead of getting engaged, her boyfriend dumps her because he has lofty career aspirations that require a more sensible and serious partner. Naturally, Elle decides to prove herself worthy of his love by enrolling in the same law school he is attending.
Legally Blonde is a combination of several comedy and film sub-genres. It’s part fish-out-of-water tale, as Elle is completely clueless when it comes to legal jargon and procedures. There’s an underdog element to the story, as Elle struggles to win her peers over and prove that she can do this. It’s also part coming-of-age tale because Elle matures during her time in law school and comes out a different person. The filmmakers also inject a goofy attempt at courtroom drama, which allows Elle to showcase her legal skills.
All of these elements tossed together in the same film could have resulted in a messy hodgepodge affair that is more worthy of a Golden Raspberry Award than it is laughs but Legally Blonde manages to avoid its seeming blueprint for disaster. Witherspoon loses herself in her role, embracing the caricature that is Elle Woods. As corny as the character may be, the consistency of Witherspoon’s performance is the glue that holds everything together.
There’s some slapstick humor, a few sight gags and while most of the humor comes across as either unsurprising or occasionally forced, it never feels contrived. The writing hits a few high points when it throws out cultural references and uses fashion lingo. Without these moments of inspired writing, the film would have come off as too generic.
The different resolutions between characters are all fairly predictable, ending the movie on a slightly stale note. This does little to affect the films aftertaste though. After all is said and done, Legally Blonde leaves you as a cheerful, colorful and quirky film. It may not be terribly original but it’s creative and funny enough to remember in a good light.
It takes a certain something to make a film about death and grieving delightfully irreverent. Director Martin McDonagh pulls it off with the greatest of ease in Six Shooter. Everything comes together in this Irish short film. The script is tight and amusing in all the right politically incorrect places; the actors are all completely believable; and the cinematography makes the most of the tight filming locations.
A man named Donnelly arrives at the hospital in the morning to learn that his wife passed away during the night. Devastated and in shock, Donnelly heads for home to cope with his shattered world. He boards a train for what will be a life-changing experience. He sits down next to a funny-looking young man with a foul mouth. Spotting a sad couple a few seats up, the young man proceeds to hound them on why they are so sad. Tempers flare everyone tries to ignore each other.
When the young man learns that the couple lost their child suddenly the night before he fakes remorse and mocks the grieving mother, suggesting that she killed her baby because it was ugly. The young fellow also shares his profanity-laced thoughts with Donnelly and relays an amusing story about an exploding cow. The young man makes everyone around him uncomfortable and even reveals that he lost his own mother recently. Shock, sadness and nonchalance are just three of the ways people can deal with death. The intersection of all three is a sight to be seen.
The train ride culminates in an explosive and shocking ending and Donnelly goes home with decisions to make. If you can’t handle vulgarity, stay away from this short film. The same goes for anyone who can’t appreciate a wry sense of humor or political incorrectness. If you can handle it, you’ll have yourself a good time with Six Shooter.
A tender and amusing coming-of-age tale about a little girl who’s had to grow up faster than any child ought to, My Girl has just enough spirit and spunk to be endearing but is mature enough to know when to stop laying it on so thick. Featuring some surprising performances from its main stars, this is the kind of semi-nostalgic film that everyone can enjoy but won’t likely linger too long in your memory.
Newcomer Anna Chlumsky is Vada Sultenfuss, an imaginative 11-year-old who’s not your typical girl. She likes to hang out with her best friend Thomas (Macaulay Culkin), sing oldies tunes and is a total tomboy. Her father is a mortician and her mother died when she was very young. Because of this, she always seems to be convinced that she’s got some kind of disease or another. It’s hard to say if she’s just a hypochondriac or if she does it to get attention from her distant father (Dan Aykroyd). During one summer, a number of things happen that change her life forever and usher her into adolescence.
