ORIGINALLY WRITTEN IN 2001
SWORDFISH opens with John Travolta talking to the camera about sh*t, as in all Hollywood movies are..., that the chief problem is "realism," and that Al Pacino could've really made something happen in DOG DAY AFTERNOON had his character started killing hostages at the outset. Cut to behind the camera and his listeners are hostage negotiators, we learn, who escort Travolta-- and a wide-eyed Hugh Jackman (X-MEN)-- back to the big-city bank they're robbing, where each…
ORIGINALLY WRITTEN IN 2001
PEARL HARBOR is a bomb. No, wait, it's a dud! No, wait, it sinks! Eight days and umpteen thumbs down later and the hyper-hyped, Most Expensive Movie Ever Made (Or So They Say) is actually quite the Peoria-player-- an innocuous, shamelessly schlocky, and only late-lagging crowd-pleaser that's less Great War Movie(tm) than an all-ages, no-edges, Jerry Bruckheimer-style Disney ride. (Wait, scratch that last one, lest Walt and Company get any ideas...) The war gore is mild,…
ORIGINALLY WRITTEN IN 2001
SHREK, pronounced "shreck," is the slyest kid pic to come down the pike in some time-- a super-droll, somewhat sedate, and fully computer-animated (by the makers of ANTZ, not TOY STORY) medieval adventure about an ogre, a talking donkey, and their quest to rescue a Beautiful Princess(tm) from, first, a fire-breathing dragon and, later, the diminutive ruler-wannabe of a forest land that just happens to be populated by such familiar fairy-tale characters as Cinderella, Snow White,…
ORIGINALLY WRITTEN IN 2001
BRIDGET JONES' DIARY, based on some book, is a wry, randy, and pleasantly realistic, London-set romantic drama about an oft-soused, terminally single, thirty-something frump (Renee Zellweger, heavy) and this journal she's started. (And excerpts from which are read in a believably British voice-over.) A cheerily cynical lass, Ms. Jones spends the film recording both her fluctuating vitals (weight, alcohol intake, etc.) and the ups, downs, and devastating downs of Dating Hell. As when her heart is…
