Movie Review: Collateral Damage

Collateral Damage (2002) 

Directed by Andrew Davis

Written by David Griffiths, Ronald Roose 

Starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, Elias Koteas, Cliff Curtis, John Leguizamo, John Turturro, Tyler Posey 

Release Date February 8th, 2002 

Published February 8th, 2002 

Is America ready? I'm not talking about is America ready for a violent action film so close to anniversary of 9/11. I mean is America ready for an Arnold Schwarzenegger that doesn't entirely suck. In Collateral Damage, Schwarzenegger is Gordy Breuer a Los Angeles firefighter who witnesses an explosion that kills his wife and child. Not only did he see what happened but also he saw the man responsible, a terrorist called the Wolf (Cliff Curtis).

Schwarzenegger characters are anything but passive, and Gordy is quick to dismiss warnings from government officials including Elias Koteas, the CIA Agent who was the target of the bomb that killed Gordy's wife and child. It doesn't take a genius to know Gordy is going to Columbia to find the Wolf and avenge the death of his family.

If it were that simple there wouldn't be much of a film. Director Andrew Davis (the lensman behind The Fugitive) expertly builds suspense by keeping the film’s pace clicking along quickly. It doesn’t hurt to use Schwarzenegger's previously established action persona to give the audience the feeling that anything could happen at any moment.

The film's special effects are surprisingly cheesy at times, especially the CGI sequences that look as fake as they are. And at 50+ years old, Schwartzenegger obviously can no longer do his own stunts, so it would help to find a stuntman that looks a little more like him.

Those problems aside Collateral Damage is exciting and suspenseful from beginning to end. The film has an especially good twist near the end that I honestly didn't see coming. Is America ready for Collateral Damage? Well they should be because on video and DVD and it's definitely a worthy rental.

Movie Review Slackers

Slackers (2002) 

Directed by Dewey Nicks

Written by David H Steinberg

Starring Jason Schwartzman, Devon Sawa, Jason Segal, Laura Prepon, Jamie King 

Release Date February 1st, 2002 

Published February 2nd, 2002 

Oh wow, another movie set on a college campus we haven't seen one of those in what... two or three weeks? To be fair Orange County wasn't entirely set on a college campus but I think you get my point about this being much tread upon ground.

Slackers, not to be confused with the Richard Linklater classic Slacker, stars Devon Sawa as Dave who with the help of his friends, played by Michael C. Maronna and Jason Segel, is the biggest scammer on campus. Despite the title, Dave and his friends actually work pretty hard on their scams to steal test papers and cheat on exams. They work so hard on them in fact it made me wonder if the title was an idea from the movie marketing department and not the writers director or producer.

I had a lot of time to ponder things like the title, the amount of salt on my popcorn and the calories in my Pepsi because I didn't spend any time laughing at this early worst of the year candidate.

Poor Jason Schwartzman, when last we saw him he was in the brilliant film Rushmore. In Slackers he portrays the most unlikable movie character since the babies of Baby Geniuses. Schwartzman spends the entire movie being the creepy stalker of Angela played by Model James King, collecting her hair and forming it into a doll and building a creepy shrine in his dorm room. Why anyone thought any of this was funny I have no idea. Don't get me wrong, I think anything can be funny if done right but if done wrong as it is in Slackers, it's just painful and hard to watch.

The saddest thing about Slackers though is its star Devon Sawa who I really like as an actor. He was fantastic in Final Destination and even in the God-awful Idle Hands. Sawa is charismatic and funny with a great deal of potential as a comedic leading man. Let's hope he can avoid movies like Slackers in the future. 

Movie Review: Birthday Girl

Birthday Girl (2002) 

Directed by Jez Butterworth

Written by Tom Butterworth 

Starring Nicole Kidman, Ben Chaplin, Vincent Cassel, Matthieu Kassovitz 

Release Date February 1st, 2002 

Published February 2nd, 2002 

I just read Roy's column about movies that are guaranteed to suck. In it, Roy asks how some movies get made. I have wondered that myself quite often. Not when it comes to Miramax films though. I know that if Miramax puts out an obvious piece of crap with a star in it, it is because said star probably owed Harvey a favor.

That is the only way to explain Nicole Kidman's starring in the dreadful English thriller Birthday Girl. As a Russian mail order bride named Nadia, Kidman acts as if she has a figurative gun to her head. Her every expression screams "let's get this over with quickly."

Ben Chaplin is John, Nadia's through the mail hubby. John is a shy, loser bank teller in a small English town. He explains in voiceover that because the town is small there are few eligible women. So rather than looking outside his own zip code, John jumps online and orders a mail order bride from Russia. (You know you can get anything on Ebay these days.)

Anyway let's try to forget that the likelihood of John's mail-order bride looking anything like Nicole Kidman; obviously she is more likely to look like someone named Nick than Nicole. Putting that aside, let's talk plot. Nadia speaks no English and she smokes like a chimney, two qualities John explicitly said he didn't want. But wouldn't you know it, he forgot to get a receipt so they won't take her back. (Always, always get a receipt.)