While the focus is on Vada, Aykroyd is the one who gives one of the most impressive performances in the film. Eschewing his usual goofball comedy shtick for a different kind of humor, he hits the nail on the head as a middle-aged man with little self confidence outside of the morgue and who knows nothing about raising a pre-teen daughter. By playing things straight as possible, he helps bring out the subtle and situational humor of the film.
Certainly not the first or the best coming-of-age tale focused on a young girl, My Girl does its best to stand out from the crowd. The dialogue is mostly sharp and witty but knows when to go all sentimental on us. When it does, it usually doesn’t go too far. This restraint helps the film from being too smarmy but it also holds it back just a bit because it’s not willing to lay it all out on the table and go for broke.
Most people remember the relationship between Vada and Thomas and the tragic turn of events toward the end of the film. This is a key part of the story because it forces everyone to come together and just be there for Vada, something that doesn’t seem to happen much in her life up to that point. While it is sad for both Vada and the audience, it is also a critical part in her growth as an adolescent. It’s a shame that most people just remember how sad it is and forget about the happier aspects of the film’s ending.
My Girl certainly doesn’t avoid idealizing youth and nostalgia but it has its checks and balances in hand to treat youthful melodrama with a pleasantly surprising amount of honesty and maturity. The good news is that this film is not just a sappy childhood funfest. The bad news is that much of the film doesn’t stick in your mind for long after seeing it. It’s a solid film for children of Vada’s age to see to help foster the maturation process, which is never a bad thing.
This is the kind of animated short that tends to be lost on me. Imago is more concerned with artistic expression and style than it is with entertainment. As much as I have come to appreciate the finer points of cinema, I still expect to be entertained by what I watch. The animation is very beautiful and expressive but the overall lack of a story and lack of dialogue despite several human characters held it back for me.
Even without the opening credits being in French, one look at the animation design and the color palette tells you that this is a European production. Since Hollywood is the best at cranking out entertainment on celluloid, many European filmmakers are able to concern themselves with ideas, expression and meaning. Imago tells the story of a young boy who loves planes, despite the fact that his father, an aviator, died not too long ago in a plane crash.
We watch this big-headed little boy imagine what it must have been like for his father on his fateful trip. After this, we are fast forwarded through the boy’s life, seeing only the barest of clips from his home life, his schooling, his falling in love and having children and grandchildren of his own. In the end, he takes his grandson to the same cliff he played on as a boy and reveals that he never lost his love for airplanes.
Maybe it’s supposed to be a metaphor for his love for his dad not going away just because his dad did. If that’s the case, then I get it. Otherwise, the fast forward serves little purpose other than to show he still has a little bit of his childhood left inside him. The lack of dialogue leaves the characters to communicate in laughs and chirps that, for me, took away from their humanity. I understand that words aren’t always necessary but they might have helped clear up the ending and meaning of this otherwise creative short.
This is another case of simple animation used effectively to tell a unique story. While some might be turned off by the intentionally squiggly animation, it is essential to this animated short or else you would be staring at static sketches for far too long to remain interested. Paul Giamatti narrates The Fan and the Flower, as it tells the unlikely story of a ceiling fan falling in love with a flower set inside its room.
Since the fan has lights on it, the animator was able to use various lighting patterns to his advantage. The flower is the only object in the film to be in color, making good use of contrast. The fan uses its motor to create motion, allowing the flower to sway back and forth. Eventually, the two fall in love. It’s cute but not much more because of the oddball nature of the romance.
In the end, The Fan and the Flower is both sad and silly but it provides the kind of ending that one would want out of an animated short. Rather than end on a depressing note and highlight the gloomier reality of life, the animator takes the cutesy way out to leave us with a smile. It helps prove a point- it’s not a matter of the animation style itself but rather the way the animation style is employed. This short is a nice blend of both style and substance.
A light-hearted remake of a Hollywood classic (which I have not seen), Harrison Ford oozes his usual charm while trying to woo a young woman away from his engaged brother to protect his family and the family business. Filled with old school cinema sensibilities in mind, there’s a disconnect somewhere in the execution that prevents Sabrina from becoming anything really special.
