Change Your Image
Mighty E
Reviews
The Gift (2000)
An utterly atrocious film
Oh, Mr. Raimi - you're so hit and miss with your career these days. You dazzle us with brilliance with "A Simple Plan," your originality of tongue-in-cheek horror/comedy in the Evil Dead pictures is incomparable...but this? "The Gift?" An enormously cheesy and underdeveloped script leaves a normally quite outstanding cast (with the noted exception of the always terrible Keanu Reeves)completely dry and useless for well over two hours of what appears to be nothing more than a study in American movie cliches. (And I love how they miscast Katie Holmes as the cruel Southern belle well outside of her age and acting range just to squeeze in a nude scene for the 18-24 demographic to get their butts in the theatre seats...) The only nail hit on the head in this ridiculous waste of time are the abhorrent white trash characters - I've lived in the South and...well...that's pretty much how it is down there!
Steal This Movie (2000)
Steal this review!
The title alone dragged me to the second screening of this biopic on Abbie Hoffman at the South by Southwest Film Festival this week - and I was continually surprised, tickled, and even enraged by the unfolding of this fabulous story. I don't know when this remarkable film will be released to regular audiences, but when it does, check it out. Steal it!
Stigmata (1999)
The single most offensive film I have ever seen
I am a firm believer in the freedom of speech, but I am nevertheless very frequently dismayed at those who would choose to abuse this very precious of American freedoms, such as those responsible for the film, "Stigmata." I could begin to criticize it's awful script, seemingly plotless until it's final moments - or it's unnessecarily MTVesque photgraphy and editing, playing like a really long and pointless music video rather than the narrative film that it is SUPPOSED to be...but more than that, I am forced to comment on it's strikingly offensive and ignorant attack on the Catholic church, the Catholic faith, and dare I say Catholics in general. This film portrays the faith and the Church as nothing short of evil, and delivers the final blow with a series of title cards at the film's finale that attempt to "prove" to its audience that there was some major conspiracy in the late 1940's that would disprove the validity of the Catholic faith. As a Christian historian, I can assure anyone that this film did not consult a single competent historian or theologian in an attempt to validate it's ludicrous and utterly ignorant claims against the church. Not only is every "fact" a complete fallacy, but this picture is a deeply personal and offensive attack. Just imagine the backlash from a film that so violently condemned Jew3 or Muslims! There would be riots, but this attack is acceptable? A terrible film, and I condemn all who were involved with it's production.
Falsche Bewegung (1975)
An excellent examination of post=war Germany: A Masterpiece
"Falsche Bewegung," (In the US called "The Wrong Move") is one of the finest films ever produced in Germany and certainly of of film guru Wim Wender's best works. An analysis of the sentiments, both serious and humorous, of the citizens of Post-war Germany, the feelings of guilt, loss, anger, and misdirection is so clearly and frighteningly distributed to the audience it really brings you to thought and to tears. A masterpiece.
The Mummy (1999)
THE WORST MOVIE EVER MADE
Please, if you treasure your intellect and/or threshold for pain - do not watch this awful, awful film. I thought that Jackie Brown was the worst film ever made - HOW WRONG I WAS. Please - leave the Spielberg to Spielberg!
The Mummy: #1 Worst American Film of All Time!!!!
Fishing with John (1991)
Subtle, yet laugh-out-loud funny
"John knows nothing about fishing, but his friends don't know that...." Narrated by Robb Webb, it watches like a combination between those terrible fishing programs on PBS and the audio slide shows you watched in grade school....only those never included Tom Waits dropping live fish in his pants or Jim Jarmusch questioning the morality of shark fishing with a handgun. If you don't get the Independent Film Channel - go find a video store that stocks this marvelous program! It's a must!
Ravenous (1999)
In a word: DISAPPOINTING.
This highly under-advertised film stirred a rare excitement in me when first I read of it, and I have eagerly awaited to get into the cinema on opening day to see it.
I have not often been this disappointed with a film. Firstly, Robert Carlyle (a SUPERB actor) was terrible as Col. Ives, the once psychotic, later gentlemanly cannibal cult leader. His cheeky, ill-written one liners were performed with such inappropriate melodrama I wanted to laugh out loud. The main character, played by another usually good actor, Guy Pearce, was so incredibly boring and devoid of development it left me wondering why this movie was ever made at all.
"Ravenous" left me hungry for more, but I think I'll skip seconds all the same.