Oh right the plot. After trying to send her back she convinces him to keep her by taking off her clothes. She can't speak English but she is a hell of a negotiator. Soon it's her birthday and out-of-town relatives show up. Nadia's cousins Alexai (Vincent Cassel) and Yuri (Matthieu Kassovitz. He made this before Amelie so we forgive him.)

Well it turns out the cousins are actually partners in crime, con men who convince John to rob his bank branch in broad daylight by holding Nadia hostage. Now we must understand that John doesn't know Nadia is working with the con men. Still, in the robbery scene, his opportunities to put an end to the whole thing are numerous. One word to a coworker or any of a number of cops, or during the get away (or not ordering a Russian mail-order bride in the first place) would have enabled him to escape.

Birthday Girl is yet another film where one intelligent decision by either lead character would end the film in the first 30 minutes.

Would someone please wake Ben Chaplin before filming him please? Honestly, every film he has been in I've wanted to check his pulse, maybe hold a mirror under his nose to see if he's breathing. This guy makes Al Gore look like Carrot Top. What a surprise that Birthday Girl has been gathering dust since it's completion in mid 2000. It might have stayed on the shelf had Kidman not had the best year of her career in 2001 with two hit films and a best actress Oscar (which she won a mere five days before Birthday Girl opened.) One of those quirks in timing I'm sure. 

Movie Review: A Walk to Remember

A Walk to Remember (2002) 

Directed by Adam Shankman

Written by Karen Janszen 

Starring Mandy Moore, Shane West, Daryl Hannah, Lauren German, Clayne Crawford 

Release Date January 25th, 2002 

Published January 24th, 2002 

SPOILER ALERT! I'm required to say that because indeed I am giving away this film’s ending. Of course if you have seen this film’s marketing campaign and you don't already know how this one ends, then you need to buy my new book “Teen Movies for Dummies.” A Walk To Remember is yet another addition to the growing genre I have dubbed the “dead ingénue” movie. Cute, quirky chick rescues and reforms wayward male and then dies.

Pop singer Mandy Moore stars as a nerdy Christian outcast who tutors underprivileged kids, sings in the choir, stars in the school play and has a 4.0 GPA. Shane West from TV's Once & Again is her wayward hunk who, after nearly killing a friend of his is sentenced to community service and forced to star in the school play. If that's what you get for attempted manslaughter, what is the punishment for murder? Detention? Anyway our two stars meet while working in the play together, they fall in love, and then she's dead.

This film seems as if it were made for the WB network. With it's appealing young stars and 94 minute runtime it’s perfect for the two hour block right after Dawson's Creek, if you factor in commercials. Journalistic integrity forces me to admit that Moore and West do have an effective scene in her hospital room. The touching and well-written scene hints at a great future for West who reminds me of a smarter-looking Paul Walker.

As for Moore, well honey, don't quit your day job. If A Walk To Remember is anything to judge Mandy's acting skills, Julia Roberts doesn't have anything to worry about.

Movie Review Storytelling

Storytelling (2002) 

Directed by Todd Solondz 

Written by Todd Solondz 

Starring Selma Blair, Paul Giamatti, John Goodman, James Van Der Beek

Release Date January 25th, 2002 

Published August 3rd, 2002 

Todd Solondz is the brilliant auteur behind the blindingly funny Welcome To The Dollhouse and the endlessly disturbing Happiness. In his most recent film, Storytelling, Solondz attempts to combine the satirical and the disturbing and succeeds to a point.

Storytelling is two entirely different stories, one called Fiction and the other Non-Fiction. In Fiction, Selma Blair plays Vi, a disillusioned college girl who, after growing weary of insensitive freshman boys, begins a relationship with a freshman with cerebral palsy. She assumes he will be nicer than most because his options are far more limited. 

After finding him to be much like everyone else, Vi heads to a bar and is picked up by her creative writing teacher, a bitter African-American Pulitzer Prize winner, who takes revenge on racism by having sadomasochistic sex with young white girls. The teacher, played by Robert Wisdom, has the intense creepiness of Anthony Perkins and is easily the most disturbing character in the film.

Fiction is by far the more compelling of the film’s two stories. Fiction is challenging and confrontational with some shocking laughs. Sadly, Fiction takes up only 20 minutes of screentime, just enough to introduce its interesting characters and raise its challenging issues and then walk away before leaving an impact.

Non-Fiction is a somewhat aimless take on the suburbia Solondz so deftly dissected in his first two features. Here however, he doesn't seem to know what it is he's attempting to say. The lead of the story is Paul Giamatti as a wannabe documentary filmmaker who wants to document the disaffected youth in the suburbs. 

His subject will be Scooby Livingston, played by Mark Webber. Scooby is an aimless gen X'er whose goal is to become a talk show host. Also involved are Scooby's parents, the angry and intimidating Marty (John Goodman) and the meek and clueless Fern (Airplane’s Julie Hagerty). There is also a subplot involving Scooby's little brother Mikey and the family's maid Consuelo, played by Lupe Ontiveros.