Sabrina Fairchild is the daughter of a modest chauffer, who works for the powerful Larrabee family. Growing up, she has always been in love with the younger of the Larrabee boys, David (played by Greg Kinnear), who has never so much as noticed her. After spending time in France, she returns to the Larrabee estate a fashionable and sophisticated woman. David is smitten with her but this is no good for business. David is already engaged to a woman from a powerful family who is in the process of merging with the Larrabee Corporation. Shrewd businessman and David’s elder brother, Linus (Harrison Ford) takes it upon himself to woo Sabrina away from his brother so the marriage and merger will not be harmed.
Ford is charming as ever as Linus Larrabee and Greg Kinnear pulls off the love-struck brother well enough but Julia Ormond fails to perform as the titular Sabrina. Perhaps it’s because Ormond, at 30 years old, is supposed to be playing a girl in her early 20s. She clearly doesn’t look that young. Perhaps this was a necessity to help mask Ford’s age (already in his early 50’s at the time). Either way, it’s pretty obvious that there is a large age difference between Sabrina and Linus and this makes it hard to buy the chemistry and romance to develops between them. Sure, older men fall for young women all the time but even as charming as Ford is, it’s hard to see Sabrina give up her doting on David for his older brother.
Ford and Kinnear have some amusing scenes together but Kinnear’s wide-eyed, idealistic attitude does grow to be a bit annoying before he snaps out of it at the end. He and Ford end up switching places on the spectrum, swapping capitalism for romanticism and vice versa. It’s the kind of convenient ending that worked back in the escapist cinema of the 40s and 50s but it just doesn’t resonate with modern audiences.
Women will likely enjoy the romance and sweetness but there is very little that is memorable about Sabrina. There’s no unique camerawork to speak of, few memorable lines and no standout performances. All you get is a marginally good time that comes and goes.
This might very well be another case of me not being able to grasp the significance and influence of a film because I have seen it lampooned and referenced a thousand times before but I just couldn’t get into this film. One of Universal’s landmark monster movies, I wasn’t as tense, shocked or surprised as much as I thought I would be. That doesn’t mean this incarnation of Dracula doesn’t have any bite; it just means it never really bit me.
I think the biggest problem with this adaptation of the fabled vampire is that it is based off of a stage play instead of the novel by Bram Stoker. This means that a number of the most exciting parts of the story were left out because they never made it into the play. Granted, it would have been very difficult to include many scenes from the book into a stage play but I read the book shortly before watching this film and had my hopes up.
At only 75 minutes long, it surprised me how slow the pace was at times. I actually found myself getting a little bored at times. This was mostly to do with seemingly long stretches without much dialogue at all. Maybe it was something to do with Bela Lugosi’s thick Hungarian accent. Or maybe it was just an atmospheric effect left over from the theatrical version. Maybe it was just the style of the time to use shadow and looming figures in silence. Whatever it was, it just felt off for me. All I know is that there was never a shortage of dialogue in the book.
Most of the sets were large and impressive, though I never personally imagined Dracula’s castle as dilapidated and decaying. The London scenes are handled very well with its prim and proper Victorian style architecture and upper class furniture. It really helps bring home the contrast the characters are experiencing with the invasion of this foreign monster.
In the end though, Dracula doesn’t do it for me. I had similar difficulties with Frankenstein but not with Universal’s other monster hit The Wolfman. It might emanate from the fact that I have read both Dracula and Frankenstein, which are top notch tales and movies almost never live up to the books they are based on. The Wolfman isn’t based on a novel, just werewolf mythology in general.
Maybe future viewings will increase my appreciation for what Dracula attempts to do with the story. I am certainly mature enough in my love for cinema to recognize that my cultural upbringing may have also gotten in the way from truly receiving this film. Time will tell. For now, Dracula was a near miss.
When is a short film not a short film? According to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, a short film is anything 40 minutes in length or less. While most short films are no more than 15 minutes long, every now and then someone comes along and throws you for a longer-than-anticipated loop. The Mysterious Geographic Explorations of Jasper Morello is one of those “shorts.”
