Park City's Flick Chick by Jill Adler
April 2005 - Lastest Movie Reviews in a Nutshell
Sin City
Film Rating: R
If
Kill Bill didn’t have enough gore for you, Sin City might
do the trick. But looking beyond the spewing blood and fist-to-face
pummeling, this dark voyage into a city of sex, violence and mystery
is surreal, sexy and 100 percent riveting. Based on the graphic
Sin City novels by Frank Miller, the film is three acts in one
and filled with an eclectic cast – Benicio Del Toro, Jessica
Alba, Bruce Willis, Brittany Murphy, Clive Owen, Mickey Rourke.
It’s about police corruption, female power and doing the
right thing no matter what the payback. Shot in black and white
with occasional splashes of color, the film nourish look takes
you back to those 40s murder/mystery classics where the good guys
are bad (‘cause they do things their way) and the bad guys
are really bad. You need a strong stomach for this one but it’ll
be worth the wicked ride.
Sahara
Film Rating: PG
This
fun romp through the desert starring Matthew McConaughey as Dirk
Pitt, aka James Bond meets MacGyver in khakis, plays on the boys-with-great-upperbodies-just-want-action
motif while rescuing damsels in distress (Penelope Cruz) and searching
for lost American Civil War ships in Africa. Seems the filmmakers
want nothing more than to have a good time and please us. It worked
for me! This is summertime, Sunday matinee, movie making at its
best. Every element in this swashbuckler turned Raiders of the
Lost Ark flick based on characters from Clive Cussler’s
novels is contrived and at times ridiculous (like when all of
sudden Cruz is getting assaulted on the seashore just in time
for Dirk to pop out of the water and beat the crap out of the
bad guys or Dirk and sidekick Al (Steve Zahn), after dragging
themselves across the desert, just happen to stumble onto the
one town where Eva (Cruz) is stuck in a well and rescue her);
yet still you walk away with a sh*t-eating grin on your face from
the guilty pleasure of it all.
The Upside of Anger
Film Rating: R
I
got so angry watching these stiff actors try to breathe life into
two-dimensional stereotypes that I wanted to show them what real
anger really does to a person. Terry (Joan Allen) is a drunk manhater
because her husband ran off with the secretary. Get over it. The
kids are angry because mommy’s not cooking dinner or noticing
how well they pirouette, get over it; the alcoholic next door
neighbor (Kevin Costner) can’t get any ‘realtime’
with the grieving housewife because she’s too wrapped up
in herself. GET OVER IT!!! Allen and Costner as well as writer
Mike Binder (playing Shep, the lusty radio producer) deliver the
only knockout performances but the movie never really shows us
the “upside” of anger nor does it do or say anything
that makes it more than fodder for a DVD night.