Non-Fiction is as aimless as the subject of its movie within the movie. Scooby has no ambition and neither does the story. Admittedly there are a couple of good laughs and a strong cameo by Franke Potente, however, Non-Fiction is undercut badly by the unfocused story and the outlandish and ridiculous subplot. The culmination of the little brothers subplot involving hypnosis and revenge leaves one to wonder if the story was supposed to be satirical or serious.

There was a great deal of potential for Storytelling. That potential goes unrealized, but the attempt is respectable.

Movie Review The Mothman Prophecies

The Mothman Prophecies (2002) 

Directed by Mark Pellington 

Written by Richard Hatem 

Starring Richard Gere, Laura Linney, Will Patton, Debra Messing 

Release Date January 25th, 2002 

Published January 25th, 2002 

The words "based on a true story" have a way of stirring up controversy in Hollywood. Case in point A Beautiful Mind, where a few seemingly minor factual omissions have fueled all sorts of critical rants. Now comes The Mothman Prophecies based on the 1975 book of the same title by John Keel who investigated paranormal activity in the small town of Point Place, West Virginia in 1966.

The paranormal activities were said to be the multiple unrelated sightings of moth-like creatures including one by the author himself. Thus the "based on a true story" credit at the beginning of the film has elicited skepticism and even laughter from some reviewers, myself not included. Not that I believe in these supposed moth-like creatures, I just found the film itself to be so entertaining I don't care if it's true or not.

Richard Gere stars as Washington Times reporter John Klein who, with his wife Mary (Debra Messing), is involved in a car crash which both survive but leads to the discovery of Mary's brain tumor. The tumor is terminal and soon enough Mary passes away, but not before she draws pictures of the moth-like creatures which she claims caused the accident. Months later while driving to an assignment, Klein gets lost and winds up in Point Place, West Virginia where under very strange circumstances he is accused of stalking a local man named Gordon (Will Patton). Klein is released after meeting with the sheriff Connie Parker (Laura Linney) who explains that Gordon has been acting strange since experiencing strange visions that Klein finds are quite similar to those described by his wife. Gordon isn't the only person in town to have these visions and Klein decides to stick around to investigate.

The story is somewhat superfluous, but the first rate cast improves it greatly. Gere is especially good using his trademark stoicism to great effect as his character begins to meltdown. Laura Linney shows herself to be the heir apparent to Meryl Streep in the versatility department, and Will Patton continues to show himself to be the "go-to" character guy who can play anything and make it believable.

Let us not forget director Mark Pellington, whose supreme pacing and great eye for exciting visuals keeps the film moving at an entertaining clip that keeps the audience off balance all the way through. True story or not,The Mothman Prophecies is an entertaining story and that is what counts.

Movie Review Orange County

Orange County (2002) 

Directed by Jake Kasden 

Written by Mike White 

Starring Colin Hanks, Jack Black, Catherine O'Hara, John Lithgow, Schuyler Fisk

Release Date January 11th, 2002 

Published January 10th, 2002 

Jack Black is a star, anyone who saw High Fidelity and Shallow Hal knows it. The box office returns for Hal definitely show it, and the comparisons to John Belushi easily solidify his status. Like any star there are always missteps, films that were not quite up to par, anyone remember Saving Silverman I'm still trying to forget it. Orange County isn't nearly as bad as Silverman, it is in fact not that bad at all. But it isn't great either.

County stars Colin Hanks as Sean Brumder, a So-Cal surfer dude who after a friend's death finds his calling as a writer. Don't worry, the film isn't nearly as dark as the setup might lead you to believe. In fact the friend's funeral provides the visual joke of girls attending the beach funeral in black bikinis and the guys in black Hawaiian shirts. The scene also provides a glimpse into what director Jake Kasdan may have been going for as far as the film's tone. The rest of the story follows Sean's attempts to get into Stanford University to work with the writer who inspired him to write his first story.

Of course this won't be easy, if it were there wouldn't be a movie. Sean's attempts are foiled by his school counselor (the wonderful Lily Tomlin, always funny) along with his midlife crisis Dad (John Lithgow) and Mom (Catherine O'Hara) in drunken stupor mode. Again, somewhat dark but played lightly, and aided greatly by Jack Black as Sean's druggie brother who provides the film's biggest laughs with his amazing energy and comic timing.

Sadly, Orange County is yet another movie where the best jokes are in the trailer, especially Jack Black's jokes which seem on TV to have been censored but in the film are as tame as the commercials. It's all still funny but we've already seen most of them. Of course we've heard about the cast's pedigree. Jake Kasdan is the son of Lawrence Kasdan, Schuyler Fisk, Sean's girlfriend, is the daughter of Sissy Spacek and Colin Hanks is the stepson of Rita Wilson, oh and the son of the biggest box office star in the world Tom Hanks.

But even with a good cast and some solid laughs, Orange County is just a slightly oddly sweet film that longs to be edgy but ends up merely distracting. And If I may editorialize, I don't blame Jake Kasdan. Something about this film's marketing campaign and the fact that it is the product of MTV films leads me to believe there may have been some compromising. That is, for the sake of a more teen friendly PG-13 rating as opposed to the edgier R -rated film Orange County longs to be.