The overly long title should have been my first clue that this would be a longer short. Running just over 26 minutes, Morello focuses on a young navigator (the titular Jasper Morello) who is called back to service aboard a sailing vessel only a few months after causing an accident that took a man’s life. Jasper is still haunted by this but performs his duties anyway. Jasper lives in a world stuck in a cross between Victorian England and a post-apocalyptic future. Here, people sail through the air on massive vessels constructed of wood and steel. Various animals similar to fish live in the air and provide sustenance and islands float among the clouds. It is a strange blend of the familiar and the fantastical.
Morello was created using silhouette animation. This means that, although backgrounds and scenery may be very lush and detailed, the main characters are little more than shadows that walk and talk. One major advantage of this animation technique is that it opens the door for experimentation with contrast. One major disadvantage to this technique, however, is that it is harder to hold audiences attentions and interest. Morello manages to hit both of these.
Director-animator Anthony Lucas jazzes things up with 3-D animation and CGI rendering to enhance his backgrounds and scenery. It adds a lot of pop to the contrast but it’s not enough to prevent the bleak and somber tone of the short from sapping the energy and excitement out of some viewers. The story’s setting is a little hard to get into and the plot is mildly predictable but it is still quite interesting. Morello overstayed its welcome for me but that doesn’t mean others won’t be captivated by it.
The brainchild of 80s movie master John Hughes, Weird Science is an outlandish and goofy ride through suburban teenage angst. Kids in the 80s weren’t like the rebellious youth of the 50s, the drug-addled hippie kids of the 60s or the disenfranchised youth of the 70s. They were simply looking for people who understood them. John Hughes was their cinematic savior.
Gary and Wyatt are two nerds who don’t get on well with the ladies. They are smart, skinny, pale and socially awkward. Popular kids ignore them, jocks and goons make fun of them and girls just walk right past. Since they can’t make it with the ladies, the duo decides to make a lady of their own. Using an ancient-looking modem (by today’s standards) the boys hack into a government computer and create Lisa- the perfect woman. She’s got large breasts, gorgeous legs and a waistline to kill for.
To the boys’ collective surprise, Lisa also comes equipped with super powers, making her capable of doing anything she and the boys want. Instead of catering to their every indulgence, Lisa instead plays an impish role, confronting the boys and helping them to find within themselves the qualities that women like. It’s certainly the long and uncomfortable way of getting what they want but Gary and Wyatt have no choice.
But Weird Science is one of the better 80s teen comedies. It doesn’t get bogged down by seriousness or melodrama like its 80s peers but it does have heart. Thankfully though, the film doesn’t wear its heart on its sleeve. Even when the heartwarming goo arrives, there’s still plenty of humor to go around, be it sight gags, quick one liners or just fine comic timing.
A lolling clarinet intro sets the tone for this animated short. Badgered is all about a sleepy badger’s attempt to get rid of a couple of crows perched outside his hole. The plot is pretty simple and there’s really nothing groundbreaking at all about the animation, but this simple setup manages to be clever, hilarious and meaningful all at the same time.
Our poor badger friend is not only bothered by the crows. During his quest for rest, men come and build a weapons installation in the hill under his hole. This not only makes a racket but also intrudes upon his den. The collision of technology and nature is used for added humor but it also makes an interesting point. The more we intrude upon nature, the more awkward it gets for animals to exist in their own natural habitat.
Maybe there is a more anti-military or anti-war message to be gleaned from Badgered but I just took it as a nature-meets-technology thing. There’s no dialogue; just animal sounds and electrical instruments beeping and blaring. It’s never boring which means the humor never dies. This makes Badgered a success as an animated short because you will enjoy it every time you see it. Perhaps it’s true that sometimes it’s the simplest things that make life worthwhile.
Short films deserve short reviews but as far as animated short films go, this one is a doozey. For 28 moody minutes, director John Canemaker uses the audience as his personal shrink. The content of the film is based on Canemaker’s rocky relationship with his deceased father. The titular imagined conversation has John Turturro as the voice of the son and Eli Wallach as the voice of the father. The duo talk about the elder’s parenting techniques, missteps and failures, with the father often coming up with all kinds of excuses.
It’s a painfully awkward exercise to witness but you can’t help but want to sympathize with the son, longing for the closure that Canemaker will never be able to get. It is also a very one-sided ordeal. As the director and narrating viewpoint, Canemaker has the upper hand in making his side of the story seem like the only side we need to know. That doesn’t mean I felt the short to be emotionally dishonest in any way. Believe me- it’s more emotionally honest than comfort typically allows for. It’s just noticeably one-sided and the philosophical part of me can’t help but wonder if Canemaker was exploiting his control in the narration of the conversation.
The brutal honesty of Canemaker’s venting is likely what won The Moon and the Son its Oscar for Best Animated Short Film. It certainly had little to do with the animation involved. Sure, it’s stylistically appropriate but it’s hardly innovative or inventive. If nothing else, it’s a way for the emotionally damaged little boy that Canemaker never let go of to come out and have his say. The overall presentation works to emphasize the hurt Canemaker feels but I can’t help but wonder if the director ever truly thought that this therapy session cum animated short would be enjoyed by anybody. Appreciated, sure, but enjoyed? I have my doubts.
Before America entered World War II, the US government sought Disney’s assistance in keeping good relations with the nations in South America. This led to Walt Disney taking a number of his animators and musicians on a tour of the continent, all the while picking up ideas and inspirations for a South American-based series of animated shorts that would become Saludos Amigos. While this film has largely gone unremembered, it deserves credit for ingenuity and creativity.
Blending live-action footage of Disney and his crew touring various locales with the animated shorts inspired by each hot spot, Saludos Amigos manages to be part educational film and part travelogue. While it may look like South American culture has been generalized and stereotyped now, you have to consider that the film was made during the early 1940s. Americans knew very little about South America, with these generalizations probably being about it. This made them necessary inclusions in the film because it would be something familiar enough for American viewers to connect with and enjoy. For South American audiences, these generalizations may have simply been neat for them to see on screen.
However you slice it, Saludos Amigos pales in comparison to any of Disney’s previous five animated films. That doesn’t make it a bad film though. Similar to Fantasia, there are animated shorts involved but they are not nearly as complex and inventive. The first involves Donald Duck doing a little sight-seeing at Lake Titicaca and a nearby village. The narrator talks about village life and Donald is merely along for the ride as a beloved Disney character. Using a flute to control a cantankerous llama turns into an amusing two minutes where the animation and music get to play off of one another.
The second short involves the tale of Pedro the airplane. Pedro is a young Chilean mail carrier plane who has to make the dangerous trek over the Andes Mountains in order to pick up mail in Argentina and deliver it back home. This segment features more impressive animation, including detailed backgrounds of the dangerous mountain passes.
The third segment takes us to the pampas of Argentina, where Goofy learns what it takes to become a true gaucho, or Argentinean cowboy. Goofy is used for some slapstick moments involving his clothing and horse. Goofy also gets a taste of traditional Argentinean music and dance.
Maybe it’s because I saw this movie when I was a video game-playing, MTV Generation high school student, but Lola Rennt (or Run Lola Run for English-speaking audiences) continues to be one of my favorite movies of all time. It’s an unrelenting, 81-minute thrill ride that has all of its ducks in a row.
The plot is quite simple- Lola, Franka Potente (whom fans of the Bourne trilogy will recognize) gets a call from her boyfriend Manni (Moritz Bleibtreu). Manni has been working for some powerful crime bosses and got his first test. He received a payment of diamonds for some luxury cars and exchanged the diamonds for cash. Unfortunately, he left the satchel of cash on a train and he’s got 20 minutes to come up with 100,000 Marks or his boss will kill him. With this, Lola leaps into action and the audience can only hold on for the ride.
Fueled by an almost non-stop, toe-tapping, if not foot-pounding, electronic soundtrack and adrenaline-inducing action, Lola Rennt manages to be a little bit of everything. It’s a thriller for sure, as we’re constantly reminded of how much time is left on the clock. It’s also an emotional drama, as we see short side scenes where Manni and Lola share their insecurities with each other. Last, but by no means least, Lola Rennt is a thinking man’s film, touching on themes of free will vs. determinism and the importance and insignificance of money.
Probably the most intriguing aspect of the film is its three-part structure. We actually watch Lola make three different attempts at her run. Are our characters stuck in a time loop? No. Director Tom Tykwer is merely out to show how every single decision we make from departing Point A, every little thing that we do, can snowball into a drastically different result when we finally reach Point B. For some, it’s far too heady a concept for an action film but most people will be transfixed by it. Tykwer’s set up demands repeat viewings so you can catch all the little details and how they change with each of Lola’s runs.
Lola Rennt will thrill you, shock you, give you a few warm fuzzies and make you think all in 81 minutes. This is a movie that knows not to overstay its welcome because it knows that you’re going to need to go back and watch it again. The slim runtime perfectly allows for that. Pretty impressive for a foreign film that will require you to read subtitles (I abhor overdubs and advise against such lazy viewing tactics). In fact, the characters and action do most of the speaking through their actions. You could probably watch this film without the subtitles and understand most of it.
The film never passes judgment on Lola and Manni’s involvement with organized crime but it also doesn’t condone it. In fact, it’s only used as mechanism to set up the action. Moralists might complain but they’ll be missing the point. In time of crisis, all that matters is keeping your head above water.
A tour de force that you won’t soon forget, Lola Rennt is easily one of the best foreign films I have ever seen. Had I not taken German in high school, I probably never would have discovered this film. What a scary thought! Watch it, love it and watch it again!
The truth is finally revealed in the third and (hopefully) final installment of the Jason Bourne trilogy. Featuring the same level of intensity and quality as its predecessors, The Bourne Ultimatum is a thrill ride that simply must be seen.
The Bourne Supremacy ended with Jason in New York playing mind games with the CIA. Ultimatum rewinds the action a couple of weeks and shows what led Bourne to New York. Despite what Supremacy may have led you to believe, Bourne did not come to the States to get even with the CIA. The first half of Ultimatum sees Bourne once again mixed up in the CIA’s cleanup operations for the failed Treadstone project under the new and more dangerous Blackbriar codename. Through a number of patently Bourne plot twists and action sequences, Jason learns that a facility in New York City holds the key to his true identity and past.
Matt Damon is starting to show his age a bit in this film, appearing noticeably more than just a few weeks older than he did in Supremacy. While this is largely unavoidable given the three-year layoff between films, it almost works in Damon’s favor. By now, Jason Bourne is weary from all the running around and now has had only a few weeks to recover from injuries sustained in Supremacy before being tossed back into the crosshairs.
High-octane car chases and frenzied fist-flying are now par for the course in Bourne films and the filmmakers wisely put more emphasis on the story. In New York, Bourne begins to have flashbacks to his recruitment to Treadstone but the details are murky. Only a suicidal mission to return to recruiting headquarters will once and for all settle who Jason Bourne is and why. Along the way, we revisit Supremacy’s brilliant closing scene and we continue from it to yet another dramatic conclusion.
Another positive twist to the Bourne formula this time around is the interplay between the CIA deputy chiefs assigned to bring Bourne down once and for all. Joan Allen returns as Pamela Landy, who was assigned to take care of Bourne in the last film. Landy is now playing second fiddle to Noah Vosen, played with cold, calculating precision by David Strathairn. Vosen is the head of Blackbriar, the newly retooled black ops unit picking up the pieces of Treadstone.
At first just a battle of ego and methods, the two deputy chiefs eventually turn on each other. Vosen thinks Landy doesn’t have the stomach to do what is necessary while Landy believes Vosen is needlessly abusing his power and resources. The scariest part of this interplay is that both sides have valid points in this very grey-area predicament.
As is true in real life, the resolution behind Jason Bourne’s identity is something of an anticlimax. There can be no such thing as a happy ending when you are a rogue former CIA black ops killing machine. Anyone expecting a warm, fuzzy ending will be disappointed. Then again, anyone expecting that sort of ending hasn’t really been paying attention to the story either. The ending we get is the ending we need, no matter how inconclusive it may be. The story of Jason Bourne cannot be tied up with a pretty bow.
Enough cannot be said for director Paul Greengrass’ commitment to his craft. While he only came on as director with the second installment of the Bourne trilogy, his impact on the series has been tremendous. Using a combination of fast cuts and long takes makes the action feel agonizingly real. Greengrass is wise to stick to the tried and true Bourne formula without allowing Ultimatum to feel formulaic. The CIA infighting and the sometimes confusing flashbacks to Bourne’s origins add weight and substance to what is mostly a white-knuckle collection of top-notch stunts.
What is perhaps most remarkable about this film is that it manages to live up to the impossibly high bar set by the first two installments. While other spy and action series sag in quality after a while, each subsequent film in the Jason Bourne trilogy is able to inject a new level of intelligence and ingenuity to the formula to match and honor those that came before it. This kind of consistency is a rare thing in Hollywood. After three films and five years, the Bourne movies continue to be relevant and engaging.
This is the film that made Reese Witherspoon a Hollywood mainstay and a household name. It also, inadvertently, created a type for its star to work against during at least the next decade of her career. While it’s nothing terribly original, Legally Blonde manages to inject enough cultural awareness and genuine humor to make it an enjoyable affair.
It takes a certain something to make a film about death and grieving delightfully irreverent. Director Martin McDonagh pulls it off with the greatest of ease in Six Shooter. Everything comes together in this Irish short film. The script is tight and amusing in all the right politically incorrect places; the actors are all completely believable; and the cinematography makes the most of the tight filming locations.
A tender and amusing coming-of-age tale about a little girl who’s had to grow up faster than any child ought to, My Girl has just enough spirit and spunk to be endearing but is mature enough to know when to stop laying it on so thick. Featuring some surprising performances from its main stars, this is the kind of semi-nostalgic film that everyone can enjoy but won’t likely linger too long in your memory.
A light-hearted remake of a Hollywood classic (which I have not seen), Harrison Ford oozes his usual charm while trying to woo a young woman away from his engaged brother to protect his family and the family business. Filled with old school cinema sensibilities in mind, there’s a disconnect somewhere in the execution that prevents Sabrina from becoming anything really special.
This might very well be another case of me not being able to grasp the significance and influence of a film because I have seen it lampooned and referenced a thousand times before but I just couldn’t get into this film. One of Universal’s landmark monster movies, I wasn’t as tense, shocked or surprised as much as I thought I would be. That doesn’t mean this incarnation of Dracula doesn’t have any bite; it just means it never really bit me.
The brainchild of 80s movie master John Hughes, Weird Science is an outlandish and goofy ride through suburban teenage angst. Kids in the 80s weren’t like the rebellious youth of the 50s, the drug-addled hippie kids of the 60s or the disenfranchised youth of the 70s. They were simply looking for people who understood them. John Hughes was their cinematic savior.
Before America entered World War II, the US government sought Disney’s assistance in keeping good relations with the nations in South America. This led to Walt Disney taking a number of his animators and musicians on a tour of the continent, all the while picking up ideas and inspirations for a South American-based series of animated shorts that would become Saludos Amigos. While this film has largely gone unremembered, it deserves credit for ingenuity and creativity.
Maybe it’s because I saw this movie when I was a video game-playing, MTV Generation high school student, but Lola Rennt (or Run Lola Run for English-speaking audiences) continues to be one of my favorite movies of all time. It’s an unrelenting, 81-minute thrill ride that has all of its ducks in a row.
The truth is finally revealed in the third and (hopefully) final installment of the Jason Bourne trilogy. Featuring the same level of intensity and quality as its predecessors, The Bourne Ultimatum is a thrill ride that simply must be seen.
